of intellectual power which moves in alliance with the genial
nature, i.e., with the capacities of pleasure and pain; whereas
talent has no vestige of such an alliance, and is perfectly
independent of all human sensibilities.'

"Let me think! You can certainly enjoy things a hundred times more
than I can--and as for suffering, why you were always a great hand
at that. Now listen to the great Dr. Johnson and see if the cap
fits, 'The true genius is a mind of large general powers
accidentally determined in some particular direction.'


"'Large general powers'!--yes, I believe after all you have them
with, alas, poor Derrick! one notable exception--the mathematical
faculty. You were always bad at figures. We will stick to De
Quincey's definition, and for heaven's sake, my dear fellow, do get
Lynwood out of that awful plight! No wonder you were depressed when
you lived all this age with such a sentence unfinished!"

"For the matter of that," said Derrick, "he can't get out till the
end of the book; but I can begin to go on with him now."

"And when you leave Oxford?"

"Then I mean to settle down in London--to write leisurely--and
possibly to read for the Bar."

"We might be together," I suggested. And Derrick took to this idea,
being a man who detested solitude and crowds about equally. Since
his mother's death he had been very much alone in the world. To