“ ‘Vivite felices, quibus est fortuna peracta! Vobis parta quies, nobis maris æquor arandum.’
“We embarked at Bayonne on board a ship setting sail for the British Isles, where I afterwards passed two years with my master in a Scottish { 314} castle. This gifted man was to me a most interesting study; at once poet and misanthrope, his example sealed my fate for life, thoroughly curing me of the monomania which had forced me into seclusion. I had at the same time contracted a depraved habit of composing verses or rhymes, which I could not shake off, never fully realising that only a few gifted poets have been enabled to win fame by placing their sentiments on record. Like most half-fledged misunderstood poets, I suffered acutely, being no favourite either of the Muses or the public. Inspiration would not come, in spite of great agony and superbearish effort. It was in vain I lay on my back or rolled on my belly—rhythm, rhyme, and romance proved my severest taskmasters. I walked fast in the dark lanes of the garden, as Pope used to do, scaring the birds by the deep growlings that escaped my breast.
“Who would believe it? My poetic breakdown stirred the worst passions of my nature, and drove me to hate every successful songster—to hate past, present, and future—to hate every one and everything saving my own soured self.
“Since Solomon’s time many books have been written, but the book which shall faithfully picture the miseries of a literary life has yet to be penned. My master himself, with his acknowledged genius and inordinate—— I must not retail his troubles, as most worthy recipients of his kindness might be tempted to do. I shall content myself, as a faithful servant, by merely raising the corner of the veil. The Muses were his true loves, to whom he was fain to prove unfaithful when he sought the joys of domestic life, to lay the storms of his heart in the haven of home. But it was all too late, the experiment failed, and he fled to end his accumulated woes on a foreign shore.
“Here was a lofty example for me, an unfortunate poetaster, proving as it did that poetic genius, just in proportion to its intensity, dries up the font of social happiness and plays fearful havoc with common sense.