Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/344

 [perturbed].

My Stiver mustn't listen to his mocking. He's rather too eccentric even now.— My dear, I want you.

[occupied in cleaning his pipe].

Presently, my dear.

[to ].

One thing at least to me is very clear;— And that is that you cannot but allow Some forethought indispensable. For see, Suppose that you to-day should write a sonnet, And, scorning forethought, you should lavish on it Your last reserve, your all, of poetry, So that, to-morrow, when you set about Your next song, you should find yourself cleaned out, Heavens! how your friends the critics then would crow!

D'you think they'd notice I was bankrupt? No! Once beggared of ideas, I and they Would saunter arm in arm the selfsame way— [Breaking off. But Lind! why, what's the matter with you, pray? You sit there dumb and dreaming—I suspect you're Deep in the mysteries of architecture.