he
press, who earn a little bitter bread by the condemnation of trash which
they have not read, and the praise of excellence which they cannot
understand.

And observe that this seems almost the necessary end at least of
writers. "Les Blancs et les Bleus" (for instance) is of an order of
merit very different from "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne"; and if any
gentleman can bear to spy upon the nakedness of "Castle Dangerous," his
name I think is Ham: let it be enough for the rest of us to read of it
(not without tears) in the pages of Lockhart. Thus in old age, when
occupation and comfort are most needful, the writer must lay aside at
once his pastime and his breadwinner. The painter indeed, if he succeed
at all in engaging the attention of the public, gains great sums and can
stand to his easel until a great age without dishonourable failure. The
writer has the double misfortune to be ill-paid while he can work, and
to be incapable of working when he is old. It is thus a way of life
which conducts directly to a false position.

For the writer (in spite of notorious examples to the contrary) must
look to be ill-paid. Tennyson and Montepin make handsome livelihoods;
but we cannot all hope to be Tennyson, and we do not all perhaps desire
to be Montepin. If you adopt an art to be your trade, weed your mind at
the outset of all desire of money. What you may decently expect, if you
have some talent and much industry, is such an income as a clerk will
earn with a tenth or perhaps a twentieth of your nervous output. Nor
have you the right to look for more; in the wages of the life, not in
the wages of the trade, lies your reward; the work is here the wages. It
will be seen I have little sympathy with the common lamentations of the
artist class. Perhaps they do not remember the hire of the field
labourer; or do they think no parallel will lie? Perhaps they have never
observed what is the retiring allowance of a field officer; or do they
suppose their contributions to the arts of pleasing more important than
the services of a colonel? Perhaps they forget on how little Millet was
content to live; or do they think, because they have less genius, they
stand excused from the display of equal virtues? But upon one point
there should be no dubiety: if a man be not frugal, he has no business
in the arts. If he be not frugal, he steers directly for that last
tragic scene of _le vieux saltimbanque_; if he be not frugal, he will
find it hard to