Court."

"A life of sorrow and privation, a hard life, indeed, do these
poor devil authors have of it," replied the Baron; "and then at last
must get them to the work-house, or creep away into some hospital to
die."

"After all," said Flemming with a sigh, "poverty is not a
vice."

"But something worse," interrupted the Baron; "as Dufresny said,
when he married his laundress, because he could not pay her bill.
Hewas the author, as you know, of the opera of Lot; at whose
representation the great pun was made;--I say the great pun, as we
say the great ton of Heidelberg. As one of the performers was
singing the line, `L'amour a vaincu Loth,' (vingt culottes,) a voice
from the pit cried out, `Qu'il en donne une a l'auteur!'"

Flemming laughed at the unseasonable jest; and then, after a
short pause, continued;

"And yet, if you look closely at the causes of these calamities
of authors, you will find, that many of them spring from false and
exaggerated ideas of poetry and the poetic character; and from
disdain of common sense, upon which all character, worth having, is
founded. This comes from keeping aloof from the world, apart from
our fellow-men; disdainful of society, as frivolous. By too much
sitting still the body becomes unhealthy; and soon the mind. This is
nature's law. She will never see her children wronged. If the mind,
which rules the body, ever forgets itself so far as to trample upon