if they'd been published, would have enabled me to pay my debts, and
start new accounts from Maine to Georgia. But they've never been
published--and why? It's jealousy. A child with half an eye can see
that. Those boss poets who get the big salaries, probably see my verses,
and pay the publishers a big price not to print 'em.

How little the public know of the inside workings of these things!

I'm disgusted with this trickery, and am going to shut right down on the
whole thing. Oh! they may howl, but not another line do they get!

I'm going into the song business. That's something that isn't overdone.
I composed a perfect little gem lately. It is called "Lines on the death
of a child." I chose this subject because it is comparatively new. A few
have attempted it, but they betray a crudeness and lack of pathos
painful to witness.

Whether I have supplied that deficiency or not is for the public, not
me, to judge. But if the public, or any other man, be he male or female,
thinks that by ribaldry and derision I can be induced to publish the
whole of this work before it's copyrighted, they're mistaken. The salt
that's going on the tail of this particular fowl ain't ripe yet.

It's going to be set to music and it'll probably hatch a song. I called
on a publisher last week about it.

"Don't you think," said I, "that it'll take 'em by storm?"

"Worse than that," he replied. "It's a reg'lar _line_ gale."