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Is there something about poetic talent that renders its possessor unhappy? Is the gift fatal to the fullest enjoyment of life? Does its fervid warmth destroy the shrine whereon its fires burn, or its smallest spark scar the breast which holds it? These are questions often asked, and the lives of our poets have furnished evidence contradictory in the extreme. Those who have become intimately acquainted with many of them often pause in reading their inspiring strains to muse sadly over the wrecked hopes, and unhappy lives of those who have tuned to rhythm and set to melody the hearts of all the peoples of earth.

We candidly confess our inability at this time to summon sufficient testimony to decide these questions, but would suggest that should their affirmative be established then must the world feel additional gratitude to its songsters, to those who have followed the bent of their genius in striving to elevate and ennoble mankind while destroying their own share of its happiness. Although it may be difficult to disprove the theory somewhat prevalent that poets are restless, irritable and unhappy in their social relations with their fellows, yet it is so adverse to the generally acknowledged beneficence of the laws of nature which must control the endowment of mental powers and attributes