experience stands related to it, it is the net result of his existence
up to a certain time, it is the cistern into which he pours his
accumulated life. Emboldened by success, he mistakes the cistern for a
fountain, and instantly taps his brain again. The second production,
as compared with the first, costs but half the pains and attains but
a quarter part of the merit; a little more of fluency and facility
perhaps,--but the vigor, the wealth, the originality, the head of water,
in short, are wanting. One would think that almost any intelligent man
might write one good thing in a lifetime, by reserving himself long
enough: it is the effort after quantity which proves destructive. The
greatest man has passed his zenith, when he once begins to cheapen
his style of work and sink into a book-maker: after that, though the
newspapers may never hint at it, nor his admirers own it, the decline of
his career is begun.

Yet the author is not alone to blame for this, but also the world which
first tempts and then reproves him. Goethe says, that, if a person once
does a good thing, society forms a league to prevent his doing another.
His seclusion is gone, and therefore his unconsciousness and his
leisure; luxuries tempt him from his frugality, and soon he must toil
for luxuries; then, because he has done one thing well, he is urged
to squander himself and do a thousand things badly. In this country
especially, if one can learn languages, he must go to Congress; if he
can argue a case, he must become agent of a factory: out of this comes
a variety of training which is very valuable, but a wise man must
have strength to call in his resources before middle-life, prune off
divergent activities, and concentrate himself on the main work, be it
what it may. It is shameful to see the indeterminate lives of many of
our gifted men, unable to resist the temptations of a busy land, and so
losing themselves in an aimless and miscellaneous career.