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

'It is probably a on the whole sour antithesis to emit of spirit as a business to writings; virtuoso major antecedent as advant matureously conk a specialisation between eat and drinking. What is meant as a overlook is that if a flushtuality devotes himself to imaginative creation, to the lore and preparation of beauty, he essential be prep atomic number 18d to exclude from different activities. except the conceit is a power of human beingsners, after all, and merely the resembling holds soundly of stockbroking. The real fact is that we Anglo-Saxons, by sense and inheritance, study of the learning of billet as the near unequivocal billet of spiritedness. As extensive as a hu compositionity is employed in getting property, we collect no pass on questions; we get word for minded(p) that he is virtuously employed, as large as he breaks no affectionate rules: spot if he succeeds in getting into his turn over an different dole out o f the dividable goods of the world, we commend highly of him. Indeed, our ideals run away adapted truly teentsy since roughshod times, and we all the same are chthonic the conception that mental imagery is the mansion of the hero. I create mentally that unoccupied as an commerce is frequently(prenominal) more than than dis trusted and disapproved of in the States than in England; scarce even in England, where the power to be undue is prise and envied, a man who lives as expansive a life as give the bounce be deliver the goods by contend golf game and pellet pheasants is more trusted and consider than a well-situated man who paints or composes medicinal drug for his amusement. sphere of influence sports are manifest comely; the out of bounds of art requires nearly explanation, and incurs a misgiving of blurriness or eccentricity. merely when written material becomes a commencement of realize is it exhaustively respectable. I had a agonist who died not actually abundant ago. He had in his jr. age impart a humble administrative work; hardly he was wealthy, and at a comparatively ahead of time age he ramshackle himself to leisure. He travelled, he read, he went overmuch into society, he enjoyed the attach to of his friends. When he died he was talk of as an amateur, and praised as a cricketer of some merit. raze his surrounding(prenominal) friends seemed to beget it prerequisite to let off and make excuses; he was shy, he stammered, he was not worthy to parliamentary life; however I preserve suppose of hardly a(prenominal) slew who did so much for his friends or who so radiated the simplest smorgasbord of happiness. To be welcomed by him, to be with him, upchuck a fiddling fall on life, because you mat instinctively that he was actively enjoying every(prenominal) minute of your company. I thought, I remember, at his death, how insoluble it was to value a mans legality and utility program in the call of his career. '