“Apollo’s branch that might have grown full straight,”

may have the worm of a vulgar misery gnawing at its roots.  The heat of inspiration may be subtracted from the household fire; and those who sit by it may be the colder in consequence.  A man may put all his good things in his books, and leave none for his life, just as a man may expend his fortune on a splendid dress, and carry a pang of hunger beneath it.

There are few less exhilarating books than the biographies of men of letters, and of artists generally; and this arises from the pictures of comparative defeat which, in almost every instance, such books contain.  In these books we see failure more or less,—­seldom clear, victorious effort.  If the art is exquisite, the marble is flawed; if the marble is pure, there is defect in art.  There is always something lacking in the poem; there is always irremediable defect in the picture.  In the biography we see persistent, passionate effort, and almost constant repulse.  If, on the whole, victory is gained, one wing of the army has been thrown into confusion.  In the life of a successful farmer, for instance, one feels nothing of this kind; his year flows on harmoniously, fortunately; through ploughing, seed-time, growth of grain, the yellowing of it beneath meek autumn suns and big autumn moons, the cutting of it down, riotous harvest-home, final sale, and large balance at the banker’s.  From the point of view of almost unvarying success the farmer’s life becomes beautiful, poetic.  Everything is an aid and help to him.  Nature puts her shoulder to his wheel.  He takes the winds, the clouds, the sunbeams, the rolling stars into partnership, and, asking no dividend, they let him retain the entire profits.  As a rule, the lives of men of letters do not flow on in this successful way.  In their case there is always either defect in the soil or defect in the husbandry.  Like the Old Guard at Waterloo, they are fighting bravely on a lost field.  In literary biography there is always an element of tragedy, and the love we bear the dead is mingled with pity.  Of course the life of a man of letters is more perilous than the life of a farmer; more perilous than almost any other kind of life which it is given a human being to conduct.  It is more difficult to obtain the mastery over spiritual ways and means than over material ones, and he must command both.  Properly to conduct his life he must not only take large crops off his fields, he must also leave in his fields the capacity of producing large crops.  It is easy to drive in your chariot two horses of one breed; not so easy when the one is of terrestrial stock, the other of celestial; in every respect different—­in colour, temper, and pace.