Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit! And in any case nothing
can be done by blinking the truth. I shall need all my courage and
all my resolution to meet it, and I shall meet it as manfully as I
can. Yet the thought of meeting it thus has no inspiration in it.
My only desire is that the frozen mind may melt at the touch of
some genial ray, and that the buds may prick and unfold upon the
shrunken bough.
January 15, 1889.
One of the miseries of my present situation is that it is all so
intangible, and to the outsider so incomprehensible. There is no
particular reason why I should write. I do not need the money; I
believe I do not desire fame. Let me try to be perfectly frank
about this; I do not at all desire the tangible results of fame,
invitations to banquets, requests to deliver lectures, the
acquaintance of notable people, laudatory reviews. I like a quiet
life; I do not want monstrari digito, as Horace says. I have had a
taste of all of these things, and they do not amuse me, though I
confess that I thought they would. I feel in this rather as
Tennyson felt--that I dislike contemptuous criticism, and do not
value praise--except the praise of a very few, the masters of the
craft.
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