Morris: in MONMOUTH, a tragedy, I reclined on the bosom of Mr.
Swinburne; in my innumerable gouty-footed lyrics, I followed many
masters; in the first draft of THE KING'S PARDON, a tragedy, I was
on the trail of no lesser man than John Webster; in the second
draft of the same piece, with staggering versatility, I had shifted
my allegiance to Congreve, and of course conceived my fable in a
less serious vein - for it was not Congreve's verse, it was his
exquisite prose, that I admired and sought to copy. Even at the
age of thirteen I had tried to do justice to the inhabitants of the
famous city of Peebles in the style of the BOOK OF SNOBS. So I
might go on for ever, through all my abortive novels, and down to
my later plays, of which I think more tenderly, for they were not
only conceived at first under the bracing influence of old Dumas,
but have met with resurrection: one, strangely bettered by another
hand, came on the stage itself and was played by bodily actors; the
other, originally known as SEMIRAMIS: A TRAGEDY, I have observed on
bookstalls under the ALIAS of Prince Otto. But enough has been
said to show by what arts of impersonation, and in what purely
ventriloquial efforts I first saw my words on paper.

That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write whether I have
profited or not, that is the way. It was so Keats learned, and
there was never a finer temperament for literature than Keats's; it
was so, if we could trace it out, that all men have learned; and
that is why a revival of letters is always accompanied or heralded
by a cast back to earlier and fresher models. Perhaps I hear some
one cry out: But this is not the way to be original! It is not;
nor is there any way but to be born so. Nor yet, if you are born
original, is there anything in this training that shall clip the
wings of your originality. There can be none more original than