“But I,” said Musgrave, “grudge the time so spent.  I would rather have more less-finished work than little exquisite work—­though I suppose that we shall come to the latter sometime, when the treasures of art have accumulated even more hopelessly than now, and when nothing but perfect work will have a chance of recognition.  Then perhaps a man will spend thirty years in writing a short story, and twenty more in polishing it!  But at present there is much that is unsaid which may well be said, and I confess that I do not hanker after this careful and troubled work.  It reminds me of the terrible story of the Chinaman who spent fifty years in painting a vase which cracked in the furnace.  It seems to me like the worst kind of waste.”

“And I, on the other hand,” said Herries gravely, “think that such a life is almost as noble a one as I can well conceive.”

His words sounded to me like a kind of pontifical blessing pronounced at the end of a liturgical service; and, dinner now being over, we adjourned to the library.  Then Musgrave entertained us with an account of a squabble he had lately had with a certain editor, who had commissioned him to write a set of papers on literary subjects, and then had objected to his treatment.  Musgrave had trailed his coat before the unhappy man, laid traps for him by dint of asking him ingenuous questions, had written an article elaborately constructed to parody derisively the editor’s point of view, had meekly submitted it as one of the series, and then, when the harried wretch again objected, had confronted him with illustrative extracts from his own letters.  It was a mirthful if not a wholly good-natured performance.  Herries had listened with ill-concealed disgust, and excused himself at the end of the recital on the plea of work.

As the door closed behind him, Musgrave said with a wink, “I am afraid my story has rather disgusted our young transcendentalist.  He has no pleasure in a wholesome row; he thinks the whole thing vulgar—­and I believe he is probably right; but I can’t live on his level, though I am sure it is very fine and all that.”

“But what do you really think of his work?” I said.  “It is very promising, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Musgrave reflectively, “that is just what it is—­he has got a really fine literary gift; but he is too uncompromising.  Idealism in art is a deuced fine thing, and every now and then there comes a man who can keep it up, and can afford to do so.  But what Herries does not understand is that there are two sides to art—­the theory and the practice.  It is just the same with a lot of things—­education, for instance, and religion.  But the danger is that the theorists become pedantic.  They get entirely absorbed in questions of form, and the plain truth is that however good your form is, you have got to get hold of your matter too.  The point after all is the application of art to life, and you have got to condescend.