'Here we sit, two literary men! How should we be regarded by-- '
He named two or three of the successful novelists of the day.
'With what magnificent scorn they would turn from us and our
squalid feast! They have never known struggle; not they. They are
public-school men, University men, club men, society men. An
income of less than three or four hundred a year is inconceivable
to them; that seems the minimum for an educated man's support. It
would be small-minded to think of them with rancour, but, by
Apollo! I know that we should change places with them if the work
we have done were justly weighed against theirs.'
'What does it matter? We are different types of intellectual
workers. I think of them savagely now and then, but only when
hunger gets a trifle too keen. Their work answers a demand; ours-
-or mine at all events--doesn't. They are in touch with the
reading multitude; they have the sentiments of the respectable;
they write for their class. Well, you had your circle of readers,
and, if things hadn't gone against you, by this time you
certainly could have counted on your three or four hundred a
year.
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