. Merck the
publisher offered three pounds sterling for a drama of Goethe. "If
Europe praised me," Goethe said, "what has Europe done for me? Nothing.
_Even my works have been an expense to me._"

The pecuniary rewards which men receive for their labor are so absurdly
(yet inevitably) disproportionate to the intellectual power that is
needed for the task, and also to the toil involved, that no one can
safely rely upon the higher intellectual pursuits as a protection from
money-anxieties. I will give you two instances of this disproportion,
real instances, of men who are known to me personally. One of them is an
eminent Englishman of most remarkable intellectual force, who for many
years past has occupied his leisure in the composition of works that are
valued by the thinking public to a degree which it would be difficult to
exaggerate. But this thinking public is not numerous, and so in the year
1866 this eminent philosopher, "unable to continue losing money in
endeavoring to enlighten his contemporaries, was compelled to announce
the termination of his series." On the other hand, a Frenchman, also
known to me personally, one day conceived the fortunate idea that a new
primer might possibly be a saleable commodity. So he composed a little
primer, beginning with the alphabet, advancing to a, b, _ab_; b, a,
_ba_; and even going so far in history as to affirm that Adam was the
first man and Abraham the father of the faithful. He had the wisdom to
keep the copyright of this little publication, which employed (in the
easiest of all imaginable literary labor) the evenings of a single week.
It has brought him in, ever since, a regular income of 120_l._ a year,
which, so far from showing any signs of diminution, is positively
improving. This success encouraged the same intelligent gentleman to
compose more literature of the same order, and he is now the enviable
owner of several other such copyrights, all of them very valuable; in
fact as good properties as house-leases in London. Here is an author
who, from the pecuniary point of view, was incomparably more successful
than Milton, or Shelley, or Goethe. If every intellectual man could
shield his higher life by writing primers for children which should be
as good as house-leases, if the proverb _Qui peut le plus peut le moins_
were a true proverb, which it is not, then of course all men of culture
would be perfectly safe, since they all certainly know the contents of a
primer.