The occupations, the amusements, and the ardour of the man of genius are at discord with the artificial habits of life:  in the vortexes of business, or the world of pleasure, crowds of human beings are only treading in one another’s steps.  The pleasures and the sorrows of this active multitude are not his, while his are not obvious to them; and his favourite occupations strengthen his peculiarities, and increase his sensibility.  Genius in society is often in a state of suffering.  Professional characters, who are themselves so often literary, yielding to their predominant interests, conform to that assumed urbanity which levels them with ordinary minds; but the man of genius cannot leave himself behind in the cabinet he quits; the train of his thoughts is not stopped at will, and in the range of conversation the habits of his mind will prevail:  the poet will sometimes muse till he modulates a verse; the artist is sketching what a moment presents, and a moment changes; the philosophical historian is suddenly absorbed by a new combination of thought, and, placing his hands over his eyes, is thrown back into the Middle Ages.  Thus it happens that an excited imagination, a high-toned feeling, a wandering reverie, a restlessness of temper, are perpetually carrying the man of genius out of the processional line of the mere conversationists.  Like all solitary beings, he is much too sentient, and prepares for defence even at a random touch or a chance hit.  His generalising views take things only in masses, while in his rapid emotions he interrogates, and doubts, and is caustic; in a word, he thinks he converses while he is at his studies.  Sometimes, apparently a complacent listener, we are mortified by detecting the absent man:  now he appears humbled and spiritless, ruminating over some failure which probably may be only known to himself; and now haughty and hardy for a triumph he has obtained, which yet remains a secret to the world.  No man is so apt to indulge the extremes of the most opposite feelings:  he is sometimes insolent, and sometimes querulous; now the soul of tenderness and tranquillity,—­then stung by jealousy, or writhing in aversion!  A fever shakes his spirit; a fever which has sometimes generated a disease, and has even produced a slight perturbation of the faculties.[A] In one of those manuscript notes by Lord BYRON on this work, which I have wished to preserve, I find his lordship observing on the feelings of genius, that “the depreciation of the lowest of mankind is more painful than the applause of the highest is pleasing.”  Such is the confession of genius, and such its liability to hourly pain.