On the contrary, it seems that a more perfect intellectual life may be attained by the silent student than by authors. The writer for the public is often so far its slave that he is compelled by necessity or induced by the desire for success (since it is humiliating to write unsaleable books as well as unprofitable) to deviate from his true path, to leave the subjects that most interest him for other subjects which interest him less, and therefore to acquire knowledge rather as a matter of business than as a labor of love. But the student who never publishes, and does not intend to publish, may follow his own genius and take the knowledge which belongs to him by natural affinity. Add to this the immense saving of time effected by abstinence from writing. Whilst the writer is polishing his periods, and giving hours to the artistic exigencies of mere form, the reader is adding to his knowledge. Thackeray said that writers were not great readers, because they had not the time. The most studious Frenchman I ever met with used to say that he so hated the pen as scarcely to resolve to write a letter. He reminded me of Joubert in this; he often said, "J'ai horreur de la plume." Since he had no profession his leisure was unlimited, and he employed it in educating himself without any other purpose than this, the highest purpose of all, to become a cultivated man. The very prevalent idea that lives of this kind are failures unless they leave some visible achievement as a testimony and justification of their labors, is based upon a narrow conception both of duty and of utility. Men of this unproductive class are sure to influence their immediate neighborhood by the example of their life. Isolated as they are too frequently in the provinces, in the midst of populations destitute of the higher culture, they often establish the notion of it notwithstanding the contemptuous estimates of the practical people around them. A single intellectual life, thus modestly lived through in the obscurity of a country-town, may leave a tradition and become an enduring influence. In this, as in all things, let us trust the arrangements of Nature. If men are at the same time constitutionally studious and constitutionally unproductive, in must be that production is not the only use of study. Joubert was right in keeping silence when he felt no impulses to speak, right also in saying the little that he did say without a superfluous word. His mind is more fully known, and more influential, than many which are abundantly productive. LETTER V. TO A STUDENT WHO FELT HURRIED AND DRIVEN.