One of my favorite plays is Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand.  It was the story of a man with an abnormally long nose.  He was in love with a young woman, Roxanne, who was, in turn, in love with a handsome young man, Christian.  Cyrano was a brilliant swordsman and an eloquent writer.  Christian was just handsome. To get Roxanne and Christian together (thinking this was what Roxanne wanted), Cyrano lends his eloquence to Christian.  Roxanne, in the meantime, ends up falling in love with the soul and not the embodiment.  It all ends very tragically, as these things do.

In one scene, Cyrano refuses to seek out a patron for his writing.  He rhapsodizes about the joy of living a life without compromise:

                                          But--sing?
  Dream, laugh, go lightly, solitary, free,
  With eyes that look straight forward--fearless voice!
  To cock your beaver just the way you choose,--
  For 'yes' or 'no' show fight, or turn a rhyme!
  --To work without one thought of gain or fame,
  To realize that journey to the moon!
  Never to pen a line that has not sprung
  Straight from the heart within.  Embracing then
  Modesty, say to oneself, 'Good my friend,
  Be thou content with flowers,--fruit,--nay, leaves,
  But pluck them from no garden but thine own!'
  And then, if glory come by chance your way,
  To pay no tribute unto Caesar, none,
  But keep the merit all your own!  In short,
  Disdaining tendrils of the parasite,
  To be content, if neither oak nor elm--
  Not to mount high, perchance, but mount alone!