own thoughts; here I ripen for the grave.




ON THE WRITING OF ESSAYS

I have already described my environments and my mode of life, and out
of both I contrive to extract a very tolerable amount of satisfaction.
Love in a cottage, with a broken window to let in the rain, is not my
idea of comfort; no more is Dignity, walking forth richly clad, to whom
every head uncovers, every knee grows supple. Bruin in winter-time
fondly sucking his own paws, loses flesh; and love, feeding upon
itself, dies of inanition. Take the candle of death in your hand, and
walk through the stately galleries of the world, and their splendid
furniture and array are as the tinsel armour and pasteboard goblets of
a penny theatre; fame is but an inscription on a grave, and glory the
melancholy blazon on a coffin lid. We argue fiercely about happiness.
One insists that she is found in the cottage which the hawthorn shades.
Another that she is a lady of fashion, and treads on cloth of gold.
Wisdom, listening to both, shakes a white head, and considers that "a
good deal may be said on both sides."

There is a wise saying to the effect that "a man can eat no more than
he can hold." Every man gets about the same satisfaction out of life.
Mr. Suddlechops, the barber of Seven Dials, is as happy as Alexander at
the head of his legions. The business of the one is to depopulate
kingdoms, the business of the other to reap beards seven days old; but
their relative positions do not affect the question. The one works
with razors and soap-lather the other with battle-cries and