You may possibly think me too candid, and even accuse me of
incivility; but let me assure you that I am not half so plain-
spoken as Nature, nor half so rude as Time. If you prefer the long
jolting of public opinion to the gentle touch of friendship, try it
like a man. Only remember this,--that, if a bushel of potatoes is
shaken in a market-cart without springs to it, the small potatoes
always get to the bottom. Believe me, etc., etc.
I always think of verse-writers, when I am in this vein; for these
are by far the most exacting, eager, self-weighing, restless,
querulous, unreasonable literary persons one is like to meet with.
Is a young man in the habit of writing verses? Then the
presumption is that he is an inferior person. For, look you, there
are at least nine chances in ten that he writes POOR verses. Now
the habit of chewing on rhymes without sense and soul to match them
is, like that of using any other narcotic, at once a proof of
feebleness and a debilitating agent. A young man can get rid of
the presumption against him afforded by his writing verses only by
convincing us that they are verses worth writing.
All this sounds hard and rough, but, observe, it is not addressed
to any individual, and of course does not refer to any reader of
these pages. I would always treat any given young person passing
through the meteoric showers which rain down on the brief period of
adolescence with great tenderness.
Pages:
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326