meant to deal roughly with them, but the "poets" I have been forced
into relation with have impressed me with certain convictions which are
not flattering to the fraternity, and if my judgments are not accompanied
by my own qualifications, distinctions, and exceptions, they may seem
harsh to many readers.

Let me draw a picture which many a young man and woman, and some no
longer young, will recognize as the story of their own experiences.

--He is sitting alone with his own thoughts and memories. What is that
book he is holding? Something precious, evidently, for it is bound in
"tree calf," and there is gilding enough about it for a birthday present.
The reader seems to be deeply absorbed in its contents, and at times
greatly excited by what he reads; for his face is flushed, his eyes
glitter, and--there rolls a large tear down his cheek. Listen to him; he
is reading aloud in impassioned tones:

And have I coined my soul in words for naught?
And must I, with the dim, forgotten throng
Of silent ghosts that left no earthly trace
To show they once had breathed this vital air,
Die out, of mortal memories?

His voice is choked by his emotion. "How is it possible," he says to
himself, "that any one can read my 'Gaspings for Immortality' without
being impressed by their freshness, their passion, their beauty, their
originality?" Tears come to his relief freely,--so freely that he has
to push the precious volume out of the range of their blistering shower.
Six years ago "Gaspings for Immortality" was published, advertised,
praised by the professionals whose business it is to boost their
publishers' authors. A week and more it was seen on the counters of the
booksellers and at the stalls in the railroad stations. Then it
disappeared from public view. A few copies still kept their place on the
shelves of friends,--presentation copies, of course, as there is no
evidence that any were disposed of by sale; and now, one might as well
ask for the lost books of Livy as inquire at a bookstore for "Gaspings
for Immortality."

The authors of these poems are all round us, men and women, and no one
with a fair amount of human sympathy in his disposition would treat them
otherwise than tenderly. Perhaps they do not need tender treatment. How
do you know that posterity may not resuscitate these seemingly dead
poems, and give their author the immortality for which he longed and
labored? It is not every poet who is at onc