"Not at all. But, as you know, I've seen much of this sort of thing lately. In the first place I had my own temperamental leanings; in the next place, you'll remember, we've had a season or two lately when clever people have been the rage. To invite painters and singers and writers to one's house has been the smart thing to do. We have had the spectacle of a society, that goes through a flippant imitation of living, engaged in being polite to people who imitate at second hand, in song, and color, and story. Some smart people have even taken to those arts, thus imitating the professional imitators. As far as the smart point of view goes, I couldn't do anything better than go in for the studio, or novelistic business. The dull people whom smartness has rubbed to a thin polish would conspire in calling me clever. Is there anything more dreadful than being called clever?" "Nothing. It is the most damning adjective in the language. Whenever I hear that a person is clever I am sure he will never amount to much. There is only one word that approaches it in deadly significance. That is 'rising.' I have known men whom the puffs have referred to as 'a rising man' for twenty years. Can you imagine anything more dismal than being called constantly by the same epithet? The very amiability in the general opinion, permitting 'clever' and 'rising' to remain unalterable, shows that the wearer of these terms is hopeless; a strong man would have made enemies. I am glad you are wise enough to resist the temptation of the Muses. Society's blessing would never console you for anything short of a triumph. The triumphs are fearfully few; the clever people--well, this cellar's full of them. There's Abbott Moore, for instance." "You're right; there he is. He's a case in point. One of the best cases; a man who has really, in the worldly sense, succeeded tremendously. His system of give and take is one of the most lovely schemes imaginable; we all know that. When a mining millionaire with marriageable daughters comes to town his first hostage to the smart set is to order a palace near Central Park and to give Abbott Moore the contract for the decorations. In return Abbott Moore asks the millionaire's womenfolk to one of his studio carnivals. That section of the smart set which keeps itself constantly poised on the border between smart and tart is awfully keen on Abbott Moore's studio affairs. It has never forgotten the famous episode when he served a tart within a tart, and it is still expecting him to outdo that feat. To be seen at one of these affairs, especially if you have millions, is to have got in the point of the wedge. I call it a fair exchange; the millionaire gets his foot just inside the magic portal; Moore gets a slice of the millions. All the world counts Moore a success from every point of view, the smart, the professional, the financial. Yet that isn't my notion of a full life. It's only a replica of the very thing I'm tired of, my own life."