“I think that when you expect a man to produce beautiful and wonderful works of art, you ought to allow him a certain freedom of action, you ought to give him a long rope, you ought to let him follow his fancy and look for his material wherever he thinks he may find it!  A mother can’t nurse her child unless she follows a certain diet; an artist can’t bring his visions to maturity unless he has a certain experience.  You demand of us to be imaginative, and you deny us that which feeds the imagination.  In labor we must be as passionate as the inspired sibyl; in life we must be mere machines.  It won’t do.  When you have got an artist to deal with, you must take him as he is, good and bad together.  I don’t say they are pleasant fellows to know or easy fellows to live with; I don’t say they satisfy themselves any better than other people.  I only say that if you want them to produce, you must let them conceive.  If you want a bird to sing, you must not cover up its cage.  Shoot them, the poor devils, drown them, exterminate them, if you will, in the interest of public morality; it may be morality would gain—­I dare say it would!  But if you suffer them to live, let them live on their own terms and according to their own inexorable needs!”

Rowland burst out laughing.  “I have no wish whatever either to shoot you or to drown you!” he said.  “Why launch such a tirade against a warning offered you altogether in the interest of your freest development?  Do you really mean that you have an inexorable need of embarking on a flirtation with Miss Light?—­a flirtation as to the felicity of which there may be differences of opinion, but which cannot at best, under the circumstances, be called innocent.  Your last summer’s adventures were more so!  As for the terms on which you are to live, I had an idea you had arranged them otherwise!”

“I have arranged nothing—­thank God!  I don’t pretend to arrange.  I am young and ardent and inquisitive, and I admire Miss Light.  That ’s enough.  I shall go as far as admiration leads me.  I am not afraid.  Your genuine artist may be sometimes half a madman, but he ’s not a coward!”

“Suppose that in your speculation you should come to grief, not only sentimentally but artistically?”

“Come what come will!  If I ’m to fizzle out, the sooner I know it the better.  Sometimes I half suspect it.  But let me at least go out and reconnoitre for the enemy, and not sit here waiting for him, cudgeling my brains for ideas that won’t come!”

Do what he would, Rowland could not think of Roderick’s theory of unlimited experimentation, especially as applied in the case under discussion, as anything but a pernicious illusion.  But he saw it was vain to combat longer, for inclination was powerfully on Roderick’s side.  He laid his hand on Roderick’s shoulder, looked at him a moment with troubled eyes, then shook his head mournfully and turned away.