He cannot gain this
later audience unless he has been fearless and thorough-going, and if
he is this he is sure to have to tread on the corns of a great many
of those who live at the same time with him, however little he may
wish to do so. He must not expect these people to help him on, nor
wonder if, for a time, they succeed in snuffing him out. It is part
of the swim that it should be so. Only, as one who believes himself
to have practised what he preaches, let me assure any one who has
money of his own that to write fearlessly for posterity and not get
paid for it is much better fun than I can imagine its being to write
like, we will say, George Eliot and make a lot of money by it.
[1883.]
Dragons
People say that there are neither dragons to be killed nor distressed
maidens to be rescued nowadays. I do not know, but I think I have
dropped across one or two, nor do I feel sure whether the most mortal
wounds have been inflicted by the dragons or by myself.
Trying to Know
There are some things which it is madness not to try to know but
which it is almost as much madness to try to know. Sometimes
publishers, hoping to buy the Holy Ghost with a price, fee a man to
read for them and advise them. This is but as the vain tossing of
insomnia. God will not have any human being know what will sell, nor
when any one is going to die, nor anything about the ultimate, or
even the deeper, springs of growth and action, nor yet such a little
thing as whether it is going to rain to-morrow.
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