Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/112

86 than name. Stuart Straith and Mrs. Harvey, Marcher and May Bartram, Neil Paraday, Dencombe, Morris Gedge—all the foiled multiplied people of The Better Sort—eager artists and authors, too fine for their places, used and then left, their wings bruised by the rough shoulders of the world. The crushed watcher in The Cage—the crushed teacher in The Pupil—the ebbing wraith of the pupil himself. The four figures in The Golden Bowl—suffering and frustrate in exact proportion to their fineness. And then, last and loveliest, in The Wings of the Dove, Milly Theale, with her deep malady, the perfect type of all these condamnés—panting for life because she must die, draining as much of its essence as she may with lips as feverish as poor Searle's. "Tous condamnés à mort avec des sursis indéfinis," they do indeed seize their chance of "expanding that