One could easily resolve rather to drink water and eat dry crusts and follow the bidding of one's genius in a garret.

But for a woman and for children, what can one not resolve?
If I sought to make myself of some account in their eyes, I would not say--I have worked thirty years for you: I would say--I have for you renounced for thirty years the vocation of my nature; I have preferred to renounce my tastes in doing what was useful for you, instead of what was agreeable to myself.

That is your real obligation to me, and of that you never think."[19] It is a question, nevertheless, whether Diderot would have achieved masterpieces, even if the pressure of housekeeping had never driven him to seek bread where he could find it.

Indeed it is hardly a question.
His genius was spacious and original, but it was too dispersive, too facile of diversion, too little disciplined, for the prolonged effort of combination which is indispensable to the greater constructions whether of philosophy or art.

The excellent talent of economy and administration had been denied him; that thrift of faculty, which accumulates store and force for concentrated occasions.