“There is no need they should be obtruded, Harry.” “No, that’s what I’m always so afraid of.” “Nor, if they happen to become known, is there any need to be ashamed.” “Ah, I can’t help that.” “Not always, I dare say, being young and thin-skinned; but the less you annoy yourself that way, the better. So you think I am better off than _you_?” “O yes, with this nice quiet room. You may smile, Mrs. Cheerlove, but really it’s no joke, when a fellow wants to do a bit of writing, to have a parcel of children swarming about him, making all sorts of noises. It has such an effect sometimes on _me_, I know, that I am ready to declare the supreme good to be, a quiet room and leisure to use it.” “To write poetry in it—hey, Harry?” “Well—perhaps—yes.” “Meanwhile, the high stool in the office—” “May better be filled by some one else, ma’am.” “While you— “‘Invoke the Muses, and improve your vein.’ Do you admire Coleridge?” “Oh immensely! Did he make that line?” “Ah, Harry, you betray your ignorance of your favourite craft! No; the line is Waller’s.” Harry blushed, and said, “You laid a trap for me.” “Not intentionally, I assure you. But my transition was rather abrupt. I was going to direct your attention to a favourite passage of mine in Coleridge’s works.” “Pray do,” said Harry, rising alertly and going to the book-case. “Bring me the second of those two small volumes, lettered ‘Biographia Literaria.’” “Oh, it’s in prose!” said Harry, in disappointment. “Prose by a poet, however—which, by-the-way, was the name of a pretty, though not very shining, little work by James Montgomery, that has now dropped out of sight. Here is the passage: it begins—‘Never pursue literature as a trade. With one exception’ (I think he means Southey) ‘I have never known an individual healthy or happy without some regular employment which does not depend on the will of the moment—’” “Bah!” muttered Harry. “‘But can be carried on so far mechanically that an average quantum of health, spirit, and intellectual exertion are requisite for its faithful discharge.’” “I’m surprised Coleridge should say that.” “Well, Harry, he was one of the many people who preach better than they practise. Hear me to the end—‘Three hours of leisure, unalloyed by any alien anxiety, and looked forward to with delight as a change and recreation, will suffice to realize in literature a larger product of what is truly _genial_ than weeks of compulsion.’” “Ay, I never write but when the fit is on me,” murmured Harry. “‘Money and immediate reputation form only an arbitrary and accidental end of literary labour. The _hope_ of them may often prove a stimulant to industry, but the _necessity_ of acquiring them will, in all works of genius, convert a stimulant into a narcotic.’ “It did in Sir Walter Scott’s case,” I observed.