And yet it was perhaps by their
help, after all, that Roderick secured several mornings of ardent work
on his new figure, and brought it to rapid completion. One afternoon,
when it was finished, Rowland went to look at it, and Roderick asked him
for his opinion.
"What do you think yourself?" Rowland demanded, not from pusillanimity,
but from real uncertainty.
"I think it is curiously bad," Roderick answered. "It was bad from the
first; it has fundamental vices. I have shuffled them in a measure out
of sight, but I have not corrected them. I can't--I can't--I can't!" he
cried passionately. "They stare me in the face--they are all I see!"
Rowland offered several criticisms of detail, and suggested certain
practicable changes. But Roderick differed with him on each of these
points; the thing had faults enough, but they were not those faults.
Rowland, unruffled, concluded by saying that whatever its faults might
be, he had an idea people in general would like it.
"I wish to heaven some person in particular would buy it, and take it
off my hands and out of my sight!" Roderick cried.
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