The poverty of literary men.--Poverty, a relative quality.--Of the poverty of literary men in what degree desirable.--Extreme poverty.--Task-work.--Of gratuitous works.--A project to provide against the worst state of poverty among literary men. 186 CHAPTER XVIII. The matrimonial state of literature.--Matrimony said not to be well-suited to the domestic life of genius.--Celibacy a concealed cause of the early querulousness of men of genius.--Of unhappy unions.--Not absolutely necessary that the wife should be a literary woman.--Of the docility and susceptibility of the higher female character.--A picture of a literary wife. 198 CHAPTER XIX. Literary friendships.--In early life.--Different from those of men of the world.--They suffer in unrestrained communication of their ideas, and bear reprimands and exhortations.--Unity of feelings.--A sympathy not of manners but of feelings.--Admit of dissimilar characters.--Their peculiar glory.--Their sorrow. 209 CHAPTER XX. The literary and the personal character.--The personal dispositions of an author may be the reverse of those which appear in his writings.--Erroneous conceptions of the character of distant authors.--Paradoxical appearances in the history of genius.--Why the character of the man may be opposite to that of his writings. 217 CHAPTER XXI. The man of letters.--Occupies an intermediate station between authors and readers.--His solitude described.--Often the father of genius.--Atticus, a man of letters of antiquity.--The perfect character of a modern man of letters exhibited in Peiresc.-- Their utility to authors and artists. 226 CHAPTER XXII. Literary old age still learning.--Influence of late studies in life.--Occupations in advanced age of the literary character. --Of literary men who have died at their studies. 238 CHAPTER XXIII. Universality of genius.--Limited notion of genius entertained by the ancients.--Opposite faculties act with diminished force. --Men of genius excel only in a single art. 244 CHAPTER XXIV. Literature an avenue to glory.--An intellectual nobility not chimerical, but created by public opinion.--Literary honours of various nations.--Local associations with the memory of the man of genius. 248 CHAPTER XXV.