“Sir, this will not do. A man has the right to make himself as miserable as he pleases, but he has no right to make others miserable. Dr. Goldsmith, you have ill-repaid the friendship which Miss Horneck and her family have extended to you.”
“I have done nothing for which my conscience reproaches me, Dr. Johnson. What, sir, if I have ventured to love that lady whose name had better remain unspoken by either of us—what if I do love her? Where is the indignity that I do either to her or to the sentiment of friendship? Does one offer an indignity to friendship by loving?”
“My poor friend, you are laying up a future of misery for yourself—yes, and for her too; for she has a kind heart, and if she should come to know—and, indeed, I think she must—that she has been the cause, even though the unwilling cause, of suffering on the part of another, she will not be free from unhappiness.”
“She need not know, she need not know. I have been a bearer of burdens all my life. I will assume without repining this new burden.”
“Nay, sir, if I know your character—and I believe I have known it for some years—you will cast that burden away from you. Life, my dear friend, you and I have found to be not a meadow wherein to sport, but a battle field. We have been in the struggle, you and I, and we have not come out of it unscathed. Come, sir, face boldly this new enemy, and put it to flight before it prove your ruin.”
“Enemy, you call it, sir? You call that which gives everything there is of beauty—everything there is of sweetness—in the life of man—you call it our enemy?”
“I call it your enemy, Goldsmith.”
“Why mine only? What is there about me that makes me different from other men? Why should a poet be looked upon as one who is shut out for evermore from all the tenderness, all the grace of life, when he has proved to the world that he is most capable of all mankind of appreciating tenderness and grace? What trick of nature is this? What paradox for men to vex their souls over? Is the poet to stand aloof from men, evermore looking on happiness through another man's eyes? If you answer 'yes,' then I say that men who are not poets should go down on their knees and thank Heaven that they are not poets. Happy it is for mankind that Heaven has laid on few men the curse of being poets. For myself, I feel that I would rather be a man for an hour than a poet for all time.”
“Come, sir, let us not waste our time railing against Heaven. Let us look at this matter as it stands at present. You have been unfortunate enough to conceive a passion for a lady whose family could never be brought to think of you seriously as a lover. You have been foolish enough to regard their kindness to you—their acceptance of you as a friend—as encouragement in your mad aspirations.”
“You have no right to speak so authoritatively, sir.”