And not criticize, as some have done,
Hitherto herebefore.
I know that it ill becomes me to assume the prerogative of criticizing a poet's style or even to suggest any improvements, but sometimes an outsider may be able to stand off as it were and see little defects in a masterpiece which the author can not see.
My idea would be to take these poems and remove the crown sheet, then put in new running gear, upset and bush the pitman, kalsomine the boiler plate, drill new holes in the eccentric, rim out the gas pipe, raise the posterior eccentric to a level with the gang plank, slide the ash pan forward of the monkey wrench, securing it by draw bars to the topgallant mizzen. Then, throwing open the condenser and allowing the cerebellum to rest firmly against the vicarious whippety-whop, fair time may be made on a gentle grade.
If I were to suggest anything further it would be that Julia have entire change of air and surroundings. Michigan is too healthy for an ambitious obituary poet. She naturally has too much time on her hands. Let her go into the yellow fever districts next summer, where she can work in two or three of her cheerful little funeral odes every morning before breakfast. That's the place for her. It may kill her, but if it should we will trust in Providence to raise up some inspired idiot to take her place. We will struggle along anyway with George Francis Train and Denis Kearney and Dr. Mary Walker, even if Julia joins the glad throng of poets who let their hair grow long and kick up their heels in the green fields of Eden.
One more suggestion which will, I know, be accepted as coming from one who never says anything but in the kindest spirit. I think that Julia takes advantage of her poetic license. A poetic license, as I understand it, simply allows the poet to jump the 15 over the 14 in order to bring in the proper rhyme, but it does not allow the writer to usurp the management of the entire system of worlds, and introduce dog-days and ice-cream between Christmas and New Year. It does not in any way allow the contractor of prize funeral puffs to sandwich a tropical evening with the scent of orange blossom and mignonette, in between two December days in Michigan, that would freeze the lightning rods off the houses, and when the owners of cast iron dogs have to bring them in, and stand them behind the parlor stove.
Julia can't fool me much on a Michigan winter. When the seductive breath from the north comes soughing across Lake Superior, redolent with the blossom rock of the copper mines, and dead cranberry vines, and slippery elm bark, the poet or poetess who could maliciously crawl into a buffalo overcoat, and write a dirge that worked in "sighing soft winds," just for the benefit of one whose spirit is in a land where house plants never freeze, should have no poetic license. I would be in favor of having such license revoked, or raising the price so high that none but good, reliable, square toed poets could practice. I would suggest $500 per year for poets driving one horse, and dealing in native poems on death, spring, beautiful snow, etc., etc.; $1,000 per year for two horse, platform spring poets, retailers of imported poems; and $1,500 per year for poets who do a general business in manufactured Havana poems, or native wrappers with Havana fillers.
We have too many poets in our glorious republic who ought to be peeling the epidermis off a bull train; and too many poetesses who would succeed better boiling soap-grease, or spiking a 6 x 8 patch on the quarter-deck of a faithful husband's overalls.
I do not refer entirely to Julia in the last few lines, for Julia is not deserving of such criticism. She was never intended to do the drudgery of housework. She is too frail. She couldn't cook, because her cake would be sad, and her soft, wavy hair, like the mane of a Cayuse plug, would get in the cod-fish balls, and cling to the butter.
No, Julia, you don't look like a woman whose career as a housewife would be a success. From the mournful look in your limpid eye, I would say that your lignum-vitæ bread, and celluloid custard pie, and indestructible waffles, and fireproof pancakes, and burglar-proof chicken pie, would give you away. Your mind would be far away in the poet's realm, and you would put shoe blacking in the blanc mange, and silver gloss starch in the tea, and cod liver oil in the sponge cake. So, Julia, you may continue right along as you are doing. It don't do much harm, and no doubt it does you a heap of good.