Crossword-Solution: BALLASTS 8 letters, 7 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 10

Poets and philosophers can afford to be thin--cannot, indeed, afford to be otherwise; inasmuch as poetry and philosophy thrive but in the clouds aloft, and a stomach ballasts you to earth.

And rightly unpopular is it, this trail of broken rock and slimy reddish clay, where at every step our horses stumble or slip, where every now and then a pack mule, fixing the forefeet firmly, goes glissading swiftly down the hill, until, over-balanced by its enormous burden, it literally capsizes, and lies helpless in the mire while the crew jettisons the cargo, rights the poor hulk, re-ballasts it, and steers it down the dangerous channel, using the tail as rudder and sharpened sticks as inspiration.