The MacArthur Fellowship is an award issued by the MacArthur Foundation[?]. It is awarded each year to typically 20-40 citizens or residents of the USA.
Recipients must "show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work". As of 2002 the award consists of quarterly payments for five years totalling $500,000.
... and
constancy in the struggle of daily existence to which
the vast mass of mankind, who can not be recluses,
are called.
The charge has even been made that
the ...