eer things. Well, what was I
telling you, eh?"

"Yes, you were right," said Lucien. "My experience in that shop was even
more painful than I expected, after your programme."

"Why do you choose to suffer? You find your subject, you wear out your
wits over it with toiling at night, you throw your very life into it:
and after all your journeyings in the fields of thought, the monument
reared with your life-blood is simply a good or a bad speculation for
a publisher. Your work will sell or it will not sell; and therein, for
them, lies the whole question. A book means so much capital to risk,
and the better the book, the less likely it is to sell. A man of talent
rises above the level of ordinary heads; his success varies in direct
ratio with the time required for his work to be appreciated. And no
publisher wants to wait. To-day's book must be sold by to-morrow. Acting
on this system, publishers and booksellers do not care to take real
literature, books that call for the high praise that comes slowly."

"D'Arthez was right," exclaimed Lucien.

"Do you know d'Arthez?" asked Lousteau. "I know of no more dangerous
company than solitary spirits like that fellow yonder, who fancy that
they can draw the world after them. All of us begin by thinking that
we are capable of great things; and when once a youthful imagination is
heated by this superstition, the candidate for posthumous honors makes
no attempt to move the world while such moving of the world is both
possible and profitable; he lets the time go by. I am for Mahomet's
system--if the mountain does not come to me, I am for going to the
mountain."

The common-sense so trenchantly put in this sally left Lucien halting
between the resignation preached by the brotherhood and Lousteau's
militant doctrine. He said not a word till they reached the Boulevard du
Temple.

The Panorama-Dramatique no longer exists. A dwelling-house stands on the
site of the once charming theatre in the Boulevard du Temple, where two
successive managements collapsed without making a single hit; and yet
Vignol, who has since fallen heir to some of Potier's popularity, made
his _debut_ there; and Florine, five years later a celebrated actress,
made her first appearance in the theatre opposite the Rue Charlot.
Play-houses, like men, have their vicissitudes. The Panorama-Dramatique
suffered from competition. The machinations of its rivals, the Ambigu,
the Gaite, the Porte Saint-Martin, and the Vaud