But if he, as the phrase is, "put himself out" little as to letter-writing, it was by no means the same in those other functions which have been just referred to. In later years (it is Mr Humphry Ward, I think, who is our sufficient authority for it) poetry was but occasional amusement and solace to him, prose his regular avocation from task-work; and there is abundant evidence that, willingly or unwillingly, he never allowed either to usurp the place of the vocation which he had accepted. Not everybody, perhaps, is so scrupulous. It is not an absolutely unknown thing to hear men boast of getting through their work somehow or other, that they may devote themselves to _parerga_ which they like, and which they are pleased to consider more dignified, more important, nearer the chief end of man. And from the extremely common assumption that other people, whether they confess this or not, act upon it, one may at least not uncharitably suppose that a much larger number would so act if they dared, or had the opportunity. This was not Mr Arnold's conception of the relations of the hired labourer and the labour which gains him his hire. Not only does he seem to have performed his actual inspecting duties with that exact punctiliousness which in such cases is much better than zeal, but he did not grudge the expenditure of his art on the requirements, and not the strict requirements only, of his craft. The unfitness of poets for business has been often enough proved to be a mere fond thing vainly invented; but it was never better disproved than in this particular instance.