Chapter XII
“Finally, you would perhaps like to know my opinion, and decided advice to you, about your intended profession. The question is one as to the advisability of your pursuing or abandoning this path to glory, a thing so poor in usefulness, and so hard and uncertain both to secure and retain, that it may be compared to a shadow which you can neither feel when you hold, nor yet keep from fleeing away. I will tell you then briefly my true opinion. I consider your wonderful genius, noble disposition, and prolific imagination to be the most fatal and lamentable qualities distributed by Fortune to humanity. But since you possess them, you will scarcely be able to avoid their harmful influence. In the present day there is but one possible benefit to be gained from such endowments as yours; viz., the glory that sometimes rewards industry in literature and study. You know those miserable men, who having accidentally lost or injured a limb, try to make as much profit as possible from their misfortune, which they ostentatiously display to excite the pity and consequent liberality of passers-by. In the same way I advise you to endeavour to procure by means of your endowments the only possible advantage, trifling and uncertain though it be. Such qualities as yours are usually regarded as great natural gifts, and are often envied by those who do not possess them. But this feeling is opposed to common sense; as well may the sound man envy those wretched fellows their bodily calamities, or wish to mutilate himself in the same way, for the sake of the miserable profit he might gain. Most men work as long as they can, and enjoy themselves as much as their nature will permit. But great writers are naturally, and by their manner of life, incapable of many human pleasures: voluntarily deprived of many others; often despised by their fellow-men, save perhaps a very few who pursue the same studies; they are destined to lead a life like unto death, and to live only beyond the grave, if even that be granted them.
“But Destiny must be obeyed; duty commands us to follow it courageously and nobly whithersoever it may lead us. Such resignation is especially necessary for you, and those who resemble you.”