An Authors Mind | Page 7

to
speak kinder of those whose wit, and genius, and graphic powers have
so smoothed this old world's wrinkled face of care, many brilliant,
many clever, many well-intended caterers to public amusement, throng
your ill-ordered ranks: still, there are numbered to your shame as
followers of the fool's-cap standard, the huge corrupting mass of
depraved moralists, meagre trash-inditers, treacherous scandal-mongers,
men about town who immortalize their shame, and the dull, pernicious
school of feather-brained Romancists: and take this sentence for a true
one, a verum-dictum. But enough, there are others, and those not few,
even far less veniable; ye priers into family secrets--fawning, false
guests at the great man's open house, eagerly jotting down with
paricidal pen the unguarded conversation of the hospitable
board--shame on your treason, on its wages, and its fame! ye countless
gatherers and disposers of other men's stuff; chiels amang us takin'
notes, an' faith, to prent 'em too, perpetually, without mitigation or
remorse; ye men of paste and scissors, who so often falsely, feebly,
faithlessly, and tastelessly are patching into a Harlequin whole the
disjecta membra of some great hacked-up reputation; can such as ye are
tell me what it is to write? Writing is the concreted fruit of thinking, the

original expression of new combinations of idea, the fresh chemical
product of educational compounds long simmering in the mind, the
possession of a sixth sense, distinguishing intelligence, and proclaiming
it to the four winds; writing is not labour, but ease; not care, but
happiness; not the petty pilferings of poverty, but the large
overflowings of mental affluence; it begs not on the highway, but gives
great largess, like a king; it preys not on a neighbour's wealth, but
enriches him; it may light, indeed, a lamp, at another's candle, but pays
him back with brilliancy; it may borrow fire from the common stock,
but uses it for genial warmth and noble hospitality.
Remember well, good critic, (for verily bad there be,) my purposes in
this odd volume--this queer, unsophisticate, uncultivated book: to
empty my mind, to clear my brain of cobwebs, to lift off my head a
porters's load of fancy articles; and as in a bottle of bad champaign, the
first glass, leaping out hurryskurry, at a railroad pace boiling a gallop,
carries off with it bits of cork and morsels of rosin, even such is the
first ebullition of my thoughts: take them for what they are worth, and
blame no one but your discontented self that they are no better. Do you
suppose, keen sir, that I am not quite self-conscious of their
shallowness, utter contempt of subordination and selection, their empty
reasoning and pellucid vanity?--There I have saved you the labour of a
sentence, and present you with a killing verdict for myself. After a little,
perhaps, your patience may find me otherwise; of clearer flow, but
flatter flavour: these desultorinesses must first of all be immolated, for
in their Ariel state they vex me, but I bind them down like slaving
Calibans, by the magic of a pen; and glad shall I be to victimize my
monsters, eager to dissipate my musquito-like tormentors; yea, I would
"take up arms against a sea"--["Arms against a sea?" dearest
Shakspeare, would that Theobald, or Johnson's stock-butt, "the Oxford
Editor," had indeed interpolated that unconscionable image! It has been
sapiently remarked by some hornet of criticism, that "Shakspeare was a
clever man;" but cleverer far must that champion stand forth who wars
with any prospect of success upon seas; perhaps Xerxes might have
thought of it--or your Astley's brigand, who rushes sword in hand on an
ocean of green baize. Who shall cure me of parentheses?]--well, "a sea
of troubles, [thoughts trouble us more than things--I sin again; close it;]

and by opposing, end them;" that is, by setting forth these troublous
thoughts opposite, in stately black and white, I clip their wings, and
make them peck among my poultry, and not swarm about my heaven.
But soon must I be more continuous; turn over to my future title-pages,
and spare your objurgation; a little more of this medley while the fit
lasts, and afterward a staid course of better accustomed messes; a few
further variations on this lawless theme of authorship, and then to try
simpler tunes; briefly, and yet to be grandiloquent, as a last round of
this giddy climax, after noisy clashing Chaos there shall roll out,
"perfect, smooth, and round," green young worldlets, moving in quiet
harmony, and moulded with systematic skill.
As an author, meanwhile, let man be most specifically characterized: a
real author, voluntary in his motives, but involuntary as regards his acts
authorial; full of matter, prolific of images and arguments, teeming,
bursting, with something, much, too much, to say, and well witting how
to say it: none