Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/344

 agree with me as to the superior charm of the Life Literary over all other lives—and such objectors will be found mostly in the literary profession itself. Unsuccessful authors—particularly those who are in any way troubled with dyspepsia—will be among them. "Tied" authors also—and by "tied" authors I mean the unhappy wretches who have signed contracts with publishers several years ahead, and are, so to speak, dancing in fetters. Authors who count the number of words they write per day, like potatoes, and anxiously calculate how much a publisher will possibly give for them per bushel, are not likely to experience any very particular "happiness" while they are measuring out halfpence in this fashion. And authors who run after "society" and want to be seen here, there, and everywhere, are bound to lose the gifts of the gods one by one as they scamper helter-skelter through the world's Vanity Fair, while they may be perfectly sure that the "great" or swagger persons with whom they seek to associate will be the first to despise and neglect them in any time of need or trouble, as well as the last to support or help them in any urgent cause which might be benefited by their assistance.

On this point we have only to remember the melancholy experience of Robert Burns, who, after having been flattered and feasted by certain individuals who were, in an ephemeral sense, influential for the time being, either through their rank or their wealth, was afterwards shamefully neglected by them, and finally, notwithstanding the various social attentions and courtesy he had at one time received, he was left, when ill and dying, in such