But my vocation is to live comfortably. I have
a luxurious house, a wife and children who are happy and grateful
to me for their happiness. If you choose to live in a garret,
and, what's worse, make your wife and children share it with you,
that's your concern." The man would be abundantly right.'
'But,' said Amy, 'why should you assume that his books are
rubbish? Good work succeeds--now and then.'
'I speak of the common kind of success, which is never due to
literary merit. And if I speak bitterly, well, I am suffering
from my powerlessness. I am a failure, my poor girl, and it isn't
easy for me to look with charity on the success of men who
deserved it far less than I did, when I was still able to work.'
'Of course, Edwin, if you make up your mind that you are a
failure, you will end by being so. But I'm convinced there's no
reason that you should fail to make a living with your pen. Now
let me advise you; put aside all your strict ideas about what is
worthy and what is unworthy, and just act upon my advice. It's
impossible for you to write a three-volume novel; very well, then
do a short story of a kind that's likely to be popular.
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