The essences of literature of course remain the same under all forms, and the true study of literature is the study of these essences,--a study, not of forms or of differences, but of likenesses,--likenesses of spirit and intent under whatever varieties of method, running through all forms of speech like the same music along the chords of various instruments. There is a sense in which literature is independent of form, just as there is a sense in which music is independent of its instrument. It is my cherished belief that Apollo’s pipe contained as much eloquent music as any modern orchestra. Some books live; many die: wherein is the secret of immortality? Not in beauty of form, nor even in force of passion. We might say of literature what Wordsworth said of poetry, the most easily immortal part of literature: it is “the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science; it is the breath of the finer spirit of all knowledge.” Poetry has the easier immortality because it has the sweeter accent when it speaks, because its phrases linger in our ears to delight them, because its truths are also melodies. Prose has much to overcome,--its plainness of visage, its less musical accents, its homelier turns of phrase. But it also may contain the immortal essence of truth and seriousness and high thought. It too may clothe conviction with the beauty that must make it shine forever. Let a man but have beauty in his heart, and, believing something with his might, put it forth arrayed as he sees it, the lights and shadows falling upon it on his page as they fall upon it in his heart, and he may die assured that that beauty will not pass away out of the world. Biographers have often been puzzled by the contrast between certain men as they lived and as they wrote. Schopenhauer’s case is one of the most singular. A man of turbulent life, suffering himself to be cut to exasperation by the petty worries of his lot, he was nevertheless calm and wise when he wrote, as if the Muse had rebuked him. He wrote at a still elevation, where small and temporary things did not come to disturb him. ’Tis a pity that for some men this elevation is so far to seek. They lose permanency by not finding it. Could there be a deliberate regimen of life for the author, it is plain enough how he ought to live, not as seeking fame, but as deserving it. “Fame, like a wayward girl, will still be coy To those who woo her with too slavish knees; But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy, And dotes the more upon a heart at ease. * * * * * “Ye love-sick bards, repay her scorn with scorn; Ye love-sick artists, madmen that ye are, Make your best bow to her and bid adieu; Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.”