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talent of the world. Men that break loose from the professions, who
stray from the beaten tracks of life, take refuge in literature. In it
are to be found doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and the motley nation of
Bohemians. Any one possessed of a nimble brain, a quire of paper, a
steel-pen and ink-bottle, can start business. Any one who chooses may
enter the lists, and no questions are asked concerning his antecedents.
The battle is won by sheer strength of brain. From all this it comes
that the man of letters has usually a history of his own: his
individuality is more pronounced than the individuality of other men; he
has been knocked about by passion and circumstance. All his life he has
had a dislike for iron rules and common-place maxims. There is something
of the gipsy in his nature. He is to some extent eccentric, and he
indulges his eccentricity. And the misfortunes of men of letters--the
vulgar and patent misfortunes, I mean--arise mainly from the want of
harmony between their impulsiveness and volatility, and the staid
unmercurial world with which they are brought into conflict. They are
unconventional in a world of conventions; they are fanciful, and are
constantly misunderstood in prosaic relations. They are wise enough in
their books, for there they are sovereigns, and can shape everything to
their own likings; out of their books, they are not unfrequently
extremely foolish, for they exist then in the territory of an alien
power, and are constantly knocking their heads against existing orders of
things. Men of letters take prosaic men out of themselves; but they are
weak where the prosaic men are strong. They have their own way in the
world of ideas, prosaic men in the world of facts. From his practical
errors the writer learns something, if not always humility and amendment.
A memorial flower grows on every spot where he has come to grief; and the
chasm he cannot over-leap he bridges with a rainbow.

But the man of letters has not only to live, he has to develop himself;
and his earning of money and his intellectual development should proceed
simultaneously and in proportionate degrees. Herein lies the main
difficulty of the literary life. Out of his thought the man must bring
fire, food, clothing; and fire, food, clothing must in their turns
subserve thought. It is necessary, for the proper conduct of such a
life, that while the balance at the banker's increases, intellectual
resource should