‘I will not read it: it is stereotyped; The same he wrote to,—anybody’s name,— Anne Blythe, the actress, when she had died so true, A duchess fainted in a private box: Pauline, the dancer, after the great _pas_, In which her little feet winked overhead Like other fire-flies, and amazed the pit: Or Baldinacci, when her F in alt Had touched the silver tops of heaven itself With such a pungent soul-dart, even the Queen Laid softly, each to each, her white-gloved palms, And sighed for joy: or else (I thank your friend) Aurora Leigh,—when some indifferent rhymes, Like those the boys sang round the holy ox On Memphis-road, have chanced, perhaps, to set Our Apis-public lowing. Oh, he wants, Instead of any worthy wife at home, A star upon his stage of Eglinton! Advise him that he is not overshrewd In being so little modest: a dropped star Makes bitter waters, says a Book I’ve read,— And there’s his unread letter.’ ‘My dear friend,’ Lord Howe began.... In haste I tore the phrase. ‘You mean your friend of Eglinton, or me?’ ‘I mean you, you,’ he answered with some fire. ‘A happy life means prudent compromise; The tare runs through the farmer’s garnered sheaves; But though the gleaner’s apron holds pure wheat, We count her poorer. Tare with wheat, we cry, And good with drawbacks. You, you love your art, And, certain of vocation, set your soul On utterance. Only, ... in this world we have made, (They say God made it first, but, if He did, ’Twas so long since, ... and, since, we have spoiled it so, He scarce would know it, if He looked this way, From hells we preach of, with the flames blown out,) In this bad, twisted, topsy-turvy world, Where all the heaviest wrongs get uppermost,— In this uneven, unfostering England here, Where ledger-strokes and sword-strokes count indeed, But soul-strokes merely tell upon the flesh They strike from,—it is hard to stand for art, Unless some golden tripod from the sea Be fished up, by Apollo’s divine chance, To throne such feet as yours, my prophetess, At Delphi. Think,—the god comes down as fierce As twenty bloodhounds! shakes you, strangles you, Until the oracular shriek shall ooze in froth! At best it’s not all ease,—at worst too hard: A place to stand on is a ’vantage gained, And here’s your tripod. To be plain, dear friend, You’re poor, except in what you richly give; You labour for your own bread painfully, Or ere you pour our wine. For art’s sake, pause.’