An Authors Mind | Page 3

man--fret, wear,
worry him; to be irritable, is the conditional tax laid of old upon an
author's intellect; the crowd of internal imagery makes him hasty, quick,
nervous as a haunted hunted man: minds of coarser web heed not how
small a thorn rends one of so delicate a texture; they cannot estimate
the wish that a duller sword were in a tougher scabbard; the river, not
content with channel and restraining banks, overflows perpetually; the
extortionate exacting armies of the Ideal and the Causal persecute MY
spirit, and I would make a patriot stand at once to vanquish the invaders
of my peace: I write these things only to be quit of them, and not to let
the crowd increase; I have conceived a plan to destroy them all, as Jehu
and Elijah with the priests of Baal; I feel Malthusian among my mental
nurselings; a dire resolve has filled me to effect a premature destruction
of the literary populace superfoetating in my brain--plays, novels,
essays, tales, homilies, and rhythmicals; for ethics and poetics, politics
and rhetorics, will I display no more mercy than sundry commentators
of maltreated Aristotle: I will exhibit them in their state chaotic; I will
addle the eggs, and the chicken shall not chirp; I will reveal, and secrets
shall not waste me; I will write, and thoughts shall not batten on me.
The world is too full of books, and I yearn not causelessly to add more
than this involuntary unit: bottles, bottles--invariable bottles--was the
one idea of a most clever Head at Nieder-Selters; books,
books--accumulating books--press upon my conscience in this literary
London: despairing auctioneers hate the sound, ruined publishers dread
it, surfeited readers grumble at it, and the very cheese-monger begins to

be an epicure as to which grand work is next to be demolished.
Friendships and loves tremble at the daily recurrence of "Have you read
this?" and "Mind you buy that;" wise men shun a blue-belle, sure that
she will recommend a book; and the yet wiser treat themselves to
solitary confinement, that they may not have to meet the last new batch
of authors, and be obliged to purchase, if not to peruse, their
never-ending books. I fear to increase the plague, to be convicted an
abettor of great evils, though by the measure of a little one. I am
infected, and I know it: but for science-sake I break the quarantine, and
in my magnanimity would be victimized unknown, consigning to a
speedy grave this useless offspring, together with its too productive
parent, and saving of a race so hopeless little else than their
prëdetermined names--in fact, their title-pages.
But is that indeed little? Speak, authors with piles of ready-written copy,
is not the theme (so often carried out beyond, or beside, or even against
its original purpose) less perplexing than the after-thought thesis? Bear
witness, readers, bit by a mysterious advertisement in the 'Morning
Post,' are names, indeed, not matters of much weight? Press forward,
Sosii aforesaid, and answer me truly, is not a title-page the better part
of many books? Cheap promises of stale pleasure, false hopes of dull
interest, imprimaturs of deceived fancy, lying visions of the future
unfulfilled, title-pages still do good service to the cause
of--bookselling.
And, to commence, let me elucidate mine own--I mean the first, the
head and front of this offending phalanx--mine own, par excellence,
'An Authors Mind:' such in sooth it shall be found, for richer or poorer,
for better or for worse; not of selfish, but of common application; not
so much individually of mine own, as generically of authors; a medley
of crudities; an undigested mass, as any in the maw of Polypheme; a
fermenting hotchpotch of half-formed things, illustrative, among other
matters, of the Lucretian theory, those close-cohering atoms; a farrago
of thoughts, and systems of thoughts, in most admired disorder, which
would symbolize the Copernican astronomy, with its necessary clash of
whirling orbs, about as well as the intangible chaos of Berkeleyan
metaphysics.

So much then on the moment for the monosyllable "Mind;"--whereof
followeth, indeed, all the more hereafter; but--"An author's?"--what
author's? You would see my patent of such rank, my commission to
wear such honourable uniform. Pr'ythee be content with simple
assurance that it is so; consider the charm of unsatisfied curiosity, and
pry not; let me sit unseen, a spectator; for this once I would go in
domino. Heretofore, "credit me, fair Discretion, your Affability" hath
achieved glory, and might Solomonize on its vanity at least as well as
poor discomfited, discovered Sir Piercie Shafton: heretofore, I have
stood forth in good causes, with helm unbarred, and due proclamation
of name, style, and title, an avowed author; and might sermonize thus
upon success, that a little censure loseth more friends than much praise
winneth enemies.