r to rouse his deepest
creative energies, to rescue him from his cold reason, to make him see
visions and dream dreams, to inspire him, as he calls it. He persuades
women that they may do this for their own purpose whilst he really means
them to do it for his. He steals the mother's milk and blackens it to
make printer's ink to scoff at her and glorify ideal women with. He
pretends to spare her the pangs of childbearing so that he may have
for himself the tenderness and fostering that belong of right to her
children. Since marriage began, the great artist has been known as a
bad husband. But he is worse: he is a child-robber, a bloodsucker, a
hypocrite and a cheat. Perish the race and wither a thousand women if
only the sacrifice of them enable him to act Hamlet better, to paint
a finer picture, to write a deeper poem, a greater play, a profounder
philosophy! For mark you, Tavy, the artist's work is to show us
ourselves as we really are. Our minds are nothing but this knowledge of
ourselves; and he who adds a jot to such knowledge creates new mind as
surely as any woman creates new men. In the rage of that creation he
is as ruthless as the woman, as dangerous to her as she to him, and
as horribly fascinating. Of all human struggles there is none so
treacherous and remorseless as the struggle between the artist man
and the mother woman. Which shall use up the other? that is the issue
between them. And it is all the deadlier because, in your romanticist
cant, they love one another.

OCTAVIUS. Even if it were so--and I don't admit it for a moment--it is
out of the deadliest struggles that we get the noblest characters.

TANNER. Remember that the next time you meet a grizzly bear or a Bengal
tiger, Tavy.

OCTAVIUS. I meant where there is love, Jack.

TANNER. Oh, the tiger will love you. There is no love sincerer than the
love of food. I think Ann loves you that way: she patted your cheek as
if it were a nicely underdone chop.

OCTAVIUS. You know, Jack, I should have to run away from you if I did
not make it a fixed rule not to mind anything you say. You come out with
perfectly revolting things sometimes.

Ramsden returns, followed by Ann. They come in quickly, with their
former leisurely air of decorous grief changed to one of genuine
concern, and, on Ramsden's part, of worry. He comes between the two men,
intending to address Octavius, but pulls himself up abruptly as he sees
Tanner.

RAMSDEN. I hardly expected to