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Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;
Nor read more
Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;
Nor lift your lad, before you're quite aware
What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.
Will you have all in all for prose and verse? Take the miracle
of our age, Sir Philip Sidney.
Will you have all in all for prose and verse? Take the miracle
of our age, Sir Philip Sidney.
But every fool describes, in these bright days,
His wondrous journey to some foreign court,
And spawns read more
But every fool describes, in these bright days,
His wondrous journey to some foreign court,
And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise,--
Death to his publisher, to him 'tis sport.
But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
read more
But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.
No author ever drew a character, consistent to human nature, but
what he was forced to ascribe to it read more
No author ever drew a character, consistent to human nature, but
what he was forced to ascribe to it many inconsistencies.
The pen is the tongue of the mind.
[Sp., La pluma es lengua del alma.]
The pen is the tongue of the mind.
[Sp., La pluma es lengua del alma.]
None but an author knows an author's cares,
Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears.
None but an author knows an author's cares,
Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears.
As so I penned
It down, until at last it came to be,
For length and breadth, read more
As so I penned
It down, until at last it came to be,
For length and breadth, the bigness which you see.
Habits of close attention, thinking heads,
Become more rare as dissipation spreads,
Till authors hear at length read more
Habits of close attention, thinking heads,
Become more rare as dissipation spreads,
Till authors hear at length one general cry
Tickle and entertain us, or we die!
