.. (add to which the unlimited freedom
of my communications to colloquial life) may surely be allowed as
evidence that I have not been useless to my generation. But, from
circumstances, the main portion of my harvest is still on the ground,
ripe indeed and only waiting, a few for the sickle, but a large part
only for the _sheaving_ and carting and housing-but from all this
I must turn away and let them rot as they lie, and be as though they
never had been; for I must go and gather black berries and earth-nuts,
or pick mushrooms and gild oak-apples for the palate and fancies of
chance customers. I must abrogate the name of philosopher and poet, and
scribble as fast as I can and with as little thought as I can for
_Blackwood's Magazine_, or as I have been employed for the last
days in writing MS. sermons for lazy clergymen who stipulate that the
composition must be more than respectable.'... This" [_i.e._ to
say this to myself] "I have not yet had courage to do. My soul sickens
and my heart sinks, and thus oscillating between both" [forms of
activity--the production of permanent and of ephemeral work] "I do
neither--neither as it ought to be done to any profitable end.
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