Moreover. I am on the track of an adventure,--on the search for a
new sensation, having tried nearly all the old ones and found them
NIL. You know my nomadic and restless disposition ... perhaps
there is something of the Greek gipsy about me--a craving for
constant change of scene and surroundings,--however, as my absence
from you and England is likely to be somewhat prolonged, I send
you in the mean time a Poem--there! 'Season your admiration for a
while,' and hear me out patiently. I am perfectly aware of all you
would say concerning the utter folly and uselessness of writing
poetry at all in this present age of milk-and-watery-literature,
shilling sensationals, and lascivious society dramas,--and I have
a very keen recollection too of the way in which my last book was
maltreated by the entire press--good heavens! how the critics
yelped like dogs about my heels, snapping, sniffing, and snarling!
I could have wept then like the sensitive fool I was. ... I can
laugh now! In brief, my friend--for you ARE my friend and the
best of all possible good fellows--I have made up my mind to
conquer those that have risen against me--to break through the
ranks of pedantic and pre-conceived opinions--and to climb the
heights of fame, regardless of the little popular pipers of tame
verso that obstruct my path and blow their tin whistles in the
public ears to drown, if possible, my song. I WILL be heard! ...
and to this end I pin my faith on the work I now transmit to your
care. Have it published immediately and in the best style--I will
cover all expenses. Advertise sufficiently, yet with becoming
modesty, for 'puffery' is a thing I heartily despise,--and were
the whole press to turn round and applaud me as much as it has
hitherto abused and ridiculed me, I would not have one of its
penny lines of condescendingly ignorant approval quoted in
connection with what must be a perfectly unostentatious and simple