The mien of the two men had communicated to her an excitement far surpassing their own, in degree and in felicity.

The whole of her vital force was concentrated at the point of her pencil, and she seemed to be saying to herself: "I'm very sorry, mother, but see how important this is! I shall consider what I can do for you the very moment I am free." Arthur Dayson coughed and plumped heavily on a chair.
II It was in such moments as this that Dayson really lived, with all the force of his mediocrity.

George Cannon was not a journalist; he could compose a letter, but he had not the trick of composing an article.

He felt, indeed, a negligent disdain for the people who possessed this trick, as for performers in a circus; he certainly did not envy them, for he knew that he could buy them, as a carpenter buys tools.

His attitude was that of the genuine bourgeois towards the artist: possessive, incurious, and contemptuous.