And even these would have been lost through his
carelessness but for me.
The days were generally divided between headache and sleep; the
nights between the theatre and drink. I regretted it; and this life
that was being wasted, poured out in uselessness, within my sight
oppressed me. I should hardly have noticed it with another man, but
I knew that this one had been planned for higher things.
I used to try and rouse in him his pride and love for himself, or,
at any rate, for his talent. I used to insist on his hearing me read
sometimes those disconnected lines that his own brain, dulled by
drink, had almost forgotten.
"Are they not splendid?" I would say; "and you are the author! You
are their parent, Howard! Think! Any man could lead the life you are
leading! not one in a thousand could produce these lines!"
Howard would look at me suspiciously with heavy eyes.
"Are you sure I wrote that? I don't think I remember it!"
What a crime!
"I know you did," I would answer, and then urge him to give every
day and night in the week, if he liked, to pleasure except one--"let
one be sacred to work!"
"And just think," he would answer, lazily, "if I were dying, how
those days and nights wasted would come and stare me in the face!"
"Wasted! in the building of such lines as these?"
"But what's the good of them when they are built? They don't make me
enjoy life!"
And he pursued his own path and I could not stop him.
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