DE REVES: Keats never saw her. Shelley died too young. She came late at the best of times, now scarcely ever. PRATTLE: But, my dear fellow, you don't mean that you think there really is such a person? DE REVES: I offer all my songs to her. PRATTLE: But you don't mean you think you could actually _see_ Fame? DE REVES: We poets personify abstract things, and not poets only but sculptors[7] and painters too. All the great things of the world are those abstract things. PRATTLE: But what I mean is, they're not really there, like you or me. DE REVES: To us these things are more real than men, they outlive generations, they watch the passing of kingdoms: we go by them like dust; they are still there, unmoved, unsmiling. PRATTLE: But, but, you can't think that you could _see_ Fame, you don't expect to _see_ it? DE REVES: Not to me. Never to me. She of the golden trumpet and Greek dress will never appear to me.... We all have our dreams. PRATTLE: I say--what have you been doing all day? DE REVES: I? Oh, only writing a sonnet. PRATTLE: Is it a long one? DE REVES: Not very. PRATTLE: About how long is it? DE REVES: About fourteen lines. PRATTLE (_impressively_): I tell you what it is. DE REVES: Yes? PRATTLE: I tell you what. You've been overworking yourself. I once got like that on board the Sandhurst, working for the passing-out exam. I got so bad that I could have seen anything. DE REVES: Seen anything? PRATTLE: Lord, yes; horned pigs, snakes with wings; anything; one of your winged horses even. They gave me some stuff called bromide for it. You take a rest. DE REVES: But my dear fellow, you don't understand at all. I merely said that abstract things are to a poet as near and real and visible as one of your bookmakers or barmaids. PRATTLE: I know. You take a rest. DE REVES: Well, perhaps I will. I'd come with you to that musical comedy you're going to see, only I'm a bit tired after writing this; it's a tedious job. I'll come another night. PRATTLE: How do you know I'm going to see a musical comedy? DE REVES: Well, where would you go? _Hamlet_'s[8] on at the Lord Chamberlain's. You're not going there. PRATTLE: Do I look like it? DE REVES: No. PRATTLE: Well, you're quite right. I'm going to see "The Girl from Bedlam." So long. I must push off now. It's getting late. You take a rest. Don't add another line to that sonnet; fourteen's quite enough. You take a rest. Don't have any dinner to-night, just rest. I was like that once myself. So long. DE REVES: So long. [_Exit_ PRATTLE. DE REVES _returns to his table and sits down._ Good old Dick! He's the same as ever. Lord, how time passes. _He takes his pen and his sonnet and makes a few alterations._ Well, that's finished. I can't do any more to it. [_He rises and goes to the screen; he draws back part of it and goes up to the altar. He is about to place his sonnet reverently at the foot of the altar amongst his other verses._