ine that point was the turning-point in his career. He had
had to put that burning question to himself. Was he, after all,
prepared to stand by his principles? It was pretty certain that if he
did, his principles would not stand by him. Was there anything in them
that _would_ stand at all against the brutal pressure that was
moulding literature at the present hour? No organ of philosophic
criticism could (at the present hour) exist, unless created and
maintained by Jewdwine single-handed and at vast expense. His position
was becoming more unique and more lonely every day, quite intolerably
lonely and unique. For Jewdwine after all was human. He longed for
eminence, but not for such eminence as meant isolation. Isolation is
not powerful; and even more than for eminence he longed for power. He
longed for it with the passion of a weak will governed despotically by
a strong intellect. It amounted to a positive obsession, the tyranny
of a cold and sane idea. He knew perfectly well now what his position
as editor of _The Museion_ was worth. Compared with that great, that
noble but solitary person, even Maddox had more power. But the editor
of _Metropolis_, by a few trifling concessions to the spirit of
modernity, would in a very short time carry all before him. He must
then either run with the race or drop out of it altogether; and
between these two courses, Jewdwine, with all his genius for
hesitation, could not waver. After much deliberation he had consented
(not without some show of condescension) to give his name and
leadership to Metropolis; and he reaped the reward of his plasticity
in a substantial addition to his income.

This great change in the organization of the review called for certain
corresponding changes in its staff. And it was here that Rickman came
in. He had been retained on _The Museion_ partly in recognition of his
brilliance, partly by way of satisfying the claims of Jewdwine's
magnanimity. On _The Museion_ he had not proved plastic either as
sub-editor or as contributor. He did not fit in well with the
traditions of the paper; for he was, to Jewdwine, modernity incarnate,
the living spirit of revolt, to be bound down with difficulty by the
editorial hand. Looking back on the record of the past four years
Jewdwine marvelled how and why it was that he had kept him. A score
of times he had been tempted to dismiss him after some fresh enormity;
and a score of times Rickman had endeared himself by the sedu