The house, which was in St. John's Wood, stood in an old garden at the end of a cul-de-sac off the main road: it was, therefore, quiet: the house itself was new, built in the style now familiar, and put up for the convenience of those who believe that there is nothing in the world to be considered except Art. Therefore there was a spacious hall: stairs broad enough for an ancient mansion led to the first floor and to the great studio. There were also three or four small cupboards, called bedrooms, dining-room, and anything else you might please. But the studio was the real thing. The house was built for the studio. The place was charged with an atmosphere of peace. Intellectual calm reigned here. Art of all kinds abhors noise. One could feel here the silence necessary for intellectual efforts of the highest order. Apart from the books and the easel and this silence, the character of the occupant was betrayed--or perhaps proclaimed--by other things. The furniture was massive: the library table of the largest kind: the easy chairs by the fire as solid and comfortable as if they had been designed for a club smoking-room: a cabinet showed a collection of china behind glass: the appointments, down to the inkstand and the paper-knife, were large and solid: all together spoke not only of the artist but of the successful artist: not only of the man who works, but of one who works with success and honour: the man arrived. The things also spoke of the splendid man, the man who knows that success should be followed by the splendid life. Too often the successful man is a poor-spirited creature, who continues in the humble middle-class style to which he was born; is satisfied with his suburban villa, never wants a better house or one more finely appointed, and has no craving for society. What is success worth if one does not live up to it? Success is not an end: it is the means: it brings the power of getting the things that make life--wine--horses--the best cook at the best club--sport--the society, every day, of beautiful and well-bred women--all these things the man who has succeeded can enjoy. Those who have not yet succeeded may envy the favourite of Fortune. As for his work, this highly successful man owned that he could not desert the Muse of Painting any more than her sister of Belles-Lettres. Happy would he be with either, were t'other dear charmer away! Happier still was he with both! And they were not jealous. They allowed him--these tender creatures--to love them both. He was by nature polygamous, perhaps. Therefore those who were invited to see his latest picture--the lucky few, because you must not think that his studio was open on Show Sunday for all the world to see--stayed, when they had admired that production, to talk of his latest poem or his latest story.