with his finger in the place, and let him talk; take it up again, read another dozen pages and submit to another commentary.  Then to write a dozen pages under his dictation—­to suggest a word, polish off a period, or help him out with a complicated idea or a half-remembered fact.  This is all, I say; and yet this is much.  Theodore’s apparent success proves it to be much, as well as the old man’s satisfaction.  It is a part; he has to simulate.  He has to “make believe” a little—­a good deal; he has to put his pride in his pocket and send his conscience to the wash.  He has to be accommodating—­to listen and pretend and flatter; and he does it as well as many a worse man—­does it far better than I. I might bully the old man, but I don’t think I could humor him.  After all, however, it is not a matter of comparative merit.  In every son of woman there are two men—­the practical man and the dreamer.  We live for our dreams—­but, meanwhile, we live by our wits.  When the dreamer is a poet, the other fellow is an artist.  Theodore, at bottom, is only a man of taste.  If he were not destined to become a high priest among moralists, he might be a prince among connoisseurs.  He plays his part, therefore, artistically, with spirit, with originality, with all his native refinement.  How can Mr. Sloane fail to believe that he possesses a paragon?  He is no such fool as not to appreciate a nature distinguee when it comes in his way.  He confidentially assured me this morning that Theodore has the most charming mind in the world, but that it’s a pity he’s so simple as not to suspect it.  If he only doesn’t ruin him with his flattery!

19th.—­I am certainly fortunate among men.  This morning when, tentatively, I spoke of going away, Mr. Sloane rose from his seat in horror and declared that for the present I must regard his house as my home.  “Come, come,” he said, “when you leave this place where do you intend to go?” Where, indeed?  I graciously allowed Mr. Sloane to have the best of the argument.  Theodore assures me that he appreciates these and other affabilities, and that I have made what he calls a “conquest” of his venerable heart.  Poor, battered, bamboozled old organ! he would have one believe that it has a most tragical record of capture and recapture.  At all events, it appears that I am master of the citadel.  For the present I have no wish to evacuate.  I feel, nevertheless, in some far-off corner of my soul, that I ought to shoulder my victorious banner and advance to more fruitful triumphs.

I blush for my beastly laziness.  It isn’t that I am willing to stay here a month, but that I am willing to stay here six.  Such is the charming, disgusting truth.  Have I really outlived the age of energy?  Have I survived my ambition, my integrity, my self-respect?  Verily, I ought to have survived the habit of asking myself silly questions.  I made up my mind long ago to go in for nothing but present success; and I don’t care for that sufficiently