"Certainly; I liked it as well as I said," Gloriani declared in answer
to Rowland's anxious query; "or rather I liked it a great deal better. I
did n't say how much, for fear of making your friend angry. But one can
leave him alone now, for he 's coming round. I told you he could n't
keep up the transcendental style, and he has already broken down. Don't
you see it yourself, man?"
"I don't particularly like this new statue," said Rowland.
"That 's because you 're a purist. It 's deuced clever, it 's deuced
knowing, it 's deuced pretty, but it is n't the topping high art of
three months ago. He has taken his turn sooner than I supposed. What has
happened to him? Has he been disappointed in love? But that 's none of
my business. I congratulate him on having become a practical man."
Roderick, however, was less to be congratulated than Gloriani had taken
it into his head to believe. He was discontented with his work, he
applied himself to it by fits and starts, he declared that he did n't
know what was coming over him; he was turning into a man of moods. "Is
this of necessity what a fellow must come to"--he asked of Rowland, with
a sort of peremptory flash in his eye, which seemed to imply that his
companion had undertaken to insure him against perplexities and was not
fulfilling his contract--"this damnable uncertainty when he goes to bed
at night as to whether he is going to wake up in a working humor or in a
swearing humor? Have we only a season, over before we know it, in which
we can call our faculties our own? Six months ago I could stand up to my
work like a man, day after day, and never dream of asking myself whether
I felt like it.
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