And its compensations.
But there are compensations. The creative artist is higher in the scale of existence than the man, as the man is higher than the beatified oyster for whose condition, as Aristotle pointed out, few would be tempted to barter the misery of human existence. The animal has consciousness, man self-consciousness, and the artist over-consciousness. Over-consciousness may be a curse, but, like the primitive curse—labour—there are many who would welcome it!
FOOTNOTES:
[1]i.e., Gambled at Faro.
[2]See the writer’s Life of David Gray.
[3]I have given a detailed account of Peacock in my “Look Round Literature.”
[4]O those “Tendencies of one’s Time”! O those dismal Phantoms, conjured up by the blatant Book-taster and the Indolent Reviewer! How many a poor Soul, that would fain have been honest, have they bewildered into the Slough of Despond and the Bog of Beautiful Ideas!—R.B.