'Ah! did you stab at Shelley's heart
With silly sneer and cruel lie?
And Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Keats,
To murder did you nobly try?

You failed, 'tis true; but what of that?
The world remembers still your name--
'Tis fame, _for you_, to be the cur
That barks behind the heels of Fame.'

Any one who is fortunate enough to have enemies will know that all this
is far from being fanciful. If one's enemies have any other _raison
d'être_ beyond the fact of their being our enemies--what is it? They are
neither beautiful nor clever, wise nor good, famous nor, indeed,
passably distinguished. Were they any of these, they would not have
taken to so humble a means of getting their living. Instead of being our
enemies, they could then have afforded to employ enemies on their own
account.

Who, indeed, are our enemies? Broadly speaking, they are all those
people who lack what we possess.

If you are rich, every poor man is necessarily your enemy. If you are
beautiful, the great democracy of the plain and ugly will mock you in
the streets. It will be the same with everything you possess. The
brainless will never forgive you for possessing brains, the weak will
hate you for your strength, and the evil for your good heart. If you can
write, all the bad writers are at once your foes. If you can paint, the
bad painters will talk you down. But more than any talent or charm you
may possess, the pearl of price for which you will be most bitterly