n any life but the one I
coveted--a life of power, recognition, distinction. Other men were.
They married the women they loved, and dropped into quiet lives of
daily work and regular incomes, and were content in them. Yes; but that
was insufficient argument.

They had not within them the suffocating weight of a desire
ungratified, the stifling sense of a power unused. Nature, who has
appointed no greater joy for us than the exercise of the capacities she
has given us, has also no heavier, bitterer burden she can lay upon us
than these capacities barred down in us unemployed. As I thought, my
father's words recurred to me, "A secretary, a clerk or a shoeblack."
It was improbable I should descend to the shoeblack. It was possible
that I could become a secretary or a clerk. A secretary or a clerk! The
idea amused me. I leaned my elbows on my knees, my forehead on my
hands, as I sat and stared down at the bear-skin rug at my feet and saw
a vision of fifth-rate existence pass before me. A suburban villa or
squalid London lodgings; the hurried early breakfast served by a
slavey; the tram or bus to the city; the society of seedy clerks; the
pipe instead of the cigar; the public billiard room instead of the
club; the omnibus instead of the hansom; the fortnight up the Thames
instead of the spring at Cairo. A day of uncongenial work--but at the
end of it Lucia!

The thought seemed to come suddenly and stunningly through my brain
like a bullet. The blood rushed to my face and I got up and crossed to
the window, looking out and seeing nothing. Lucia daily, hourly, side
by side with me in my life, and utterly my own possession! Yes, it was
worth it! Worth all those petty considerations that had been passing
before me, but there was another heavier than all the others massed
together. My leisure would be taken from me. It would be impossible to
write then as I was writing now. Now, I was absolutely my own master,
and disposed of my time exactly as I pleased, and days passed
constantly which were wholly spent in the preparation of a manuscript
and when my train of thought was never interrupted. If all my days were
given to monotonous business work, how then, and when, would the
writing be accomplished? My evenings and nights would be my own--or
Lucia's; and this line of reflection finished in an ironical laugh. I
walked to and fro, one word hammering persistently on my
brain-sacrifice. To accept a humble, working position, and in i