An Authors Mind

An Author's Mind, by Martin
Farquhar Tupper

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Title: An Author's Mind The Complete Prose Works of Tupper,
Volume 5 (of 6)
Author: Martin Farquhar Tupper
Release Date: September 26, 2006 [EBook #19386]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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AN AUTHOR'S MIND;
THE BOOK OF TITLE-PAGES:

"A BOOKFUL OF BOOKS," OR "THIRTY BOOKS IN ONE."
EDITED BY
M.F. TUPPER, ESQ., M. A.
"En un mot, mes amis, je n'ai entrepris de vous contenter tous en
général; ainsi, une et autres en particulier; et par spécial,
moymême."--PASQUIER.
HARTFORD: PUBLISHED BY SILAS ANDRUS & SON. 1851.

ANNOUNCEMENT.
BY THE EDITOR.
The writer of this strange book (a particular friend of mine) came to me
a few mornings ago with a very happy face and a very blotty
manuscript. "Congratulate me," he began, "on having dispersed an
armada of head-aches hitherto invincible, on having exorcised my brain
of its legionary spectres, and brushed away the swarming thoughts that
used to persecute my solitude; I can now lie down as calmly as the
lamb, and rise as gayly as the lark; instead of a writhing Laocoon, my
just-found Harlequin's wand has changed me into infant Hercules
brandishing his strangled snakes; I have mowed, for the nonce, the
docks, mallows, hogweed, and wild-parsley of my rank field, and its
smooth green carpet looks like a rich meadow; I am free, happy, well at
ease: argal, an thou lovest me, congratulate."
Wider and wider still stared out my wonder, to hear my usually sober
friend so voluble in words and so profuse of images: I saw at once it
was a set speech, prepared for an impromptu occasion; nevertheless, as
he was clearly in an enviable state of disenthraldom from
thoughtfulness, I graciously accorded him a sympathetic smile. And
then this more than Gregorian cure for the head-ache! here was an
anodyne infinitely precious to one so brain-feverish as I: had all this
pleasure and comfort arisen from such common-place remedials as a

dear young lover's courtesy or a deceased old miser's codicil, I should
long ago have heard all about it; for, between ourselves, my friend was
never known to keep a secret. There was evidently more than this in the
discovery; and when my curiosity, provoked by his laughing silence,
was naturally enough exhibiting itself in a "What on earth----?" he
broke out with the abruptness of an Abernethy, "Read my book."
Well, I did read it; and, in candid disparagement, as amicably bound,
can readily believe what I was told afterwards, that, to except a very
small portion of older material, it had been at chance intervals rapidly
thrown off in a couple of months, (the old current-quill style,) chiefly
with the view of relieving a too prolific brain: it appeared to me a mere
idle overflowing of the brimful mind; an honest, indeed, but often
useless exposure of multifarious fancies--some good, some bad, and
not a few indifferent; an incautious uncalled-for confession of a
thousand thoughts, little worth the printing, if the very writing were not
indeed superfluous. Nevertheless, with all its faults, I thought the book
a novelty, and liked it not the less for its off-hand fashion; it had
something of the free, fresh, frank air of an old-school squire at
Christmas-tide, suggestive as his misletoe, cheerful as his face, and
careless as his hospitality. Knowing then that my friend had been more
than once an author--indeed, he tells us so himself--and perceiving,
from innumerable symptoms, that he meditated putting also this before
the world, I thought kindly to anticipate his wishes by proposing its
publication: but I was rather curtly answered with a "Did I suppose
these gnats were intended to be shrined in amber? these mere minnows
to be treated with the high consideration due only to potted char and
white bait? these fleeting thoughts fixed in stone before that
Gorgon-head, the public? these ephemeral fancies dropped into the true
elixir of immortality, printer's-ink? these----" I stopped him, for this
other mighty mouthful of images betrayed the hypocrite--"Yes, I did."
An involuntary smile assured me he did too, and the cause proceeded
thus: first, a promise not to burn the book; then a Bentley to the rescue,
with accessory considerations; and then, the due administration of a
little wholesome flattery: by this time we had obtained