CHAPTER IV.
"Both Goethe and Schiller were profoundly convinced that Art was no luxury of leisure, no mere amusement to charm the idle, or relax the careworn; but a mighty influence, serious in its aims although pleasureable in its means; a sister of Religion, by whose aid the great world-scheme was wrought into reality." Lewes's Life of Goethe.
Man is a selfish being, and I am a particularly fine specimen of the race as far as that characteristic goes.

If I had had a dozen drunken parents I should never have danced attendance on one of them; yet in my secret soul I admired Derrick for the line he had taken, for we mostly do admire what is unlike ourselves and really noble, though it is the fashion to seem totally indifferent to everything in heaven and earth.
But all the same I felt annoyed about the whole business, and was glad to forget it in my own affairs at Mondisfield.
Weeks passed by.

I lived through a midsummer dream of happiness, and a hard awaking.

That, however, has nothing to do with Derrick's story, and may be passed over.

In October I settled down in Montague Street, Bloomsbury, and began to read for the Bar, in about as disagreeable a frame of mind as can be conceived.