The same old desire of admiration, admiration in its original sense of wonderment (miratio); you are a true child of the century; you do not desire admiration, you would avoid it, fearing it might lessen that sense which you only care to stimulate--wonderment. And persecuted by the desire to astonish, you are now exhibiting yourself in the most hideous light you can devise. The man whose biography you are writing is no better than a pimp. _I_. Then he is not like me; I have never been a pimp, and I don't think I would be if I could. _Conscience_. The whole of your moral nature is reflected in Lewis Seymore, even to the "And I don't think I would be if I could." _I_. I love the abnormal, and there is certainly something strangely grotesque in the life of a pimp. But it is nonsense to suggest that Lewis Seymore is myself;...you know that my original notion was to do the side of Lucien de Rubrempré that-- _Conscience_. That Balzac had the genius to leave out. _I_. Really, if you can only make disagreeable remarks, I think we had better bring this conversation to a close. _Conscience_. One word more. You have failed in everything you have attempted, and you will continue to fail until you consider those moral principles--those rules of conduct which the race has built up, guided by an unerring instinct of self-preservation. Humanity defends herself against those who attempt to subvert her; and none, neither Napoleon nor the wretched scribbler such as you are, has escaped her vengeance. _I_. You would have me pull down the black flag and turn myself into an honest merchantman, with children in the hold and a wife at the helm. You would remind me that grey hairs begin to show, that health falls into rags, that high spirits split like canvas, and that in the end the bright buccaneer drifts, an old derelict, tossed by the waves of ill fortune, and buffeted by the winds into those dismal bays and dangerous offings--housekeepers, nurses, and uncomfortable chambers. Such will be my fate; and since none may avert his fate, none can do better than to run pluckily the course which he must pursue. _Conscience_. You might devise a moral ending; one that would conciliate all classes. _I_. It is easy to see that you are a nineteenth-century conscience. _Conscience_. I do not hope to find a Saint Augustine in you. _I_. An idea; one of these days I will write my confessions! Again I tell you that nothing really matters to me but art. And, knowing this, you chatter of the unwisdom of my not concluding my novel with some foolish moral.... Nothing matters to me but art. _Conscience_. Would you seduce the wretched servant girl if by so doing you could pluck out the mystery of her being and set it down on paper? XV