“A mere morceau,” replied my friend, modestly, “tossed off to fill up a gap in the Evergreen.”
“You should write poetry,” said I.
“Think so? Well, I’ve had some notion at times, of trying my hand at an ode, or an epic, but, man, I find too many difficulties in the way. As to ‘feet,’ now, I can’t manage feet in poetry. If it were inches or yards, one might get along, but feet are neither one thing nor another. Then, rhyme bothers me. I’ve often to run over every letter in the alphabet to get hold of a rhyme—click, thick, pick, rick, chick, brick—that sort of thing, you know. Sentiment, too, is very troublesome. Either I put too much or too little sentiment into my verses; sometimes they are all sentiment together; not unfrequently they have none at all; or the sentiment is false, which spoils them, you know. Yes, much though I should like to be a poet, I must content myself with prose. Just fancy, now, my attempting a poem on Cyprus! What rhymes with Cyprus? Fyprus, gyprus, highprus, kyprus, lyprus, tryprus, and so on to the end. It’s all the same; nothing will do. No doubt Hook would have managed it; Theodore could do anything in that way, but I can’t.”
“Most unfortunate! But for these difficulties you might have been a second Milton. You leave your wife behind, I suppose,” said Bella, completing her sketch and shutting the book.
“What!” exclaimed my volatile friend, becoming suddenly grave, “leave Blue-eyes behind me! leave the mitigator of my woes, the doubler of my joys, the light of my life behind me! No, Mrs Naranovitsch, Blue-eyes is necessary to my existence; she inspires my pen and corrects my spelling; she lifts my soul, when required, above the petty cares of life, and enables me to take flights of genius, which, without her, were impossible, and you know that flights of genius are required, occasionally, of the correspondent of a weekly—at least of an Irish weekly. Yes, Blue-eyes goes with me. We shall levant together.”
“Are bad puns allowed in the Evergreen?” I asked.
“Not unless excessively bad,” returned my friend; “they won’t tolerate anything lukewarm.”
“Well, now, Biquitous,” said I, “sit down and give Nicholas, who is hard to convince, your opinion as to the mode in which this and other countries ought to prepare for self-defence.”
“In earnest, do you mean?”
“In earnest,” said I.