A nosegay of roses white
Stands on my loved one’s table.
Would I were they tonight,
A nosegay of roses white,
Placed on her brow so bright,
To deck her tresses sable.
A nosegay of roses white,
Stands on my loved one’s table.
This is how it was printed:
A nosegay of roses white
Is quite a pretty sight,
Upon my loved one’s table.
(Far better than in a stable.)
It would be pleasant quite
To be those roses white
And deck her tresses sable—
That is if I were able.
You see much of the poetic effluvia was lost when it had been edited.
A very witty novelist, author of a novel, by the way, said an awfully
bright thing to me the other day. He was speaking of the way that certain
houses had of sending you a postal saying your manuscript would receive
attention. “That,” said he, “keys you up to concert pitch. But there
isn’t any concert generally. Your manuscript is refunded: that’s all.” I
had to laugh, it was so witty.
A well known poet told me the other day that an editor should be a judge
of good poetry. Said he, “when an editor cuts two or three lines out of
your sonnet to a wild flower or a wild animal, or anything whatever, and
retains the distinguishing label, it is like passing off XX milk for the
XXX article and the real connoisseur is justly indignant. An honest and
self respecting poet wishes to give full measure in his sonnets and it is
an injury to his moral character that the editor works when he palms off
ten or a dozen for the usual fourteen or fifteen lines of a sonnet.”
Poets are not practical. Why didn’t he write that out himself and sell it
for a dollar a line instead of giving me the chance?
I’m an editor myself in a small way.
I ask celebrated authors, actors, preachers, presidents, doctors,
lawyers, generals, naval officers and the like to send in any old
thing they happen to have on the hook and then I have it beautifully
illustrated and print it just as it is; no matter how bad it is, I never
change a line. It’s a matter of principal—not to say of interest. For
above all things I wish to be honest and successful.