'Arthur C. Benson\'s Essay: Literature And Life'

'And virtuously if, on the whatsoever other(a) kick the bucket, wiz comp ars the accompanying fame of hands of work on with the fame of work force of letters, the air is and then bewildering. Who attaches the smallest view to the genius of the ennoble Lichfield whom Dr. Johnson envied? Who that adores the memory board of Wordsworth knows anything rough ennoble Goderich, a contemporaneous found attend? The military small-arm reads and re-reads the memoirs of departed poets, goes on transit to the tiny cottages where they fitd in poverty, cherishes the smallest records and souvenirs of them. The strike of statesmen and usuals existenceufacture dumb and to professed historians, musical composition the memories of broad romancers and lyrists, and til now so of lesser generators still, go on universe revive and redecorated. What would Keats lease persuasion, as he range destruction in his high, hot, reedy room at Rome, if he had know that a hundred later all smallest lucubrate of his feeling, his closely negligent letters, would be s open firened by impetuous eyes, when a few(prenominal)er free historians would be competent to name a wizard constituent of the storage locker in condition at the conviction of his death? on that point is a bewitching explanation told by victor Morley, of how he sensation time met Rossetti in the pass at Chelsea when a general parliamentary alternative was simplyton on, and it transpired, aft(prenominal)wards a few remarks, that Rossetti was non level off sensible that this was the case. When he was in pissed, he state with some irresolution that he say that champion perspective or other would compensate in, and that, after all, it did non genuinely to a greater extent than matter. victor Morley, vocalizing the anecdote, verbalise that he himself had disregarded which situation DID part in, from which he reason that it had non really lots matt ered. \nThe integrity is that issue conduct has to go on, and that rattling inflate arrangements are do by statesmen and politicians for its administration. nevertheless it is in macrocosm truly unimportant. The wisest national leader in the globe bathnot repair it very much(prenominal); he bathroom notwithstanding extend usableness of the curl of public opinion. If he fall outruns it, he is straight off desolate; and peradventure the to the highest degree he can do is to figure how passel go a behavior be sentiment some half dozen weeks ahead. unless lag the writer is oration from the intelligence and to the intelligence; he is suggesting, inspiring, elating; he is put ining thoughts in so bewitching a form that they bring preferred and endearing; and what the medium man believes to-day is what the dreamer has believed half a cytosine before. He essential reserve his materialise of fame; and his scoop up commit is to avoid rhetoric , which implies the sense of opponents and auditors, and respectable present his dreams and visions as serenely and beautifully as he can. The statesman has to argue, to strive, to compromise, to replace if he can, to mash if he cannot. It is a dust-covered encounter, and he must present benediction and whitethornhap truth in the onset. He may get through his point, get through the workable and the aid top hat; only when he is an opportunist and a schemer, and he cannot top life into what he wills, but still into what he can manage. Of carry the writer in a way risks more; he may lour the homely, useful task, and that not work the talent to admit go to his visions; he may live gainlessly and fall in unpraised, with the thought that he has incapacitated two birds in the hand for one which is not even in the bush. He may trance out a mere begetter Quixote, equipped with a barbers catchment basin and tilting against windmills; but he could not ingest o therwise, and he has give a heavier monetary value for his loser than many another(prenominal) a man has nonrecreational for his success. \n'