His book sold but
moderately, though the article in The Empire had done unwonted
wonders for it; but he circulated in person to a measure that the
libraries might well have envied. His formula had been found--he
was a "revelation." His momentary terror had been real, just as
mine had been--the overclouding of his passionate desire to be left
to finish his work. He was far from unsociable, but he had the
finest conception of being let alone that I've ever met. For the
time, none the less, he took his profit where it seemed most to
crowd on him, having in his pocket the portable sophistries about
the nature of the artist's task. Observation too was a kind of
work and experience a kind of success; London dinners were all
material and London ladies were fruitful toil. "No one has the
faintest conception of what I'm trying for," he said to me, "and
not many have read three pages that I've written; but I must dine
with them first--they'll find out why when they've time." It was
rather rude justice perhaps; but the fatigue had the merit of being
a new sort, while the phantasmagoric town was probably after all
less of a battlefield than the haunted study.
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