journalist rose to his feet, and the pair went up and down the broad
Avenue de l'Observatoire, as if their lungs craved ampler breathing
space.

"Outside the world of letters," Etienne Lousteau continued, "not a
single creature suspects that every one who succeeds in that world
--who has a certain vogue, that is to say, or comes into fashion, or
gains reputation, or renown, or fame, or favor with the public (for by
these names we know the rungs of the ladder by which we climb to the
higher heights above and beyond them),--every one who comes even thus
far is the hero of a dreadful Odyssey. Brilliant portents rise above
the mental horizon through a combination of a thousand accidents;
conditions change so swiftly that no two men have been known to reach
success by the same road. Canalis and Nathan are two dissimilar cases;
things never fall out in the same way twice. There is d'Arthez, who
knocks himself to pieces with work--he will make a famous name by some
other chance.

"This so much desired reputation is nearly always crowned
prostitution. Yes; the poorest kind of literature is the hapless
creature freezing at the street corner; second-rate literature is the
kept-mistress picked out of the brothels of journalism, and I am her
bully; lastly, there is lucky literature, the flaunting, insolent
courtesan who has a house of her own and pays taxes, who receives
great lords, treating or ill-treating them as she pleases, who has
liveried servants and a carriage, and can afford to keep greedy
creditors waiting. Ah! and for yet others, for me not so very long
ago, for you to-day--she is a white-robed angel with many-colored
wings, bearing a green palm branch in the one hand, and in the other a
flaming sword. An angel, something akin to the mythological