upon the accident of a fire in Pudding Lane. My successes seem to
come very slowly. I often think, that before I am ready to live, it
will be time for me to die. However, I am trying--not for fame now,
but for an easy life of reasonable comfort.'

It is a melancholy truth for the middle classes, that in proportion
as they develop, by the study of poetry and art, their capacity for
conjugal love of the highest and purest kind, they limit the
possibility of their being able to exercise it--the very act putting
out of their power the attainment of means sufficient for marriage.
The man who works up a good income has had no time to learn love to
its solemn extreme; the man who has learnt that has had no time to
get rich.

'And if you should fail--utterly fail to get that reasonable
wealth,' she said earnestly, 'don't be perturbed. The truly great
stand upon no middle ledge; they are either famous or unknown.'

'Unknown,' he said, 'if their ideas have been allowed to flow with a
sympathetic breadth. Famous only if they have been convergent and
exclusive.'

'Yes; and I am afraid from that, that my remark was but
discouragement, wearing the dress of comfort. Perhaps I was not
quite right in--'

'It depends entirely upon what is meant by being truly great. But
the long and the short of the matter is, that men must stick to a
thing if they want to succeed in it--not giving way to over-much
admiration for the flowers they see growing in other people's