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hilip could not get the unhappy event out of his head.
PWhat troubled him most was the uselessness of Fanny’s
effort. No one could have worked harder than she, nor with
more sincerity; she believed in herself with all her heart;
but it was plain that self-confidence meant very little, all
his friends had it, Miguel Ajuria among the rest; and Philip
was shocked by the contrast between the Spaniard’s heroic
endeavour and the triviality of the thing he attempted. The
unhappiness of Philip’s life at school had called up in him
the power of self-analysis; and this vice, as subtle as drug-
taking, had taken possession of him so that he had now a
peculiar keenness in the dissection of his feelings. He could
not help seeing that art affected him differently from others.
A fine picture gave Lawson an immediate thrill. His appre-
ciation was instinctive. Even Flanagan felt certain things
which Philip was obliged to think out. His own apprecia-
tion was intellectual. He could not help thinking that if he
had in him the artistic temperament (he hated the phrase,
but could discover no other) he would feel beauty in the
emotional, unreasoning way in which they did. He began
to wonder whether he had anything more than a superficial
cleverness of the hand which enabled him to copy objects
with accuracy. That was nothing. He had learned to despise
technical dexterity. The important thing was to feel in terms

Of Human Bondage