To write a poem is
to expend the vital force which would have made one brilliant for an hour
or two, and to expend it on an instrument with more pipes, reeds, keys,
stops, and pedals than the Great Organ that shakes New England every time
it is played in full blast.
Do you mean that it is hard work to write a poem?--said the old
Master.---I had an idea that a poem wrote itself, as it were, very often;
that it came by influx, without voluntary effort; indeed, you have spoken
of it as an inspiration rather than a result of volition.
--Did you ever see a great ballet-dancer?--I asked him.
--I have seen Taglioni,--he answered.---She used to take her steps rather
prettily. I have seen the woman that danced the capstone on to Bunker
Hill Monument, as Orpheus moved the rocks by music, the Elssler
woman,--Fanny Elssler. She would dance you a rigadoon or cut a pigeon's
wing for you very respectably.
(Confound this old college book-worm,----he has seen everything!)
Well, did these two ladies dance as if it was hard work to them?
--Why no, I should say they danced as if they liked it and couldn't help
dancing; they looked as if they felt so "corky" it was hard to keep them
down.
--And yet they had been through such work to get their limbs strong and
flexible and obedient, that a cart-horse lives an easy life compared to
theirs while they were in training.
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