brated persons
the happiest of mankind. I do not envy Alexander the shouting of his
armies, nor Dante his laurel wreath. Even were I able, I would not
purchase these at the prices the poet and the warrior paid. So far,
then, as great writers--great poets, especially--are of imagination all
compact--a peculiarity of mental constitution which makes a man go shares
with every one he is brought into contact with; which makes him enter
into Romeo's rapture when he touches Juliet's cheek among cypresses
silvered by the Verona moonlight, and the stupor of the blinded and
pinioned wretch on the scaffold before the bolt is drawn--so far as this
special gift goes, I do not think the great poet,--and by virtue of it he
_is_ a poet,--is likely to be happier than your more ordinary mortal. On
the whole, perhaps, it is the great readers rather than the great writers
who are entirely to be envied. They pluck the fruits, and are spared the
trouble of rearing them. Prometheus filched fire from heaven, and had
for reward the crag of Caucasus, the chain, the vulture; while they for
whom he stole it cook their suppers upon it, stretch out benumbed hands
towards it, and see its light reflected in their children's faces. They
are comfortable: he, roofed by the keen crystals of the stars, groans
above.

Trifles make up the happiness or the misery of mortal life. The majority
of men slip into their graves without having encountered on their way
thither any signal catastrophe or exaltation of fortune or feeling.
Collect a thousand ignited sticks into a heap, and you have a bonfire
which may be seen over three counties. If, during thirty years, the
annoyances connected with shirt-buttons found missing when you are
hurriedly dressing for dinner, were gathered into a mass and endured at
once, it would be misery equal to a public execution. If, from the same
space of time, all the little titillations of a man's vanity were
gathered into one lump of honey and enjoyed at once, the pleasure of
being crowned would not perhaps be much greater. If the equanimity of an
ordinary man be at the mercy of trifles, how much more will the
equanimity of the man of letters, who is usually the most sensitive of
the race, and whose peculiar avocation makes sad work with the fine
tissues of the nerves. Literary composition is, I take it, with the
exception of the crank, in which there is neither hope nor result, the
most exhausting to which a human being