think, that if his work be worthy it will have honour, and, if not,
that 'Sparta must have nobler sons than he'? I am writing nothing
applicable, I see, to anything in question, but when one falls into a
favourite train of thought, one indulges oneself in thinking on. I
began in thinking and wondering what sort of artistic constitution you
had, being determined, as you may observe (with a sarcastic smile at
the impertinence), to set about knowing as much as possible of you
immediately. Then you spoke of your 'gentle audience' (_you began_),
and I, who know that you have not one but many enthusiastic
admirers--the 'fit and few' in the intense meaning--yet not the
_diffused_ fame which will come to you presently, wrote on, down the
margin of the subject, till I parted from it altogether. But, after
all, we are on the proper matter of sympathy. And after all, and after
all that has been said and mused upon the 'natural ills,' the anxiety,
and wearing out experienced by the true artist,--is not the _good_
immeasurably greater than the _evil_? Is it not great good, and great
joy? For my part, I wonder sometimes--I surprise myself wondering--how
without such an object and purpose of life, people find it worth while
to live at all. And, for happiness--why, my only idea of happiness, as
far as my personal enjoyment is concerned, (but I have been
straightened in some respects and in comparison with the majority of
livers!) lies deep in poetry and its associations. And then, the
escape from pangs of heart and bodily weakness--when you throw off
_yourself_--what you feel to be _yourself_--into another atmosphere
and into other relations where your life may spread its wings out new,
and gather on every separate plume a brightness from the sun of the
sun! Is it possible that imaginative writers should be so fond of
depreciating and lamenting over their own destiny? Possible,
certainly--but reasonable, not at all--and grateful, less than
anything!