Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

142 Ordered South
picture, the other was working to be able to
enjoy the picture. An inherited aptitude
will have been diligently improved in either
case ; only the one man has made for himself
a fortune, and the other has made for himself
a living spirit. It is a fair occasion for self-
complacency, I repeat, when the event shows
a man to have chosen the better part, and
laid out his life more wisely, in the long run,
than those who have credit for most wisdom.
And yet even this is not a good unmixed ;
and like all other possessions, although in a
less degree, the possession of a brain that
has been thus improved and cultivated, and
made into the prime organ of a man's enjoy-
ment, brings with it certain inevitable cares
and disappointments. The happiness of such
an one comes to depend greatly upon those
fine shades of sensation that heighten and
harmonise the coarser elements of beauty.
And thus a degree of nervous prostration,
that to other men would be hardly disagreeable,
is enough to overthrow for him the whole
fabric of his life, to take, except at rare