Yielding to the easiness of my disposition, I went to bed for a week,
after receiving this letter. During the whole of such time, London was
bereft of the usual fruits of my labour. When I resumed it, I found that
Henrietta was married to the artist of Piccadilly.

Did I say to the artist? What fell words were those, expressive of what
a galling hollowness, of what a bitter mockery! I--I--I--am the artist.
I was the real artist of Piccadilly, I was the real artist of the
Waterloo Road, I am the only artist of all those pavement-subjects which
daily and nightly arouse your admiration. I do 'em, and I let 'em out.
The man you behold with the papers of chalks and the rubbers, touching up
the down-strokes of the writing and shading off the salmon, the man you
give the credit to, the man you give the money to, hires--yes! and I live
to tell it!--hires those works of art of me, and brings nothing to 'em
but the candles.

Such is genius in a commercial country. I am not up to the shivering, I
am not up to the liveliness, I am not up to the wanting-employment-in-an-
office move; I am only up to originating and executing the work. In
consequence of which you never see me; you think you see me when you see
somebody else, and that somebody else is a mere Commercial character. The
one seen by self and Mr. Click in the Waterloo Road can only write a
single word, and that I taught him, and it's MULTIPLICATION--which you
may see him execute upside down, because he can't do it the natural way.
The one seen by self and Henrietta by the Green Park railings can just
smear into existence the two ends of a rainbow, with his cuff and a
rubber--if very hard put upon making a show--but he could no more come
the arch of the rainbow, to save his life, than he could come the
moonlight, fish, volcano, shipwreck, mutton, hermit, or any of my most
celebrated effects.