He may bespatter you with ink, he may hit you in the eye, but
he writes a magnificent hand. It was nevertheless true that at present
poor Roderick gave unprecedented tokens of moral stagnation, and as for
genius being held by the precarious tenure he had sketched, Rowland was
at a loss to see whence he could borrow the authority to contradict him.
He sighed to himself, and wished that his companion had a trifle more
of little Sam Singleton's evenness of impulse. But then, was Singleton
a man of genius? He answered that such reflections seemed to him
unprofitable, not to say morbid; that the proof of the pudding was
in the eating; that he did n't know about bringing a genius that had
palpably spent its last breath back to life again, but that he was
satisfied that vigorous effort was a cure for a great many ills that
seemed far gone. "Don't heed your mood," he said, "and don't believe
there is any calm so dead that your own lungs can't ruffle it with a
breeze. If you have work to do, don't wait to feel like it; set to work
and you will feel like it."
"Set to work and produce abortions!" cried Roderick with ire.
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