Handel, most original of composers, after losing his entire fortune in a legitimate effort to further the interests of the art he loved so well, passed the last of his life in the gloom of blindness. His glorious oratorios were most of them produced under the stress of keen adversity, loss of fortune, and failing health, quite sufficient to have discouraged any one not truly inspired.[111] Mozart also labored under the ban of poverty. He was glad to accept even the position of chapel-master. It is well known that during the composition of some of his masterpieces he and his family suffered for bread. The great composer was so absorbed in music that he was but a child in matters of business.[112] Whatever may be the true definition of genius, perseverance and application form no inconsiderable part of it. "It is a very great error," said Mozart, "to suppose that my art has been easily acquired. I assure you that there is scarcely any one that has so worked at the study of composition as I have. You could hardly mention any famous composer whose writings I have not diligently and repeatedly studied throughout." A boy came to Mozart wishing to compose something, and inquiring the way to begin. Mozart told him to wait. "You composed much earlier," said the youth. "But asked nothing about it," replied the musician.[113] Willmott says very truly that genius finds its own road and carries its own lamp. We have seen that Goldsmith produced some of his finest literary work under stress of circumstances. "Oh, gods! gods!" he exclaimed to his friend Bryanton, "here in a garret, writing for bread and expecting to be dunned for a milk-score!" Like so many other children of genius, he was careless, extravagant, irregular, always in debt and difficulty, all which hurried him to his grave. He died at the age of forty-five. When, on his death-bed, the physician asked him if his mind was at ease, he answered, "No, it is not!" and these were his last words. In that exquisite story, the "Vicar of Wakefield,"[114] we have the explanation of how he supported himself while on his travels. "I had some knowledge of music," he says, "and now turned what was once my amusement into a present means of subsistence. Whenever I approached a peasant's house towards nightfall, I played one of my most merry tunes; and that procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day." Goldsmith's many faults were all on the amiable side, though he was perhaps a little inclined to find fault with his ill-fortune in good set phrases. Sometimes we are forced to remember that the misery which can so readily find relief in words of complaint is not dissimilar to that love which Thackeray thought quite a bearable malady when finding an outlet in rhyme and prose. Real suffering and profound sorrow are nearly always silent in proportion to their depth. It is evanescent afflictions which most readily find tongue. "To write well," says Madame de Staël,