There was even a
bulky romance. He had read so much about the enormous royalties which
American authors received for their work, and English authors who were
popular on the other side, that his ambition had been frenetically
stirred. The fortunes such men as Maundering and Piffle and Drool
made! And all he had accomplished so far had been the earnest support
of the postal service. Far back at the beginning he had been
unfortunate enough to sell a sonnet for ten shillings. Alack! You
sell your first sonnet, you win your first hand at cards, and then the
passion has you.
Poetry was a drug on the market. Nobody read it (or wrote it) these
days; and any one who attempted to sell it was clearly mad. Oh, a
jingle for Punch might pass, you know; something clever, with a snapper
to it. But epic poetry? Sonnets? Why, didn't you know that there
wasn't a magazine going that did not have some sub-editor who could
whack out fourteen lines in fourteen minutes, whenever a page needed
filling up? These things he had been told times without number.
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