“Perhaps not three-fourths; but if it make one-fourth, it would go a long way to account for the difference. One good of a positive profession is, that it supplies a definite motive for any movement which the intellect gives itself the trouble to take. He who enters a profession naturally acquires the desire to get on in it, and perhaps in the profession of art more ardently than in any other, because a man does not take to art from sheer necessity, and without any inclination for it, but _with_ a strong inclination, to which necessity gives the patient forces of labour. I presume that I am right in this conjecture.” “Yes,” said the Painter, ingenuously. “So far back as I can remember, I had an inclination, nay a passion, for painting; still I might not have gone through the requisite drudgery and apprenticeship; might not have studied the naked figure when I wished to get at once to some gorgeous draperies, or fagged at perspective when I wanted to deck out a sunset, if I had not had three sisters and a widowed mother to think of.” “I comprehend; but now that you have mastered the fundamental difficulties of your art, and accustomed yourself to hope for fame in the fuller and freer developments of that art, do you think that you would gladly accept the wealth of Sir Percival Tracey, on the condition that you were never to paint for the public, and to renounce every idea of artistic distinction? or, if you did accept that offer for the sake of your sisters and mother, would it be with reluctance and the pang of self-sacrifice?” “I don’t think I could accept such an offer on such conditions even for them. I am now, sir, utterly unknown—at best one of those promising pupils, of whom there are hundreds; but still I think there is a something in me as painter, as artist, which would break my heart if, some day or other, it did not force itself out.” “Then you would not lose your motive for becoming a great painter, even did you succeed to the wealth and station which you say deprive Sir Percival of a motive, supposing that, in accepting such gifts of fortune, you were _not_ required to sacrifice the inclination you take from nature?” “No, I should not lose the motive. Better famine in a garret than obscurity in a palace!” Our conversation was here broken off by the entrance of Lady Gertrude. “It is just time for our expedition,” said she. “I think it is about to strike two, and Percival is always punctual.” “I am quite ready,” said I. “And I shall be so in five minutes,” cried the Painter; “I must run up-stairs for my sketch-book.” “Oh, I see what is keeping my nephew,” said Lady Gertrude, looking out of the window; and as I joined her she drew my attention to two figures walking slowly in the garden; in one I recognised Tracey, the other was unknown to me. “He must have come by the early train,” said Lady Gertrude, musingly. “I wonder whether he means to stay and go with us to the lake.”