--So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of _composition_, as a state of _warfare_; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon earth, --both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his WIT--as his RESISTANCE.

So that the life of a writer was not so much a state of composition, as a state of warfare; and his success, like a soldier's, depended not so much upon his Wit as his Resistance.
