liberty. He put mine on. It was an immediate success. The result of this
was that in a very little while other managers accepted the plays they
had consistently refused, and I had four running in London at the same
time. I, who for ten years had earned an average of one hundred pounds a
year, found myself earning several hundred pounds a week. I made up my
mind to abandon the writing of novels for the rest of my life. I did not
know that this was something out of my control and that when the urge to
write a novel seized me, I should be able to do nothing but submit. Five
years later, the urge came and, refusing to write any more plays for the
time, I started upon the longest of all my novels. I called it _Of Human
Bondage_.




The Magician




I


Arthur Burdon and Dr Porhoët walked in silence. They had lunched at a
restaurant in the Boulevard Saint Michel, and were sauntering now in the
gardens of the Luxembourg. Dr Porhoët walked with stooping shoulders, his
hands behind him. He beheld the scene with the eyes of the many painters
who have sought by means of the most charming garden in Paris to express
their sense of beauty. The grass was scattered with the fallen leaves,
but their wan decay little served to give a touch of nature to the