It was nevertheless true that at present poor Roderick gave unprecedented tokens of moral stagnation, and as for genius being held by the precarious tenure he had sketched, Rowland was at a loss to see whence he could borrow the authority to contradict him.
He sighed to himself, and wished that his companion had a trifle more of little Sam Singleton's evenness of impulse.

But then, was Singleton a man of genius?
He answered that such reflections seemed to him unprofitable, not to say morbid; that the proof of the pudding was in the eating; that he did n't know about bringing a genius that had palpably spent its last breath back to life again, but that he was satisfied that vigorous effort was a cure for a great many ills that seemed far gone.

"Don't heed your mood," he said, "and don't believe there is any calm so dead that your own lungs can't ruffle it with a breeze.

If you have work to do, don't wait to feel like it; set to work and you will feel like it." "Set to work and produce abortions!" cried Roderick with ire.

"Preach that to others.