I am like the monkey
of whom Frank Buckland wrote, who got into the kettle when the
water was lukewarm, and found the outer air so cold whenever he
attempted to leave it, that he was eventually very nearly boiled
alive. The fact that my occupation is gone leaves life hollow to
the core. Perhaps a wise man would content himself with composing
some placid literary essays, selecting some lesser figure in the
world of letters, collecting gossip, and what are called "side-
lights," about him, visiting his birthplace and early haunts,
criticising his writings. That would be a harmless way of filling
the time. But any one who has ever tried creative work gets filled
with a nauseating disgust for making books out of other people's
writings, and constructing a kind of resurrection-pie out of the
shreds. Moreover I know nothing except literature; I could only
write a literary biography; and it has always seemed to me a
painful irony that men who have put into their writings what other
people put into deeds and acts should be the very people whose
lives are sedulously written and rewritten, generation after
generation. The instinct is natural enough. The vivid memories of
statesmen and generals fade; but as long as we have the fascinating
and adorable reveries of great spirits, we are consumed with a
desire to reconstruct their surroundings, that we may learn where
they found their inspiration.
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