plashing waters by the weir,
The rose- and lilac-laden atmosphere'--

"because, after all, it's nothing but a catalogue of the specialties of
May; but how the dickens to wind the thing up is what puzzles me. It's
too beautiful and truly poetic to be spoiled by a completing couplet
like:

"'And in the distant dam the croaking frog
Completes, O May, thy wondrous catalogue.'

"Nobody would take a thing like that--and pay for it; but what else can
be said? What do the violets wild, the dandelion, the ruby-breasted robin,
and the lilac-laden atmosphere and other features all do, I'd like to
know? What one of many verbs--oh, tut! Poetry very evidently is not in
my line, after all. I'll turn the vials of my vocabulary upon
essay-writing."

Which Partington, as his friends called him, proceeded at once to do. He
applied himself closely to his desk for one whole morning, and wrote a
very long paper on "The Tendency of the Middle Ages Towards
Artificialism." Hardly one of the fifteen thousand words employed by him
in the construction of this paper held fewer than five syllables, and
one or two of them got up as high as ten, a fact which led Partington to
think that the editor of the _South American Quarterly Review_ ought at
least to have the refusal of it. Apparently the editor of the _South
American Quarterly Review_ was only too eager to have the refusal of it,
because he refused it, or so Partington observed in confidence to an
acquaintance, in less time than it could possibly have taken him to
read it. After that the essay became emulous of men like Stanley and Joe
Cook. It became a great traveller, but never failed to get back in
safety to its fond parent, Richard Partington Smithers, as our hero now
called himself. Finally, Partington did manage to realize something on
his essay--that is to say, indirectly--for after "The Tendency of the
Middle Ages Towards Artificialism" had gone the rounds of all the
reviews, monthlies, dailies, and weeklies in the country, its author
pigeon-holed it, and, stringing together the printed slips it had
brought back to him upon the various occasions of its return, he sent
these under the head of "How Editors Reject" to an evening journal in
Boston, whose readers could know nothing of the subject, for reasons
that are familiar to those who are acquainted with American letters. For
this he not only received the editor's thanks, but a six months'
subscription to the journal in questi