Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/346

 But are there no drawbacks, no disappointments, no sufferings in the Life Literary? Why, of course there are! Who would be such a useless block of stone, such a senseless lump of unvalued clay, as not to ardently wish for drawbacks, disappointments, and sufferings? Who that has a soul at all does not pray that it may be laid like glowing iron on the anvil of endurance, there to be beaten and hammered by destiny till it is of a strong and shapely mould, fit for combat, nerved to victory? And I maintain that such drawbacks, disappointments, difficulties, and sufferings as the profession of Literature entails are sweeter and nobler than the cares besetting other professions, inasmuch as they are always accompanied by never-failing consolations. If the pinch be poverty, the true servant of Literature can do with less of this world's goods than most people. Luxury is not called for when one is rich in idealism and fancy. Heavy feeding will not make a clear, quick brain. Extravagant apparel is a necessity for no one—and genius was never yet born of a millionaire.

If the "thorn in the flesh" is the petty abuse of one's envious contemporaries, that is surely a matter for rejoicing rather than grief, as it is merely the continuance of an apparently "natural law in the spiritual world" acting from the Inferior upon the Superior, which may be worded thus: "Whosoever will be great, let him be flayed alive!" Virgil was declared by Pliny to be destitute of invention; Aristotle was styled "ignorant, vain, and ambitious" by both Cicero and Plutarch; Plato was so jealous of Democritus that he proposed