“I’m surprised Coleridge should say that.”
“Well, Harry, he was one of the many people who preach better than they practise. Hear me to the end—‘Three hours of leisure, unalloyed by any alien anxiety, and looked forward to with delight as a change and recreation, will suffice to realize in literature a larger product of what is truly genial than weeks of compulsion.’”
“Ay, I never write but when the fit is on me,” murmured Harry.
“‘Money and immediate reputation form only an arbitrary and accidental end of literary labour. The hope of them may often prove a stimulant to industry, but the necessity of acquiring them will, in all works of genius, convert a stimulant into a narcotic.’
“It did in Sir Walter Scott’s case,” I observed.
“‘Motives, by excess, reverse their very nature; and, instead of exciting, stun and stupify the mind. For it is one contradistinction of genius from talent, that its predominant end is always comprised in the means; and this is one of the many points of likeness between genius and virtue.’”
“Then I’ve a genius,” cried Harry, laughing, “for I always write verses for the pleasure of writing, and not for money!”
“Stop, my dear boy, hear him out—‘My dear young friend, I would say to every one who feels the genial power working within him, suppose yourself established in any honourable occupation. From the counting-house, the law-courts, or from visiting your last patient, you return at evening to your family, prepared for its social enjoyments; with the very countenances of your wife and children brightened by the knowledge that, as far as they are concerned, you have satisfied the demands of the day. Then, when you retire into your study—’”
“I wish I had one!” sighed Harry.
“‘You revisit in your books so many venerable friends with whom you can converse. But why should I say retire? The habits of active life will tend to give you such self-command that the presence of your family will be no interruption. Nay, the social silence, or undisturbing voices of a wife or sister, will be like a restorative atmosphere, or soft music, which moulds a dream without becoming its object.’”