and secret
ways, and steal the prize away from you, and you remain hidden in the
dark! Now, don't shake your head! I know how you think about the
applause of the masses, and how little you begrudge it to the poor
wretches who hear no divine voice within them. But be honest now--if
this monument"--she mentioned the name of a man to whom a statue had
just been erected, on which occasion Jansen's application had, as
usual, been rejected--"if this commission had fallen to you--and then
another had followed close upon that--how differently you would stand
in your own esteem when you had become a central figure of your time!
To say nothing of the fact that then you would be able to close the
factory, as you call it, next door, and would have no need to strike a
blow of the mallet that did not come straight from the heart!"

She had talked herself into a state of great excitement; and now, when
he looked up at her, the shining brightness of her look and the soft
glow of her cheeks enraptured him. But he controlled himself and
remained seated.

"What you say is all very wise and true," he said. "But for all that
you don't quite hit the sore spot. I have known all this ever since my
eyes were first opened to what went on around me, to what some people
produce and other people admire. Yet in spite of that I have become
what I am, and what I could no more have helped becoming than I could
have helped coming into the world. Remember, too, how much better off I
am than our friend Felix. As far as the outside world goes, we are both
hampered and confined. The age has as little appreciation of high art
as of the great personal activity toward which all his powers and
wishes urge him. But I can at least put before myself and a half dozen
true friends what there is in me, even if it has no fuller life than
this; while our friend's special strengths can only reveal themselves
in putting him at odds with everybody.

"And, when I look about me here, will not all these dumb creatures of
mine continue to be my companions through life? I sometimes seem to
myself like a father who has a number of daughters, all of them well
brought up and each dear to his heart; and yet, loath as he is to lose
any one of them out of his sight, it seems harder and harder to him, as
the years go by, that no one of them finds a husband, and they all
remain under his roof unprovided for. However, that is fate, and one
learns to accept whatsoever the irresponsi