“Oh immensely! Did he make that line?”
“Ah, Harry, you betray your ignorance of your favourite craft! No; the line is Waller’s.”
Harry blushed, and said, “You laid a trap for me.”
“Not intentionally, I assure you. But my transition was rather abrupt. I was going to direct your attention to a favourite passage of mine in Coleridge’s works.”
“Pray do,” said Harry, rising alertly and going to the book-case.
“Bring me the second of those two small volumes, lettered ‘Biographia Literaria.’”
“Oh, it’s in prose!” said Harry, in disappointment.
“Prose by a poet, however—which, by-the-way, was the name of a pretty, though not very shining, little work by James Montgomery, that has now dropped out of sight. Here is the passage: it begins—‘Never pursue literature as a trade. With one exception’ (I think he means Southey) ‘I have never known an individual healthy or happy without some regular employment which does not depend on the will of the moment—’”
“Bah!” muttered Harry.
“‘But can be carried on so far mechanically that an average quantum of health, spirit, and intellectual exertion are requisite for its faithful discharge.’”