For months I persisted, denying myself the smallest respite, clinging
to a resolution which proved vainer daily. Were art to be mastered by
dogged endeavour, I should have conquered; but alas! though I could
compel myself to paint, I could not compel myself to paint well. It was
the perception of this fact that shattered me at last. I had fought
temptation for half a year, worked with my teeth clenched, worked
against nature, worked while my pulses beat and clamoured for the
draughts of dissipation, which promised a speedier release. I had wooed
art, not as art's lover, but as a tortured soul may turn to one woman
in the desperate hope of subduing his passion for another--and art
would yield nothing to a suitor who approached like that; I recognised
that my work had been wasted, that the struggle had been useless--I
broke down!
I need say little of the months that followed--it would be a record of
degradations, and remorse; alternately, I fell, and was ashamed. There
were days when I never left the house, when I was repulsive to myself;
I shuddered at the horrors that I had committed. No saint has loved
virtue better than I did during those long, sick days of self-disgust;
no man was ever more sure of defying such hideous temptations if they
recurred. As my lassitude passed, I would take up my brushes and feel
confident for an hour, or for a week. And then temptation would creep
on me once more--humming in my ears, and tingling in my veins.
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