Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/264

 subject and the subject reacts on the imagination. It 's a remunerative rate of production, and the in tervals are convenient!"

One morning as the young men were at their ease on the sun-warmed grass at the foot of one of the slanting pines of the Villa, Roderick gave himself up to a free and beautiful consideration of the possible mischances of genius. "What if the watch should run down," he asked, "and you should lose the key? What if you should wake up some morning and find it stopped—inexorably, appallingly stopped? Such things have been, and the poor devils to whom they happened have had to grin and bear it. The whole matter of genius is a mystery. It bloweth where it listeth, and we know nothing of its mechanism. If it gets out of order we can't mend it; if it breaks down altogether we can't set it going again. We must let it choose its own pace and hold our breath lest it should lose its balance. It 's dealt out in different doses, in big cups and little, and when you have consumed your portion it 's as naïf to ask for more as it was for Oliver Twist to ask for more porridge. Lucky for you if you 've got one of the big cups; we drink them down in the dark and we can't tell their size until we tip them up and hear the last gurgle. Those of some men last for life; those of others for a couple of years. I say, what are you grinning at?" he went on as in the best possible faith. "Nothing is more common than for an artist who has set out on his journey on a high-stepping horse to find himself all of a sudden dismounted and invited to go his way on foot. You can number them 230