ear and friendly paths. May, June, July, August, September, October,
November, and half of December had gone by; and what had he to show?
Nothing but the experiment, the attempt, futile scribblings which had no
end nor shining purpose. There was nothing in his desk that he could
produce as evidence of his capacity, no fragment even of accomplishment.
It was a thought of intense bitterness, but it seemed as if the
barbarians were in the right--a place in a house of business would have
been more suitable. He leaned his head on his desk overwhelmed with the
severity of his own judgment. He tried to comfort himself again by the
thought of all the hours of happy enthusiasm he had spent amongst his
papers, working for a great idea with infinite patience. He recalled to
mind something that he had always tried to keep in the background of his
hopes, the foundation-stone of his life, which he had hidden out of
sight. Deep in his heart was the hope that he might one day write a
valiant book; he scarcely dared to entertain the aspiration, he felt his
incapacity too deeply, but yet this longing was the foundation of all his
painful and patient effort. This he had proposed in secret to himself,
that if he labored without ceasing, without tiring, he might produce
something which would at all events be art, which would stand wholly
apart from the objects shaped like books, printed with printers' ink, and
called by the name of books that he had read. Giotto, he knew, was a
painter, and the man who imitated walnut-wood on the deal doors opposite
was a painter, and he had wished to be a very humble pupil in the class
of the former. It was better, he thought, to fail in attempting exquisite
things than to succeed in the department of the utterly contemptible; he
had vowed he would be the dunce of Cervantes's school rather than top-boy
in the academy of _A Bad Un to Beat_ and _Millicent's Marriage_. And with
this purpose he had devoted himself to laborious and joyous years, so
that however mean his capacity, the pains should not be wanting. He tried
now to rouse himself from a growing misery by the recollection of this
high aim, but it all seemed hopeless vanity. He looked out into the grey
street, and it stood a symbol of his life, chill and dreary and grey and
vexed with a horrible wind. There were the dull inhabitants of the
quarter going about their common business; a man was crying "mackerel" in
a doleful voice, slowly passing up the str