A complete man is so uncommon that when he appears he is looked upon with
suspicion, as if there must be something wrong about him. If a man is
content to deal vigorously with affairs, and leave art, religion, and
science to the enjoyment or refreshment or enlightenment of others, he is
accepted as strong, sounds and wise; but let him add to practical sagacity
a love of poetry and some skill in the practice of it; let him be not only
honest and trustworthy, but genuinely religious; let him be not only
keenly observant and exact in his estimate of trade influences and
movements, but devoted to the study of some science, and there goes abroad
the impression that he is superficial. It is written, apparently, in the
modern, and especially in the American, consciousness, that a man can do
but one thing well; if he attempts more than one thing, he betrays the
weakness of versatility. If this view of life is sound, man is born to
imperfect development and must not struggle with fate. He may have natural
aptitudes of many kinds; he may have a passionate desire to try three or
four different instruments; he may have a force of vitality which is equal
to the demands of several vocations or avocations; but he must disregard
the most powerful impulses of his nature; he must select one tool, and
with that tool he must do all the work appointed to him.

If he is a man of business, he must turn a deaf ear to the voices of art;
if he writes prose, he must not permit himself the delight of writing
verse; if he uses the pen, he must not use the voice. If he ventures to
employ two languages for his thought, to pour his energy into two
channels, the awful judgment of superficiality falls on him like a decree
of fate.

So fixed has become the habit of confusing the use of manifold gifts with
mere dexterity that men of quality and power often question the promptings