Poets improve as well
as clerks."
"Real poets!" responded Osborne, with a peculiar smile at the corners
of his mouth. And he continued:
"You seem to think that a fortune awaits a poet, too; but you are
laboring under a great mistake. There is no money in poetry in our
day, and there never was."
"Perhaps not; nevertheless I am confident that a poet may readily win
popularity and a livelihood. At any rate, I am determined to try it,
in spite of your decidedly poor opinion of my abilities."
"Well, my advice is that you stick to the business for which you were
bred, if you would keep out of the poor-house." Osborne said it more
to hector Ralph than any thing. "A good clerk is better than a poor
poet; you will agree to that."
Benjamin listened with a good deal of interest to the foregoing
discussion, and he saw that, from jealousy or some other cause,
Osborne was not according to Ralph the credit to which he was
entitled; and so he interrupted, by saying:
"You set yourself up for a critic, Osborne; but I think more of Ralph
as a poet than I do of you as a critic. You are unwilling to grant
that his productions have any merit at all; but I think have.
Moreover, it is a good practice for him, and for all of us, to write
poetry, even if it does not come quite up to Milton. It will improve
us in the use of language.
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