"It is not a question of badness; it is a question of whether
circumstances don't make the thing an extreme improbability."
"Worse and worse. I can be bullied, then, or bribed!"
"You are not so candid," said Rowland, "as you pretend to be. My feeling
is this. Hudson, as I understand him, does not need, as an artist, the
stimulus of strong emotion, of passion. He's better without it; he's
emotional and passionate enough when he 's left to himself. The sooner
passion is at rest, therefore, the sooner he will settle down to work,
and the fewer emotions he has that are mere emotions and nothing more,
the better for him. If you cared for him enough to marry him, I should
have nothing to say; I would never venture to interfere. But I strongly
suspect you don't, and therefore I would suggest, most respectfully,
that you should let him alone."
"And if I let him alone, as you say, all will be well with him for ever
more?"
"Not immediately and not absolutely, but things will be easier. He will
be better able to concentrate himself."
"What is he doing now? Wherein does he dissatisfy you?"
"I can hardly say.
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