When by efforts literary you might scale the summits airy Which the eminent in fiction are ascending every day, Why obscurely crawl and grovel?— I will write ( I said ) a Novel! So I started and I planned it in the ordinary way.
I’ d a Heroine — a creature of resplendent form and feature, With a spell in every motion and a charm in every look: I’ d a Villain — worse than Nero,— I’ d a most superior Hero: And the host of minor persons which is needed in a book:
Each was drawn from observation: yet was each a pure creation Which revealed at once the genius of originating mind: Not a man and not a woman but combined the Broadly Human With a something quite peculiar of an interesting kind:
What a wealth of meaning inner in the things they said at dinner! How their conversation sparkled ( like the ripples on the deep ), Half disclosing, half concealing a Profundity of Feeling Which would move the gay to laughter and incite the grave to weep!
There they stood in grace and vigour, each imaginary figure, Each a masterpiece of drawing for the world to wonder at: There was really nothing more I had to find but just the story, Nothing more, but just the story — but I couldn’ t think of that.
Yet ( I cried ), in other writers, how the lovers and the fighters Are conducted through the mazes of a complicated plan,— How the incidents are planted just precisely where they’ re wanted — How the man invites the moment, and the moment finds the man!
How a Barrie or a Kipling guides the maiden and the stripling Till they’ re ultimately landed in the matrimonial state,— And they die, or else they marry ( in a Kipling or a Barrie ) Just as if the thing was ordered by unalterable Fate,—
While with me, alas! to balance my innumerable talents, There’ s a fatal imperfection and a melancholy blot: All the forms of my creating stand continually waiting For a charitable person to provide them with a Plot!
Still I put the endless query why I wander lone and dreary ( Barred from Eden like the Peri ) minus fame and minus fee, Why the idols of the masses have an entrée to Parnassus, While a want of mere invention is an obstacle to me!
Cookies on Poetry Cove