win, but who failed, impossible to tell how or why. Sometimes their failure
turns to comedy, sometimes to tragedy. They may become refined, delicate,
elderly bachelors, the ornaments of drawing-rooms, professional
diners-out--men with brilliant careers behind them. But if fate has not
willed that they should retire into brilliant shells; if chance does not
allow them to retreat, to separate themselves from their kind, but
arbitrarily joins them to others, linking their fate to the fate of others'
unhappiness, disaster may and must accrue from the alliance; honesty of
purpose, trueness of heart, deep love, every great, good, and gracious
quality to be found in nature, will not suffice to save them.'

The paper dropped from his hands, and he recollected all his failures.

'Once I could do good work; now I can do neither good work nor bad. Were I
a rich man, I should collect my scattered papers and write songs to be sung
in drawing-rooms; but being a poor one, I must--I suppose I must get out.
Positively, there is no hope,--debts on every side. Fate has willed me to
go as went Haydon, Gerard de Nerval, and Maréchal. The first cut his
throat, the second hanged himself, and the third blew out his brains.
Clearly the time has come to consider how I shall make my exit. It is a
little startling to be called upon so peremptorily to go.'

In this moment of extreme dejection it seemed to Hubert that the writer of
the article had told him the exact truth. He refused to admit the plea of
poverty. It was of course hard to write when one is being harassed by
creditors. But if he had had it in him, it would have come out. The critic
had very probably told him the truth. He could not hope to make a living
out of literature. He had not the strength to write the masterpiece which
the perverse cruelty of nature had permitted him only to see, and he was
hopelessly unfit for journalism. But in his simple, wholesome mind there