well and naturally, nor is it so generally useful, nor so suited for
all purposes, nor so firmly rooted; nor when alien thought is used up,
can it be immediately replaced by more from the same source, as is
the case with that which springs from soil of one's own. So we find
Sterne, in his _Tristram Shandy_, boldly asserting that _an ounce of a
man's own wit is worth a ton of other people's_.

And in fact the most profound erudition is no more akin to genius than
a collection of dried plants in like Nature, with its constant flow
of new life, ever fresh, ever young, ever changing. There are no two
things more opposed than the childish naïveté of an ancient author and
the learning of his commentator.

_Dilettanti, dilettanti!_ This is the slighting way in which those who
pursue any branch of art or learning for the love and enjoyment of the
thing,--_per il loro diletto_, are spoken of by those who have taken
it up for the sake of gain, attracted solely by the prospect of money.
This contempt of theirs comes from the base belief that no man will
seriously devote himself to a subject, unless he is spurred on to it
by want, hunger, or else some form of greed. The public is of the same
way of thinking; and hence its general respect for professionals and
its distrust of _dilettanti_. But the truth is that the _dilettante_
treats his subject as an end, whereas the professional, pure and
simple, treats it merely as a means. He alone will be really in
earnest about a matter, who has a direct interest therein, takes to it
because he likes it, and pursues it _con amore_. It is these, and not
hirelings, that have always done the greatest work.

In the republic of letters it is as in other republics; favor is shown
to the plain man--he who goes his way in silence and does not set up