Many Guides to Literature give no rules for the manufacture of
short lyrics, and nearly all of them omit to furnish the student
with an example of this kind of composition.
The cause of this unfortunate neglect (as I deem it) is not far
to seek. Indeed in one Text Book (Mrs. Railston’s _Book for
Beginners_. Patteson. 12_s._ 6_d._) it is set down in so many
words. “The Short Lyric,” says Mrs. Railston in her preface, “is
practically innocent of pecuniary value. Its construction should be
regarded as a pastime rather than as serious exercise; and even for
the purposes of recreation, its fabrication is more suited to the
leisure of a monied old age than to the struggle of eager youth, or
the full energies of a strenuous manhood” (p. xxxiv.).
The judgment here pronounced is surely erroneous. The short Lyric
is indeed not very saleable (though there are exceptions even
to that rule--the first Lord Tennyson is said to have received
£200 for _The Throstle_); it is (I say) not very saleable, but
it is of great indirect value to the writer, especially in early
youth. A reputation can be based upon a book of short lyrics
which will in time procure for its author Reviewing work upon
several newspapers, and sometimes, towards his fortieth year,
the editorship of a magazine; later in life it will often lead
to a pension, to the command of an army corps, or even to the
governorship of a colony.
I feel, therefore, no hesitation in describing at some length the
full process of its production, or in presenting to the student a
careful plan of the difficulties which will meet him at the outset.
To form a proper appreciation of these last, it is necessary to
grasp the fundamental fact that they all proceed from the inability
of busy editors and readers to judge the quality of verse; hence
the rebuffs and delays that so often overcast the glorious morning
of the Poetic Soul.
At the risk of some tedium--for the full story is of considerable
length--I will show what is their nature and effect, in the shape
of a relation of what happened to Mr. Peter Gurney some years ago,
before he became famous.
Mr. Peter Gurney (I may say it without boasting) is one of my
most intimate friends. He is, perhaps, the most brilliant of that
brilliant group of young poets which includes Mr. John Stewart, Mr.
Henry Hawk, &c., and which is known as the “Cobbley school,” from
the fact that their historic meeting-ground was the house of Mr.
Thomas Cobbley, himself no mean poet, but especially a creative,
seminal critic, and uncle of Mr. Gurney. But to my example and
lesson:--
Mr. Gurney was living in those days in Bloomsbury, and was occupied
in reading for the bar.
He was by nature slothful and unready, as is indeed the sad habit
of literary genius; he rose late, slept long, eat heartily, drank
deeply, read newspapers, began things he never finished, and wrote
the ending of things whose beginnings he never accomplished; in a
word, he was in every respect the man of letters. He looked back
continually at the stuff he had written quite a short time before,
and it always made him hesitate in his opinion of what he was
actually engaged in. It was but six months before the events herein
set down that he had written--
“The keep of the unconquerable mind”--
only to discover that it was clap-trap and stolen from Wordsworth
at that. How, then, could he dare send off the sonnet--
“If all intent of unsubstantial art”--
and perhaps get it printed in the _Nineteenth Century_ or the
_North American Review_, when (for all he knew) it might really be
very poor verse indeed?
These two things, then, his sloth and his hesitation in criticism,
prevented Peter from sending out as much as he should have done.
But one fine day of last summer, a kind of music passed into him
from universal nature, and he sat down and wrote these remarkable
lines:--
“He is not dead; the leaders do not die,
But rather, lapt in immemorial ease
Of merit consummate, they passing, stand;
And rapt from rude reality, remain;
And in the flux and eddy of time, are still.
Therefore I call it consecrated sand
Wherein they left their prints, nor overgrieve:
An heir of English earth let English earth receive.”
He had heard that _Culture_ of Boston, Mass., U.S.A., paid more for
verse than any other review, so he sent it off to that address,
accompanied by a very earnest little letter, calling the gem
“Immortality,” and waiting for the answer.
The editor of _Culture_ is a businesslike man, who reads his
English mail on the quay at New York, and takes stamped envelopes
and rejection forms down with him to the steamers.
He looked up Peter’s name in the _Red Book_, _Who’s Who_, _Burke_,
the _Court Guide_, and whatnot, and finding it absent from all
these, he took it for granted that there was no necessity for any
special courtesies; Peter therefore, fifteen days after sending off
his poem, received an envelope whose stamp illustrated the conquest
of the Philippines by an Armed Liberty, while in the top left-hand
corner were printed these simple words: “If not delivered within
three days, please return to Box 257, Boston, Mass., U.S.A.”
He was very pleased to get this letter. It was the first reply he
had ever got from an editor, and he took it up unopened to the
Holborn, to read it during lunch. But there was very little to
read. The original verse had folded round it a nice half-sheet of
cream-laid notepaper, with a gold _fleur de lis_ in the corner, and
underneath the motto, “Devoir Fera”; then, in the middle of the
sheet, three or four lines of fine copperplate engraving, printed
also in gold, and running as follows:--
“The editor of _Culture_ regrets that he is unable to accept the
enclosed contribution; it must not be imagined that any adverse
criticism or suggestion is thereby passed upon the work; pressure
of space, the previous acceptation of similar matter, and other
causes having necessarily to be considered.”
Peter was so much encouraged by this, that he sent his verses at
once to Mr. McGregor, changing, however, the word “rude” in the
fourth line to “rough,” and adding a comma after “rapt,” points
insignificant in themselves perhaps, but indicative of a critic’s
ear, and certain (as he thought) to catch the approval of the
distinguished scholar. In twenty-four hours he got his reply in the
shape of an affectionate letter, enclosing his MSS.:--
“My dear Peter,
“No; I should be doing an injustice to my readers if I were
to print your verse in the _Doctrinaire_; but you must not
be discouraged by this action on my part. You are still very
young, and no one who has followed (as you may be sure I have)
your brilliant career at the University can doubt your ultimate
success in whatever profession you undertake. But the path of
letters is a stony one, and the level of general utility in such
work is only reached by the most arduous efforts. I saw your
Aunt Phœbe the other day, and she was warm in your praises. She
told me you were thinking of becoming an architect; I sincerely
hope you will, for I believe you have every aptitude for that
profession. Plod on steadily and I will go warrant for your
writing verse with the best of them. It is _inevitable_, my dear
Peter, that one’s early verse should be imitative and weak; but
you have the ‘inner voice,’ do but follow the gleam and never
allow your first enthusiasms to grow dim.
“Always your Father’s Old Friend,
“ARCHIBALD WELLINGTON MCGREGOR.”
Peter was a little pained by this; but he answered it very
politely, inviting himself to lunch on the following Thursday, and
then, turning to his verses, he gave the title “Dead,” and sent
them to the _Patriot_, from whom he got no reply for a month.
He then wrote to the editor of the _Patriot_ on a postcard, and
said that, in view of the present deplorable reaction in politics,
he feared the verses, if they were held over much longer, would
lose their point. Would the _Patriot_ be so kind, then, as to let
him know what they proposed to do with the Poem?