my competitors. And the stuff I produced seemed good to
you, to my friends, and not wholly bad to me. It was musicianly, it
was melodious, it was sincere; the critics all praised it; but--it
never took on! The public wouldn't have it. What did it lack? I don't
know. At last I couldn't even get it published--invisible ink! And I
had a wife to support.'

He paused for a minute; then: 'You see,' he said, 'we made the
mistake, when we were young, of believing, against wise authority,
that it _was_ in mortals to command success, that he could command it
who deserved it. We believed that the race would be to the swift, the
battle to the strong; that a man was responsible for his own destiny,
that he'd get what he merited. We believed that honest labour couldn't
go unrewarded. An immense mistake. Success is an affair of
temperament, like faith, like love, like the colour of your hair. Oh,
the old story about industry, resolution, and no vices! I was
industrious, I was resolute, and I had no more than the common share
of vices. But I had the unsuccessful temperament; and here I am. If my
motives had been ignoble--but I can't see that they were. I wanted to
earn a decent living; I wanted to justify my existence by doing
something worthy of the world's acceptance. But the stars in their
courses fought against me. I have tried hard to convince myself that
the music I wrote was rubbish. It had its faults, no doubt. It wasn't
great, it wasn't epoch-making. But, as music goes nowadays, it was
jolly good. It was a jolly sight better than the average.'

'Oh, that is certain, that is certain,' I exclaimed, as he paused
again.

'Well, anyhow, it didn't sell, and at last I couldn't even get it
published. So then I tried to find other work. I tried everything. I
tried to teach--harmony and the theory of composition. I couldn't get
pupils. So few people want to study that sort of thing, and there were
good masters already in the place. If I had known how to play, indeed!
But I was never better than a fifth-rate executant; I had never gone
in for that; my "lay" was composition. I couldn't give piano lessons,
I couldn't play in public--unless in a _gargotte_ like the hole we
have just left. Oh, I tried everything. I tried to get musical
criticism to do for the newspapers. Surely I was competent to do
musical criticism. But no--they wouldn't employ me. I had ill luck,
ill luck, ill luck--nothing but ill luck, defeat, disappointment. Was
i