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 to burn up all his works; Sophocles was brought to trial by his own children as a lunatic; Horace was accused of stealing from all the minor Greek poets; and so on in the same way down to our own times. Pope went so far as to make a collection of all the libels passed upon him, and had them preserved and bound with singular care, though I believe no one now knows where to find these scandalous splutterings of Grub Street. Swift is reported to have said to the irate author of the “Dunciad”: “Give me a shilling and I will ensure you that posterity shall never know one single enemy against you excepting those whose memory you _yourself_ have preserved.” Herein is a profound truth. The malicious enemies of a great author only become known to the public through the mistaken condescension of the great author’s notice.