her, but by no effort could fix her attention upon them. It was
gloomy, and one could scarcely see to read; a taste of fog grew
perceptible in the warm, headachy air. Such profound
discouragement possessed her that she could not even maintain the
pretence of study; heedless whether anyone observed her, she let
her hands fall and her head droop. She kept asking herself what
was the use and purpose of such a life as she was condemned to
lead. When already there was more good literature in the world
than any mortal could cope with in his lifetime, here was she
exhausting herself in the manufacture of printed stuff which no
one even pretended to be more than a commodity for the day's
market. What unspeakable folly! To write--was not that the joy
and the privilege of one who had an urgent message for the world?

Her father, she knew well, had no such message; he had abandoned
all thought of original production, and only wrote about writing.

She herself would throw away her pen with joy but for the need of
earning money. And all these people about her, what aim had they
save to make new books out of those already existing, that yet
newer books might in turn be made out of theirs? This huge
library, growing into unwieldiness, threatening to become a
trackless desert of print--how intolerably it weighed upon the
spirit!

Oh, to go forth and labour with one's hands, to do any poorest,
commonest work of which the world had truly need! It was ignoble
to sit here and support the paltry pretence of intellectual
dignity. A few days ago her startled eye had caught an
advertisement in the newspaper, headed 'Literary Machine'; had it