Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/136

128 out of it—the question doesn't exist; one simply becomes a part of the duty of others. The brute, the ass, neither feels, nor understands, nor accepts, nor adopts. Those fine processes in themselves classify us. They educate, they exalt, they preserve; so that, to profit by them, we must be as perceptive as we can. We must recognize our particular form, the instrument that each of us—each of us who carries anything—carries in his being. Mastering this instrument, learning to play it in perfection—that's what I call duty, what I call conduct, what I call success."

Nick listened with friendly attention and the air of general assent was in his face as he said: "Every one has it then, this individual pipe?"

"'Every one,' my dear fellow, is too much to say, for the world is full of the crudest remplissage. The book of life is padded, ah but padded—a deplorable want of editing. I speak of every one that is any one. Of course there are pipes and pipes—little quavering flutes for the concerted movements and big cornets-à-piston for the great solos."

"I see, I see. And what might your instrument be?"

Nash hesitated not a moment; his answer was radiantly ready. "To speak to people just as I am speaking to you. To prevent for instance a great wrong being done."

"A great wrong?"

"Yes—to the human race. I talk—I talk; I say the things that other people don't, that they can't, that they won't," Gabriel continued, with his inimitable candour.

"If it's a question of mastery and perfection, you certainly have them," his companion replied.