And then he paused and looked about him, confronted with a difficulty.
To him it seemed unusual, but really it was very common.
For, having it, he knew not at first what use to make of it. This
dawned upon him suddenly when the sunlight splashed his tawdry
slippers with its gold. The movement to the open window was really
instinctive beginning of a search, as though in the free, wonderful
spaces out of doors he would find the thing he sought to do. Now,
settled back in the deep arm-chair, he realised that he had not found
it. The memories of childhood had flashed into him instead. He renewed
the search before the dying fire, waiting for the sound of Minks'
ascending footsteps on the stairs. ...
And this revival of the childhood mood was curious, he felt, almost
significant, for it was symbolical of so much that he had
deliberately, yet with difficulty, suppressed and put aside. During
these years of concentrated toil for money, his strong will had
neglected of set purpose the call of a robust imagination. He had
stifled poetry just as he had stifled play. Yet really that
imagination had merely gone into other channels--scientific invention.
It was a higher form, married at least with action that produced
poetry in steel and stone instead of in verse. Invention has ever
imagination and poetry at its heart.
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