for a man so unable to be acted, and to be paid, even at
encyclopaedic rates, had the consequence of making one resigned and
verbose. He couldn't smuggle style into a dictionary, but he could
at least reflect that he had done his best to learn from the drama
that it is a gross impertinence almost anywhere. He had knocked at
the door of every theatre in London, and, at a ruinous expense, had
multiplied type-copies of Nona Vincent to replace the neat
transcripts that had descended into the managerial abyss. His play
was not even declined--no such flattering intimation was given him
that it had been read. What the managers would do for Mrs. Alsager
concerned him little today; the thing that was relevant was that they
would do nothing for HIM. That charming woman felt humbled to the
earth, so little response had she had from the powers on which she
counted. The two never talked about the play now, but he tried to
show her a still finer friendship, that she might not think he felt
she had failed him. He still walked about London with his dreams,
but as months succeeded months and he left the year behind him they
were dreams not so much of success as of revenge. Success seemed a
colourless name for the reward of his patience; something fiercely
florid, something sanguinolent was more to the point. His best
consolation however was still in the scenic idea; it was not till now
that he discovered how incurably he was in love with it. By the time
a vain second year had chafed itself away he cherished his fruitless
faculty the more for the obloquy it seemed to suffer. He lived, in
his best hours, in a world of subjects and situations; he wrote
another play and made it as different from its predecessor as such a
very good thing could be. It might be a very good thing, but when he
had committed it to the theatrical limbo indiscriminating fate took
no account of the difference. He was at last able to leave England
for three or four months; he went to Germany to pay a visit long