RULES FOR FICTION

A Novelist, whose magic art,

Had plumbed (’ twas said ) the human heart,

Whom for the penetrative ken

Wherewith he probed the souls of men

The Public and the Public’ s wife

Declared synonymous with Life,—

Sat idle, being much perplexed

What Attitude to study next,

Because he would not wholly tell

Which Pose was likeliest to sell.

To him the Muse: “Why seek afar

For things that on the threshold are?

Why thus evolve with care and pain

From your imaginative brain?

Put Artifice upon the shelf,—

Take pen and ink, and draw — Yourself!”

The author heard: he took the hint:

He photographed himself in print.

His very inmost self he drew....

The critics said, “This Will Not Do.

No more we recognize the art

Which used to plumb the human heart,—

This suffers from the patent vice

Of being not Art but Artifice.

’ Tis deeply with the fault imbued

Of Inverisimilitude:

He’ s written out; his skill’ s forgot:

He only writes to Boil the Pot!

It is not true; it will not wash;

’ Tis mere imaginative Bosh;

And if he can’ t” ( they told him flat )

“Get nearer to the Life than that,

He will not earn the Public’ s pelf!”

This happens when you draw Yourself.

Or — I should say — it happens when

Such portraits are essayed by Men:

For presently a Lady came

And did substantially the same.

( Let everyone peruse this sequel

Who dreams that Man is Woman’ s equal ),—

She with a hand divinely free

Drew what she thought herself to be:

It did not much resemble Her

In moral strength or mental stature —

Yet did the critics all aver

It simply teemed with Human Nature!