"So you're going to be a poet, Mr. Mesurier," he said. "Well, so was I once, so was I--but," he continued, "all too early another Muse took hold of me, a terrible Muse--yet a Muse who never forsakes you--" and he laid his hand on a decanter which stood near him on the table,--"yes, Mr. Mesurier, the terrible Muse of Drink! You may be surprised to hear me talk so; yet were this laudanum instead of brandy, there would seem to you a certain element of the poetic in the service of such a Muse. Drinks with Oriental or unfamiliar names have a romantic sound. Thus Alfred de Musset as the slave to absinthe sounds much more poetic than, say, Alfred de Musset as a slave to rum or gin, or even this brandy here. Yet this, too, is no less the stuff that dreams are made of; and the opium-eater, the absinthe-sipper, the brandy-drinker, are all members of the same great brotherhood of tragic idealists--" He talked deliberately; but there was a smile playing at the corners of the mouth which took from his talk the sense of a painful self-revelation, and gave it the air of a playful fantasia upon a paradox that for the moment amused him. "Idealists! Yes," he continued; "for what few understand is that drink is an idealism--and," he presently added with a laugh, "and, of course, like all idealisms, it has its dangers." With a monomaniac, conversation is apt to limit itself to monologue; so, while Henry was greatly interested in this odd talk, it left him but little to say. "I'm afraid I shock you a little, Mr. Mesurier, perhaps even--disgust you," said Mr. Gerard. "Indeed, no!" exclaimed Henry; "but both the subject and your way of treating it are, I confess, a little new to me." "You are surprised to find one who is what is popularly known as a drunkard not so much ashamed of as interested in himself; isn't that it? Well, that comes of the introspective literary temperament. It is only the oyster fascinated by the pearl that is killing it." "You should write some 'Confessions' after the manner of De Quincey," said Henry.