"Why am I like some ivory statue?" he thought sometimes, "instead of like
a human being, with drumming pulses, and dancing longings, and voices
calling forever in my ears, like voices of sirens, 'Come, come, rest in
our arms, sleep on our bosoms, for we are they who have given joy to all
men from the beginning of time. We are they who have drawn good men from
their sad goodness, and they have blessed us. We are they who have been
the allegory of the sage and the story of the world. In our soft arms the
world has learned the glory of embracing. On our melodious hearts the
hearts of men have learned the sweet religion of singing.' Why cannot
I be as other men are, instead of the Saint--the saint of Victoria
Street--that I am?"

For, absurdly enough, that was the name his world gave to Valentine.
This is not an age of romance, and he did not dwell, like the saints of
old centuries, in the clear solitudes of the great desert, but in what
the advertisement writer calls a "commodious flat" in Victoria Street.
No little jackals thronged about him in sinful circle by night. No school
of picturesque disciples surrounded him by day. If he peeped above his
blinds he could see the radiant procession of omnibuses on their halting
way towards Westminster. The melodies of wandering organs sang in his
ascetic ears, not once, nor twice, but many times a week. The milk-boy
came, it must be presumed, to pay his visit in the morning; and the
sparrows made the air alive, poising above the chimneys, instead of the
wild eagles, whose home is near the sun. Valentine was a modern young
man of twenty-four, dealt at the Army and Navy Stores, was extremely
well off, and knew everybody. He belonged to the best clubs and went
occasionally to the best parties. His tailor had a habitation in
Sackville Street, and his gloves came from the Burlington Arcade. He
often lunched at the Berkeley and frequently dined at Willis's. Also