nd have my own
thoughts till the hills grow black. There is no one to say to me 'Go'
or 'Come'; no patient to visit; no confounded case on the docket next
morning at nine; no distasteful, mean, slavish job of any kind. How
can I fail to have thoughts worth the thinking, and to live a rich and
free life when I breathe every day the bracing air of nature and the
great poets? Isn't such a life in itself the best kind of success,
even if a man accomplishes nothing in particular that you can put your
hand on?"

"Yes, I know," said Armstrong, taking a long breath. "I have felt that
way too. But a man has got to put all that sternly behind him and do
the world's work for the world's wages, if he means to amount to
anything. It's only a finer kind of self-indulgence, after
all--egoistic Hedonism and that sort of thing."

"It won't be all standing at windows and looking at sunsets," added
Doddridge. "Has it ever occurred to you that, before entering on a
life of self-denial and devotion to rather vague ideals, a man ought
to be mighty sure of himself? Can you keep up the culture business
without growing in on yourself unhealthily, and then getting sick of
inaction? Don't you think there will be times of disappointment and
doubt when you look around and see fellows without half your talents
getting ahead of you in the world?"

"Of course," answered Clay, "I shall have to make sacrifices, and
I shall have to stick to them when made. But there have always
been plenty of people willing to make similar sacrifices for
similar compensations. Men have gone out into the wilderness or
shut themselves up in the cloister for opportunities of study or
self-communion, or for other objects which were perhaps at bottom no
more truly devotional than mine. Nowadays such opportunities may be
had by any man who will keep himself free from the servitude of a
bread-winning profession. It is not necessary now to cry _Ecce in
deserto_ or _Ecce in penetralibus_. Oh, I shall have my dark days; but
whenever the blue devils get thick I shall take to the woods and
return to sanity."

"You mean to live in the country, then?" I inquired.

"Yes; most of the time, at any rate. Nature is fully half of life to
me."

Again there was a pause.

"Well, you next, Polisson," said Armstrong, finally. "Let's hear what
your programme is."

"Oh, nothing in the least interesting," I replied. "My future is all
cut and dried. I shall spend the next two years in th