usand volumes, the publisher is ready to cry, "Miracle!"
Further, men who lead intellectual lives are almost necessarily
extravagant of money. They know not its value. They know, indeed, that
ten mills make one cent, and that ten cents make one dime, and that ten
dimes make one dollar; but they are ignorant of the practical value of
these denominations of the great medium of exchange. They cannot "jew,"
and know not that the slight percentage they would take off the price
asked is a prize worth contending for. Again, the physical exhaustion or
reaction which almost invariably follows mental exertion requires
stimulants of some kind or other to remove the pain--it is an acute
pain--which reaction brings upon the whole system. These stimulants,
whether they be good dinners, or brilliant company, or generous wines,
or parties of pleasure, are always costly. Besides, life in Paris is
such an expensive mode of existence, the simplest pleasures there are so
very costly, and there are so many microscopic issues through which
money pours away in that undomestic life, in that career passed almost
continually in public, that one must have a considerable fortune, or
lead an extremely retired life. A fashionable author, whose books are in
every book-shop window, and whose plays are posted for performance on
every wall, cannot lead a secluded life; and all the circumstances we
have hinted at conspire to make his life expensive. In vain Murger fled
the great city. It pursued him even in the country. Admirers and
parasites sought him out even in his retreat, and forced their way to
his table. There is another reason for Murger's life-long poverty: he
worked slowly, and this natural difficulty of intellectual travail was
increased by his exquisite taste and desire of perfection. The novel was
written and re-written time and again. The plot was changed; the
characters were altered; each phrase was polished and repolished. Where
ordinary writers threw off half a dozen volumes, Murger found it hard to
fit a single volume for the press. Ordinary writers grew rich in writing
speedily forgotten novels; he continued poor in writing novels which
will live for many years. Then, Murger's vein of talent made him work
for theatres which gave more reputation than ready money. He was too
delicate a writer to construct those profitable dramas which run a
hundred or a hundred and fifty nights and place ten or twenty thousand
dollars in the writer's purs