A man's diet should be what is simplest and readiest to be had, because it is so private a good.

His house should be better, because that is for the use of hundreds, perhaps of thousands, and is the property of the traveler.

But his speech is a perpetual and public instrument; let that always side with the race and yield neither a lie nor a sneer.

His manners,--let them be hospitable and civilising, so that no Phidias or Raphael shall have taught anything better in canvas or stone; and his acts should be representative of the human race, as one who makes them rich in his having, and poor in his want.
It requires great courage in a man of letters to handle the contemporary practical questions; not because he then has all men for his rivals, but because of the infinite entanglements of the problem, and the waste of strength in gathering unripe fruits.

The task is superhuman; and the poet knows well that a little time will do more than the most puissant genius.