Saturday, September 08, 2012
Happy Mortal!
Norman Douglas (1868-1952), South Wind (1917; rpt. London: Secker & Warburg, 1947), pp. 355-356 (Chapter XLII):
Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885), The Poor Poet
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He pictured to himself the interior. Bare walls and floorings, a print or two, a few trunks and packing cases utilized as seats, a bookshelf, a plain table littered with manuscripts; somewhere, in that further room, a camp bedstead whereon this man of single aim and purpose, this monk of literature, was even then at rest like all sensible folks, and dreaming—dreaming, presumably, of foot-notes. Happy mortal! Free from all superfluities and encumbrances of the flesh! Enviable mortal! He reduced earthly existence to its simplest and most effective terms; he owed no man anything; he kept alive, on a miserable income, the sacred flame of enthusiasm.
