Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/220

208 '… Is it very cold outside?'

'Very. The snow is freezing.'

'How long do you think it will last?'

'The snow?' 'No; the cold.—I do hate it so!'

'How can I tell? I …' (I had begun writing something) 'don't know.'

'Why do you talk in that way?'

'What way?'

Ultimately, after some annoying attempts at interruption, she went off to bed, in an injured frame of mind, and I was left alone with my work. An opening scene of a story had occurred to me, and I was interested in expressing it: a not too unfrequent occurrence at that time, so far unfailingly accompanied by gradual loss of interest as the story proceeded till, quite disgusted, I either burnt or cast it into an drawer of mine, and troubled myself no more about it.

I finished my opening scene in the first heat of emotion, and then, after a pause, re-read what I had done. What seemed to me my grip on, my mastery over the characters I had created, pleased me; not because it was mine, but because it was there, and in harmony with my mood. Then I sat for long thinking. It was early: I was beginning to feel both tired and hungry. Yes, it was impossible for me to sink into mere sensuousness. I had a work to do in the world and I intended to do it. This work would require patient preparation and I was determined that I would give it. I had been unhappy in London: 'Society' was not enough for me. I had been unhappy with Rosy: Love was not enough with me. I had been unhappy with my dreams: My self was not enough for me. I had lived for 'society,' for Love, for myself, and had found that they did not satisfy me. It was time that I lived for something else—for something higher, and broader, and deeper!… I spent the next three or four days in the same way outwardly as any others, that is to say, did my classics in the mornings; took my 'constitutional' in the afternoons; and read in the evenings; but inwardly I spent them in a different way from any others of my