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 158 There is certainly some irritation in his repeated references to the early neglect he felt from the public, at the time when, as he says, he "was for a good many years the obscurest man of letters in America." He thought this lack of appreciation palsied his efforts, so that he did not do what he might have done, and it may have been the case; but before the days when he wrote "The Artist of the Beautiful" he must have learned that one must serve the Muses for themselves alone.