Page 632 - of-human-bondage-

he might hear of a woman who would ‘do’ for him.
Philip had a little furniture which he had gathered as he
went along, an arm-chair that he had bought in Paris, and
a table, a few drawings, and the small Persian rug which
Cronshaw had given him. His uncle had offered a fold-up
bed for which, now that he no longer let his house in August,
he had no further use; and by spending another ten pounds
Philip bought himself whatever else was essential. He spent
ten shillings on putting a corn-coloured paper in the room
he was making his parlour; and he hung on the walls a
sketch which Lawson had given him of the Quai des Grands
Augustins, and the photograph of the Odalisque by Ingres
and Manet’s Olympia which in Paris had been the objects of
his contemplation while he shaved. To remind himself that
he too had once been engaged in the practice of art, he put
up a charcoal drawing of the young Spaniard Miguel Aju-
ria: it was the best thing he had ever done, a nude standing
with clenched hands, his feet gripping the floor with a pe-
culiar force, and on his face that air of determination which
had been so impressive; and though Philip after the long in-
terval saw very well the defects of his work its associations
made him look upon it with tolerance. He wondered what
had happened to Miguel. There is nothing so terrible as the
pursuit of art by those who have no talent. Perhaps, worn
out by exposure, starvation, disease, he had found an end in
some hospital, or in an access of despair had sought death
in the turbid Seine; but perhaps with his Southern instabil-
ity he had given up the struggle of his own accord, and now,
a clerk in some office in Madrid, turned his fervent rhetoric

1