“What do you think of that poem he told us of the other night?”

“Intensely interesting; but he will never be able to complete it.  A man may be full of talent and yet be nothing of an artist; a man may be far less clever than Norton, and with a subtler artistic sense.  If a seal had really something to say, I believe it would find a way of saying it; but has John Norton really got any idea so overwhelmingly new and personal that it would force a way of utterance where none existed?  The Christian creed with its tale of Mary must be of all creeds most antipathetic to his natural instincts, he nevertheless accepts it....  If you agitate a pool from different sides you must stir up mud, and this is what occurs in Norton’s brain; it is agitated equally from different sides, and the result is mud.”

Mike looked at Harding inquiringly, for a moment wondered if the novelist understood him as he seemed to understand Norton.

A knock was heard, and Norton entered.  His popularity was visible in the pleasant smiles and words which greeted him.

“You are just the man we want,” cried Frank.  “We want to publish one of your poems in the paper this week.”

“I have burnt my poems,” he answered, with something more of sacerdotal tone and gesture than usual.

All the scribblers looked up.  “You don’t mean to say seriously that you have burnt your poems?”

“Yes; but I do not care to discuss my reasons.  You do not feel as I do.”

“You mean to say that you have burnt The Last Struggle—­the poem you told us about the other night?”

“Yes, I felt I could not reconcile its teaching, or I should say the tendency of its teaching, to my religion.  I do not regret—­besides, I had to do it; I felt I was going off my head.  I should have gone mad.  I have been through agonies.  I could not think.  Thought and pain and trouble were as one in my brain.  I heard voices....  I had to do it.  And now a great calm has come.  I feel much better.”

“You are a curious chap.”

Then at the end of a long silence John said, as if he wished to change the conversation—­

“Even though I did burn my pessimistic poem, the world will not go without one.  You are writing a poem on Schopenhauer’s philosophy.  It is hard to associate pessimism with you.”

“Only because you take the ordinary view of the tendency of pessimistic teaching,” said Mike.  “If you want a young and laughing world, preach Schopenhauer at every street corner; if you want a sober utilitarian world, preach Comte.”

“Doesn’t much matter what the world is as long as it is not sober,” chuckled Platt, the paragraph-writing youth at the bottom of the table.

“Hold your tongue!” cried Drake, and he lighted another cigarette preparatory to fixing his whole attention on the paradox that Mike was about to enounce.

“The optimist believes in the regeneration of the race, in its ultimate perfectibility, the synthesis of humanity, the providential idea, and the path of the future; he therefore puts on a shovel hat, cries out against lust, and depreciates prostitution.”