To this lucid and good-tempered piece of philosophy, Tom could only answer, “You know I am no poet, and I cannot argue with you but, 'pon my soul, I have known, and do know, some uncommon good fellows in the world.”
“You're wrong, you're wrong, my unsuspecting friend. 'T is a bad world, and no place for susceptible minds. Jealousy pursues talent like its shadow—superiority alone wins for you the hatred of inferior men. For instance, why am I here? The editor of my paper will not allow my articles always to appear;—prevents their insertion, lest the effect they would make would cause inquiry, and tend to my distinction; and the consequence is, that the paper I came to uphold in Dublin is deprived of my articles, and I don't get paid; while I see inferior men, without asking for it, loaded with favour; they are abroad in affluence, and I in captivity and poverty. But one comfort is, even in disgrace I can write, and they shall get a slashing.”
Thus spoke the calm philosopher, who gave Tom a lecture on patience.
Tom was no great conjuror; but at that moment, like Audrey, “he thanked the gods he was not poetical.” If there be any one thing more than another to make an “every-day man” content with his average lot, it is the exhibition of ambitious inferiority, striving for distinction it can never attain; just given sufficient perception to desire the glory of success, without power to measure the strength that can achieve it; like some poor fly, which beats its head against a pane of glass, seeing the sunshine beyond, but incapable of perceiving the subtle medium which intervenes—too delicate for its limited sense to comprehend, but too strong for its limited power to pass. But though Tom felt satisfaction at that moment, he had too good feeling to wound the self-love of the vain creature before him; so, instead of speaking what he thought, viz., “What business have you to attempt literature, you conceited fool?” he tried to wean him civilly from his folly by saying, “Then come back to the country, James; if you find jealous rivals here, you know you were always admired there.”
“No, sir,” said James; “even there my merit was unacknowledged.”
“No! no!” said Tom.
“Well, underrated, at least. Even there, that Edward O'Connor, somehow or other, I never could tell why—I never saw his great talents—but somehow or other, people got it into their heads that he was clever.”
“I tell you what it is,” said Tom, earnestly, “Ned-of-the-Hill has got into a better place than people's heads—he has got into their hearts!”
“There it is!” exclaimed James, indignantly. “You have caught up the cuckoo-cry—the heart! Why, sir, what merit is there in writing about feelings which any common labourer can comprehend? There's no poetry in that; true poetry lies in a higher sphere, where you have difficulty in following the flight of the poet, and possibly may not be fortunate enough to understand him—that's poetry, sir.”
“I told you I am no poet,” said Tom; “but all I know is, I have felt my heart warm to some of Edward's songs, and, by jingo, I have seen the women's eyes glisten, and their cheeks flush or grow pale, as they have heard them—and that's poetry enough for me.”