f Sancho's
donkey, he presently, in mere forgetfulness, shows us Sancho riding on
Dapple, as if nothing had happened? Does not one Thackeray shamelessly
avow on the last page of a grossly "subjective" novel that he had killed
Lord Farintosh's mother at one page and brought her to life again at
another? These sinners against Art are none the less among the world's
supreme artists, for they _lived_, in a sense, in a degree,
unintelligible to these critics of theirs, and their work is an
expression, satisfying and abiding, of the zest of life.

Some one, no doubt, hit upon this definition of mine long ago. It
doesn't matter; is it the less original with me? Not long since I should
have fretted over the possibility, for my living depended on an avoidance
of even seeming plagiarism. Now I am at one with Lord Foppington, and
much disposed to take pleasure in the natural sprouts of my own
wit--without troubling whether the same idea has occurred to others.
Suppose me, in total ignorance of Euclid, to have discovered even the
simplest of his geometrical demonstrations, shall I be crestfallen when
some one draws attention to the book? These natural sprouts are, after
all, the best products of our life; it is a mere accident that they may
have no value in the world's market. One of my conscious efforts, in
these days of freedom, is to live intellectually for myself. Formerly,
when in reading I came upon anything that impressed or delighted me, down
it went in my note-book, for "use." I could not read a striking verse,
or sentence of prose, without thinking of it as an apt quotation in
something I might write--one of the evil results of a literary life. Now
that I strive to repel this habit of thought, I find myself asking: To
what end, then, do I read and remember? Surely as foolish a question as
ever man put to himself. You read for your own pleasure, for your solace
and strengthening. Pleasure, then, purely selfish? Solace which endures
for an hour, and strengthening for no combat? Ay, but I know, I know.
With what heart should I live here in my cottage, waiting for life's end,
were it not for those hours of seeming idle reading?

I think sometimes, how good it were had I some one by me to listen when I
am tempted to read a passage aloud. Yes, but is there any mortal in the
whole world upon whom I could invariably depend for sympathetic
understanding?--nay, who would even generally be at one with me in my
appre