"You can bear having your things rejected by stupid editors and publishers, while they publish work you feel to be infinitely less good? You can bear to see popularity pass you by, on its way to writers whose work you think beneath your contempt? You can bear to see your books published and forgotten, as utterly as a stone is forgotten that is dropped in the water; and to endure the stupidity and neglect of the critics, as well as of the public?" "I can bear it all," said I cheerfully. "Well, then, if you can," said he, with a change of tone, "you will find the roses in your path thicker than the thorns. The work is exquisite for its own sake, and if it is good, and it _will_ be good, you will have a little audience that will love you and it. You will never write a word to fall on deaf ears. You will find even a few critics to believe in you, and say so. And you will gain the most unselfish friendship. I have heard of envy and malice in literature, but I have never yet discovered them." "Ah! there speaks the cynic," said the General; "and yet you would tramp the furrows and depend on the weather?" "I would plant cabbages against the rainy time, so that if my oats were rotting my vegetables would be waxing fat. The weather is a good or a bad fellow according as you take him." "Well, Linklater, we're taking up too much of your valuable time." "I'm the idlest man in London this minute." "Well, if you are, come and lunch with us at the Cecil." "Ah! but others are not so idle as I. I have a good many people to see before lunch time. By the way, we must meet again. Suppose you dine with me one evening? I want to hear a good many things about yourself." As we went out Mr. Linklater drew the General aside, and said something to him in a low voice. I guessed at its purport, for the General shook his head very sadly in answer. "Ah, well!" said the publisher; "I wouldn't give up hope, man. Lance was always a fellow of so much resource, and again and again men have returned after being given up for lost, as he has been." "And many have not returned," said the General. "But thank you, Linklater, for your sympathy all the same." "We are both lonely men," said the publisher. "But you have yet hope." "And you have certainty," said the General, looking up and lifting his hat. "I have often wished I could have as much." "Ah! that is where you religious men score." "Yes," said the General simply; "I do not know where my boy is, but there is One that knows." The two men shook hands in silence. Then the publisher turned to me with his kind smile. "We shall make you formal publishing proposals in a day or two, Miss Brandon. It would never do to arrange such matters during a morning call." After we had gone out in the street the General told me that Mr. Linklater had lost his wife and daughter by scarlet fever a few years previously.