PART I. have been needed by an author of equal intellectual ability without any infirmity of sight.

LETTER

VII.

smell.

Although, of the five senses which God has given us, sight and hearing are the most necessary to the intellectual life, it may easily be demonstrated that the lower ones are not without their intellectual uses. Perfect literature and art can only be produced by men who are perfect in all their natural faculties. The great creative intellects have never been ascetics; they have been rightly and healthily sensitive to every kind of pleasure. Taste and The taste of fruits and wines, the perfume of flowers, are a part of the means by which the spirit of Nature influences our most secret thoughts, and conveys to us suggestions, or carries us into states of feeling which have an enormous effect upon our thinking, though the manner in which the effect is produced is one of the deepest mysteries of our mysterious being. When the Caliph Vathek added five wings to the palace of Alkoremmi, on the hill of Pied Horses, for the particular gratification of each of his five senses, he only did on a uselessly large scale what every properly-endowed human being does, when he can afford it, on a small

The five

senses.

Evils of

excess.

one.

You will not suspect me of preaching unlimited indulgence. The very object of this letter is to recommend, for intellectual purposes, the careful preservation of the senses in the freshness of their perfection, and this is altogether incompatible with every species of excess. If you are to see clearly all your life, you must not sacrifice eyesight by overstraining it; and the same law of moderation is the condition of preserving every other faculty. I want you to know the exquisite taste of common dry bread; to enjoy the perfume of a larch wood at a dis

tance; to feel delight when a sea-wave dashes over you.
I want your eye to be so sensitive that it shall discern
the faintest tones of a grey cloud, and yet so strong
that it shall bear to gaze on a white one in the dazzling
glory of sunshine. I would have your hearing sharp
enough to detect the music of the spheres, if it were but
audible, and yet your nervous system robust enough to
endure the shock of the guns on an ironclad. To have
and keep these powers we need a firmness of self-govern-
ment that is rare.

Young men are careless of longevity; but how precious
are added years to the fulness of the intellectual life!
There are lives, such as that of Major Pendennis, which
only diminish in value as they advance-when the man
of fashion is no longer fashionable, and the sportsman
can no longer stride over the ploughed fields. The old
age of the Major Pendennises is assuredly not to be
envied; but how rich is the age of the Humboldts!
I compare the life of the intellectual to a long wedge
of gold-the thin end of it begins at birth, and the depth
and value of it go on indefinitely increasing till at last
comes Death (a personage for whom Nathaniel Haw-
thorne had a peculiar dislike, for his unmannerly habit
of interruption), who stops the auriferous processes.
Oh the mystery of the nameless ones who have died
when the wedge was thin and looked so poor and light!
Oh the happiness of the fortunate old men whose thoughts
went deeper and deeper like a wall that runs out into
the sea!

NOTE. One of the most painful cases of interruption caused by death is that of Cuvier. His paralysis came upon him whilst he was still in full activity, and death prevented him from arranging a great accumulation of scientific material. He said to M. Pasquier, "I had

PART I.

LETTER
VII.

Sensitiveness

and

strength.

Value of longevity.

Cuvier

PART I.
LETTER
VII.

After thirty years

great things still to do; all was ready in my head.
of labour and research, there remained but to write, and now the
hands fail, and carry with them the head." But the most lamentable
instances of this kind of interruption are, from the nature of things,
unknown to us. Even the friends of the deceased cannot estimate
the extent of the loss, for a man's immediate neighbours are generally
the very last persons to become aware of the nature of his powers
or the value of his acquirements.

PART II.

THE MORAL BASIS.

LETTER I.

TO A MORALIST WHO HAD SAID THAT THERE WAS A WANT OF
MORAL FIBRE IN THE INTELLECTUAL, ESPECIALLY IN POETS
AND ARTISTS.

The love of intellectual pleasure-The seeking for a stimulus-Intoxication of poetry and oratory-Other mental intoxicationsThe Bishop of Exeter on drudgery-The labour of composition in poetry-Wordsworth's dread of it-Moore-His trouble with "Lalla Rookh"-His painstaking in preparation--Necessity of patient industry in other arts-John Lewis, Meissonier, Mulready-Drudgery in struggling against technical difficultiesWater-colour painting, etching, oil-painting, fresco, line-engraving-Labour undergone for mere discipline-Moral strength of students-Giordano Bruno.

PART II.

LETTEK

pleasure.

You told me the other day that you believed the inducement to what I called intellectual living to be merely the The love of love of pleasure-pleasure of a higher kind, no doubt, than that which we derive from wine, yet fairly comparable to it. You went on to say that you could not, from the moral point of view, discern any appreciable difference between intoxicating oneself by means of literature or

PART II.

LETTER

I.

Excitement

art and getting tipsy on port wine or brandy; that the reading of poetry, most especially, was clearly self-intoxication-a service of Venus and Bacchus, in which the suggestions of artfully-ordered words were used as substitutes for the harem and the wine-flask. Completing the expression of this idea, you said that the excitement of oratory. produced by oratory was exactly of the same nature as the excitement produced by gin, so that Mr. Bright and M. Gambetta-nay, even a gentleman so respectable as the late Lord Derby-belonged strictly to the same profession as the publicans, being dealers in stimulants, and no more. The habitual student was, in your view, nothing better than the helpless victim of unresisted appetite, to whom intellectual intoxication, having been at first a pleasure, had finally become a necessity. You added. that any rational person who found himself sinking into such a deplorable condition as this, would have recourse to some severe discipline as a preservative-a discipline requiring close attention to common things, and rigorously excluding every variety of thought which could possibly be considered intellectual.

Mental stimulants.

It is strictly true that the three intellectual pursuitsliterature, science, and the fine arts-are all of them strong stimulants, and that men are attracted to them by the stimulus they give. But these occupations are morally much nearer to the common level of other occupations than you suppose. There is no doubt a certain intoxication in poetry and painting; but I have seen a tradesman find a fully equivalent intoxication in an addition of figures showing a delightful balance at his banker's. I have seen a young poet intoxicated with the love of poetry; but I have also seen a young mechanical genius on whom the sight of a locomotive acted exactly