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5
READER TO NOVELIST
I hold it not the wisest plan
To make your hero out a man
For ever in the right,
And so alarmingly endowed
With virtue that an average cloud
(Or, if you better like it, spout)
Of envy, defamation, spite
Can scarce obscure, and can't put out,
His flickering candle-light.
Your novel-writer, not content
With average stature, 5 feet 9,
And morals such as have to serve
Mere men of God's design,
Seeks grand, chryselephantine, men
Whose strength is as the strength of ten,
Of beauty half divine.
To make your hero out a man
For ever in the right,
And so alarmingly endowed
With virtue that an average cloud
(Or, if you better like it, spout)
Of envy, defamation, spite
Can scarce obscure, and can't put out,
His flickering candle-light.
Your novel-writer, not content
With average stature, 5 feet 9,
And morals such as have to serve
Mere men of God's design,
Seeks grand, chryselephantine, men
Whose strength is as the strength of ten,
Of beauty half divine.
6
Dear novelist, unto me list;
I'd sooner death than with a breath
Of mine
Malign
This paragon of excellence
This ‘moral porcupine.’
But think how short is actual life,
Docked by old Time's pruning-knife,
How long your last romance is!
And think how brief would be your course
Had you the brilliant chances
You give your hero every day
To fall before resistless force,
Or slighted love, or dull remorse,
Or suicidal fancies.
I'd sooner death than with a breath
Of mine
Malign
This paragon of excellence
This ‘moral porcupine.’
But think how short is actual life,
Docked by old Time's pruning-knife,
How long your last romance is!
And think how brief would be your course
Had you the brilliant chances
You give your hero every day
To fall before resistless force,
Or slighted love, or dull remorse,
Or suicidal fancies.
The modern novel, I submit,
There's very much too much of it.
And all, I think, because
You give your hero such physique,
He's tougher than the toughest Greek,
(You couldn't kill him in a week!)
He scoffs at Nature's laws.
And then again, so fair a vein
His whole existence hallows,
It were insane to rack one's brain
In hope to lure this creature pure
Beyond his moral shallows,
Or catch him in one little sin,
Precursor of the gallows.
There's very much too much of it.
And all, I think, because
You give your hero such physique,
He's tougher than the toughest Greek,
(You couldn't kill him in a week!)
He scoffs at Nature's laws.
And then again, so fair a vein
His whole existence hallows,
It were insane to rack one's brain
7
Beyond his moral shallows,
Or catch him in one little sin,
Precursor of the gallows.
For human nature's daily food
He's much too strong and much too good.
He's much too strong and much too good.
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