him enough lucidity to alarm him at his own progress. An artist yields
more through his sensibility to waves of emotion which reach him from
without, but to resist them he has also weapons which others have
not. For the least reflective, he who abandons himself to his lyrical
impulses, has in some degree the faculty of introspection which it
rests with him to utilise. If he does not do this, he lacks good-will
more than power; he is afraid to look too clearly at himself for
fear of seeing an unflattering picture. Those however who, like
Clerambault, have the virtue of sincerity without psychological gifts,
are sufficiently well-equipped to exercise some control over their
excitability.

One day as he was walking alone, he saw a crowd on the other side of
the street, he crossed over calmly and found himself on the opposite
sidewalk in the midst of a confused agitation circling about an
invisible point. With some difficulty he worked his way forward, and
scarcely was he within this human mill-wheel, than he felt himself a
part of the rim, his brain seemed turning round. At the centre of the
wheel he saw a struggling man, and even before he grasped the reason
for the popular fury, he felt that he shared it. He did not know if
a spy was in question, or if it was some imprudent speaker who had
braved the passions of the mob, but as cries rose around him, he
realised that he, yes he, Clerambault, had shrieked out: ... "Kill
him." ...

A movement of the crowd threw him out from the sidewalk, a carriage
separated him from it, and when the way was clear the mob surged on
after its prey. Clerambault followed it with his eyes; the sound
of his own voice was still in his ears,--he did not feel proud of
himself....