Page:All Kneeling (1928).pdf/82

 cause it won't be. I don't want it to be. I want just to speak simply, truly, to the few who will understand. You know I don't want what the world means when it says success"

"Oh, I do know, darling. That's just the way I feel about my own work."

"What do I write for, Elliott? Not for success. I should feel sick with terror if that came to me. I'd know I'd failed, somehow, that I hadn't been true to the real things. Not for pleasure, certainly, for my work is done in grief and pain, and I don't use those words lightly, dear. And yet I must write or die. Why is this burden on me?"

"Because you have the artist's soul, Christabel. I know how it is myself"

"Will I never go free?"

"Never, my darling."

"Will I always have to suffer this ache of beauty? Oh, Elliott, will I always have to suffer?"

Oh, beautiful girl! his heart cried, worship-