the self that I used to be, and sure am I that in one or two years’ time you will be what I am now.—­You will think that there is some lurking jealousy or personal motive in this bitter counsel, but it is prompted by the despair of a damned soul that can never leave hell.—­No one ventures to utter such things as these.  You hear the groans of anguish from a man wounded to the heart, crying like a second Job from the ashes, ’Behold my sores!’”

“But whether I fight upon this field or elsewhere, fight I must,” said Lucien.

“Then, be sure of this,” returned Lousteau, “if you have anything in you, the war will know no truce, the best chance of success lies in an empty head.  The austerity of your conscience, clear as yet, will relax when you see that a man holds your future in his two hands, when a word from such a man means life to you, and he will not say that word.  For, believe me, the most brutal bookseller in the trade is not so insolent, so hard-hearted to a newcomer as the celebrity of the day.  The bookseller sees a possible loss of money, while the writer of books dreads a possible rival; the first shows you the door, the second crushes the life out of you.  To do really good work, my boy, means that you will draw out the energy, sap, and tenderness of your nature at every dip of the pen in the ink, to set it forth for the world in passion and sentiment and phrases.  Yes; instead of acting, you will write; you will sing songs instead of fighting; you will love and hate and live in your books; and then, after all, when you shall have reserved your riches for your style, your gold and purple for your characters, and you yourself are walking the streets of Paris in rags, rejoicing in that, rivaling the State Register, you have authorized the existence of beings styled Adolphe, Corinne or Clarissa, Rene or Manon; when you shall have spoiled your life and your digestion to give life to that creation, then you shall see it slandered, betrayed, sold, swept away into the back waters of oblivion by journalists, and buried out of sight by your best friends.  How can you afford to wait until the day when your creation shall rise again, raised from the dead—­how? when? and by whom?  Take a magnificent book, the pianto of unbelief; Obermann is a solitary wanderer in the desert places of booksellers’ warehouses, he has been a ‘nightingale,’ ironically so called, from the very beginning:  when will his Easter come?  Who knows?  Try, to begin with, to find somebody bold enough to print the Marguerites; not to pay for them, but simply to print them; and you will see some queer things.”

The fierce tirade, delivered in every tone of the passionate feeling which it expressed, fell upon Lucien’s spirit like an avalanche, and left a sense of glacial cold.  For one moment he stood silent; then, as he felt the terrible stimulating charm of difficulty beginning to work upon him, his courage blazed up.  He grasped Lousteau’s hand.