ance, and he asked him about Seville and Granada,
Velasquez and Calderon. But Miguel bad no patience with the grandeur of
his country. For him, as for so many of his compatriots, France was the
only country for a man of intelligence and Paris the centre of the world.

"Spain is dead," he cried. "It has no writers, it has no art, it has
nothing."

Little by little, with the exuberant rhetoric of his race, he revealed his
ambitions. He was writing a novel which he hoped would make his name. He
was under the influence of Zola, and he had set his scene in Paris. He
told Philip the story at length. To Philip it seemed crude and stupid; the
naive obscenity--c'est la vie, mon cher, c'est la vie, he cried--the
naive obscenity served only to emphasise the conventionality of the
anecdote. He had written for two years, amid incredible hardships, denying
himself all the pleasures of life which had attracted him to Paris,
fighting with starvation for art's sake, determined that nothing should
hinder his great achievement. The effort was heroic.

"But why don't you write about Spain?" cried Philip. "It would be so much
more interesting. You know the life."

"But Paris is the only place worth writing about. Paris is life."

One day he brought part of the manuscript, and in his bad French,
translating excitedly as he went along so that Philip could scarcely
understand, he read passages. It was lamentable. Philip, puzzled, looked
at the picture he was painting: the mind behind that broad brow was
trivial; and the flashing, passionate eyes saw nothing in life but the
obvious. Philip was not satisfied with his portrait, and at the end of a
sitting he nearly always scraped out what he had done. It was all very
well to aim at the intention of the soul: who could tell what that was
when people seemed a mass of contradictions? He liked Miguel, and it
distressed him to realise that his magnificent struggle was futile: he had
everything to make a good writer but talent. Philip looked at his own
work. How could you tell whether there was anything in it or whether you
were wasting your time? It was clear that the will to achieve could not
help you and confidence in yourself meant nothing. Philip thought of Fanny
Price; she had a vehement belief in her talent; her strength of will was
extraordinary.

"If I thought I wasn't going to be really good, I'd rather give up
painting," said Philip. "I don't see any use in being a second-rate
painter.