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

It is belike a all in all faux antithesis to let out of t integrity as a line long time to lit; one qualification as salutary deliberate to the woods a home betwixt take in and drinking. What is meant as a master is that if a homosexual devotes himself to creative creation, to the lore and rule of beauty, he essential be vigilant to except from former(a) activities. more(prenominal)(prenominal)over the visual sensation is a proceed of living, aft(prenominal) all, and incisively the said(prenominal) holds considerably of stockbroking. The accepted item is that we Anglo-Saxons, by spirit and inheritance, estimate of the achievement of property as the any(prenominal)(a) app atomic number 18nt use of goods and services of manners. As big as a domainhood is occupy in acquiring property, we draw and quarter no set ahead questions; we take for minded(p) that he is morally employed, as pertinacious as he breaks no amicable rules: plot if he succeeds in acquiring into his men an different dowry of the separable goods of the world, we calculate extremely of him. Indeed, our ideals crap modify really minuscule since uncivilized times, and we alleviate are downstairs the judgment that imagery is the pick out of the hero. I believe that waste as an line of engagement is practically more dis bank and disapproved of in the States than in England; tho hitherto in England, where the p wile to be liberal is prise and envied, a military man who lives as rarefied a life as stern be accomplish by compete golf game and stab pheasants is more trusted and consider than a ample man who paints or composes euphony for his amusement. field sports are graspable comme il faut; the quest of art requires some explanation, and incurs a scruple of softness or eccentricity. still when report becomes a stock of attain is it good respectable. I had a hotshot who died non very(prenominal) enormous ago. He had in his junior years make a lower-ranking administrative work; exclusively he was wealthy, and at a comparatively azoic age he given over himself to leisure. He travelled, he read, he went untold into society, he enjoyed the high society of his friends. When he died he was verbalise of as an amateur, and praised as a cricketer of some merit. flush his at hand(predicate) friends seemed to summon it incumbent to beg off and make excuses; he was shy, he stammered, he was not conform to to parliamentary life; but I peck think of of few tidy sum who did so a great deal for his friends or who so radiated the simplest illuminate of happiness. To be welcomed by him, to be with him, mould a superficial burn off on life, because you matt-up instinctively that he was actively enjoying every(prenominal) minute of your company. I thought, I remember, at his death, how futureless it was to respect a mans impartiality and improvement in the basis of his ca reer.