arly part of this century, whose names one doesn't even recognise.
What fatuous posing!'

Amy looked askance at him, but replied nothing.

'And yet,' he continued, 'of course it isn't only for the sake of
reputation that one tries to do uncommon work. There's the shrinking
from conscious insincerity of workmanship--which most of the writers
nowadays seem never to feel. "It's good enough for the market"; that
satisfies them. And perhaps they are justified.

I can't pretend that I rule my life by absolute ideals; I admit that
everything is relative. There is no such thing as goodness or badness,
in the absolute sense, of course. Perhaps I am absurdly inconsistent
when--though knowing my work can't be first rate--I strive to make it as
good as possible. I don't say this in irony, Amy; I really mean it. It
may very well be that I am just as foolish as the people I ridicule for
moral and religious superstition. This habit of mine is superstitious.
How well I can imagine the answer of some popular novelist if he heard
me speak scornfully of his books. "My dear fellow," he might say, "do
you suppose I am not aware that my books are rubbish? I know it just
as well as you do. But my vocation is to live comfortably. I have a
luxurious house, a wife and children who are happy and grateful to me
for their happiness. If you choose to live in a garret, and, what's
worse, make your wife and children share it with you, that's your
concern." The man would be abundantly right.'

'But,' said Amy, 'why should you assume that his books are rubbish? Good
work succeeds--now and then.'

'I speak of the common kind of success, which is never due to
literary merit. And if I speak bitterly, well, I am suffering from my
powerlessness. I am a failure, my poor girl, and it isn't easy for me to
look with charity on the success of men who deserved it far less than I
did, when I was still able to work.'

'Of course, Edwin, if you make up your mind that you are a failure,
you will end by being so. But I'm convinced there's no reason that you
should fail to make a living with your pen. Now let me advise you; put
aside all your strict ideas about what is worthy and what is unworthy,
and just act upon my advice. It's impossible for you to write a
three-volume novel; very well, then do a short story of a kind that's
likely to be popular. You know Mr Milvain is always saying that the long
novel has had its day, and that in future people will write shil