Well, which one of us who has ever dreamed at all has not had such
dreams at twenty? Let him cast at Paul the first stone.

And then, you must remember, Paul's faith in his vague but glorious
destiny was the dynamic force of his young life. Its essential mystery
kept him alert and buoyant. His keen, self-centred mind realized that
his search on the stage for the true expression of his genius was only
empirical. If he failed there, it was for him to try a hundred other
spheres until he found the right one. But just as in his childish days
he could not understand why he was not supreme in everything, so now he
could not appreciate the charge of wooden inferiority brought against
him by theatrical managers.

He had been on the stage about three years when for the first time in
his emancipated life something like a calamity befell him. He lost
Jane. Like most calamities it happened in a foolishly accidental
manner. He received a letter from Jane during the last three weeks of a
tour--they always kept up an affectionate but desultory
correspondence--giving a new address. The lease of her aunt's house
having fallen in, they were moving to the south side of London. When he
desired to answer the letter, he found he had lost it and could not
remember the suburb, much less the street and number, whither Jane had
migrated. A letter posted to the old address was returned through the
post. The tour over, and he being again in London, he went on an errand
of inquiry to Cricklewood, found the house empty and the neighbours and
tradespeople ignorant. The poorer classes of London in their migrations
seldom leave a trail behind them. Their correspondence being rare, it
is not within their habits of life to fill up post-office forms with a
view to the forwarding of letters. He could not write to Jane because
he did not in the least know where she was.

He reflected with dismay that Jane could, for the same reason, no
longer write to him. Ironic chance had so arranged that the landlady
with whom he usually lodged in town, and whose house he used as a
permanent address, had given up letting lodgings at the beginning of
the tour, and had drifted into the limbo of London. Jane's only guide
to his whereabouts had been the tour card which he had sent her as
usual, giving dates and theatres. And the tour was over. On the chance
that Jane, not hearing from him, should address a letter to the last
theatre on the list, he communicated at once w