He decided to start with something easy and dash off an Operetta.
Having sat through some of the Current Offerings, he noted that the
Dialogue was unrelated to Real Literature and the Verses lacked
Metrical Symmetry.
It would be a Pipe for a sure-enough Bard to sit down on a Rainy
Afternoon and grind out something that might serve as a Model for Harry
B. Smith.
So he had a Vase of Fresh Flowers put on his Desk every Day, and he would sit there, waiting for the Muse to keep her Date.
At the end of a Month he had it all planned to lay the First Scene in front of a Palace with a Forest on the Back Drop so as to get a lot of Atmosphere.
There was to be a Princess in the Thing, and a Picture of the long-lost
Mother in the Locket and other New Stuff.
He put in Hours and Hours hand-embroidering the Verses.
When he made "Society" rhyme with "Propriety," he thought he was getting Gilbertian.
While these Lyrics were still quivering, he would take them out and read them to his wife and the Hired Girl and the man who attended to the Furnace, and get their Impartial Judgement.
They agreed that it was Hot Gravy and too good for the Stage.
Encouraged by these heart-felt Encomiums, he would hike back to the Study, shoot himself in the Arm with a hypothetical Needle, and once more begin picking Grapes in Arcady.