Panglossed

The raven sky prey’d on by the snowfill’d, blustery clouds,

Unadorned the meadow - hunger driveth the wolf out of the wood,

The maidens chained and whipped within a dreary dungeon -

And, lo! ‘twixt the wizen roses a mossy grave:

“The Devil is as Black as he Painteth” -

O Canvas! wherefore?…

Writing a novel is one of those modern rites of passage, I think, that lead us from an innocent world of contentment, drunkenness, and good humor, to a state of chronic edginess and the perpetual scanning of bank statements. By the eighteenth book, one has a sense of having bricked oneself into a niche, a roosting place for other people’s pigeons. I wouldn’t recommend it.

I have, in my day, wasted a certain quantity of Bristol board and drawing-paper, crayons and cakes of colour, but when I examine the contents of my portfolio now, it seems as if during the years it has been lying closed some fairy has changed what I once thought sterling coin into dry leaves, and I feel much inclined to consign the whole collection of drawings to the fire