Do not ask poetry from a man who is actually doing the work of a wagoner, and sometimes even of a wagoner stuck in the mud.

Would you like to know my way of life?
We march from seven in the morning till four in the afternoon.

I dine then; afterwards I work, I receive tiresome visits; with these comes a detail of insipid matters of business.

'Tis wrong-headed men, punctiliously difficult, who are to be set right; heads too hot which must be restrained, idle fellows that must be urged, impatient men that must be rendered docile, plunderers to restrain within the bounds of equity, babblers to hear babbling, dumb people to keep in talk: in fine, one has to drink with those that like it, to eat with those that are hungry; one has to become a Jew with Jews, a Pagan with Pagans.
"Such are my occupations;--which I would willingly make over to another, if the Phantom they call Fame (GLOIRE) did not rise on me too often.

In truth, it is a great folly, but a folly difficult to cast away when once you are smitten by it.