making your friend angry. But one can
leave him alone now, for he 's coming round. I told you he could n't
keep up the transcendental style, and he has already broken down. Don't
you see it yourself, man?"

"I don't particularly like this new statue," said Rowland.

"That 's because you 're a purist. It 's deuced clever, it 's deuced
knowing, it 's deuced pretty, but it is n't the topping high art of
three months ago. He has taken his turn sooner than I supposed. What has
happened to him? Has he been disappointed in love? But that 's none of
my business. I congratulate him on having become a practical man."

Roderick, however, was less to be congratulated than Gloriani had taken
it into his head to believe. He was discontented with his work, he
applied himself to it by fits and starts, he declared that he did n't
know what was coming over him; he was turning into a man of moods. "Is
this of necessity what a fellow must come to"--he asked of Rowland, with
a sort of peremptory flash in his eye, which seemed to imply that his
companion had undertaken to insure him against perplexities and was not
fulfilling his contract--"this damnable uncertainty when he goes to bed
at night as to whether he is going to wake up in a working humor or in a
swearing humor? Have we only a season, over before we know it, in which
we can call our faculties our own? Six months ago I could stand up to my
work like a man, day after day, and never dream of asking myself whether
I felt like it. But now, some mornings, it 's the very devil to get
going. My statue looks so bad when I come into the studio that I have
twenty minds to smash it on the spot, and I lose three or four hours in
sitting there, moping and getting used to it."

Rowland said that he supposed that this sort of thing was the lot of
every artist and that the only remedy was plenty of courage and faith.
And he reminded him of Gloriani's having forewarned him against these
sterile moods the year before.

"Gloriani 's an ass!" said Roderick, almost fiercely. He hired a horse
and began to ride with Rowland on the Campagna. This delicious amusement
restored him in a measure to cheerfulness, but seemed to Rowland on the
whole not to stimulate his industry. Their rides were always very
long, and Roderick insisted on making them longer by dismounting in
picturesque spots and stretching himself in the sun among a heap of
overtangled stones. He let the scorching Roman luminary beat down