e.'

"Of course, this is sheer nonsense. It comes from nervousness, from an
overwrought mind. But the point is: Why have I done this? For you. To
shorten my apprenticeship. To compel Success to hasten. And my
apprenticeship is now served. I know my equipment. I swear that I learn
more each month than the average college man learns in a year. I know
it, I tell you. But were my need for you to understand not so desperate
I should not tell you. It is not boasting. I measure the results by the
books. Your brothers, to-day, are ignorant barbarians compared with me
and the knowledge I have wrung from the books in the hours they were
sleeping. Long ago I wanted to be famous. I care very little for fame
now. What I want is you; I am more hungry for you than for food, or
clothing, or recognition. I have a dream of laying my head on your
breast and sleeping an aeon or so, and the dream will come true ere
another year is gone."

His power beat against her, wave upon wave; and in the moment his will
opposed hers most she felt herself most strongly drawn toward him. The
strength that had always poured out from him to her was now flowering in
his impassioned voice, his flashing eyes, and the vigor of life and
intellect surging in him. And in that moment, and for the moment, she
was aware of a rift that showed in her certitude--a rift through which
she caught sight of the real Martin Eden, splendid and invincible; and as
animal-trainers have their moments of doubt, so she, for the instant,
seemed to doubt her power to tame this wild spirit of a man.

"And another thing," he swept on. "You love me. But why do you love me?
The thing in me that compels me to write is the very thing that draws
your love. You love me because I am somehow different from the men you
have known and might have loved. I was not made for the desk and
counting-house, for petty business squabbling, and legal jangling. Make
me do such things, make me like those other men, doing the work they do,
breathing the air they breathe, developing the point of view they have
developed, and you have destroyed the difference, destroyed me, destroyed
the thing you love. My desire to write is the most vital thing in me.
Had I been a mere clod, neither would I have desired to write, nor would
you have desired me for a husband."

"But you forget," she interrupted, the quick surface of her mind
glimpsing a parallel. "There have been eccentric inventors,