I think I picked it up from Wallis, or Cook, or
some other plain spoken voyager.
The crew gaze in pardonable admiration, but the hero, in a long speech,
reproves them for their lightmindedness, reminds them of their sacred
mission, and informs them that,
The soldiers of the cross should turn their eyes
From carnal lusts and heathen vanities;
beyond which indisputable assertion I never got; for this being about
the fiftieth stanza, I stopped to take breath a little; and reading and
re-reading, patching and touching continually, grew so accustomed to my
bantling's face, that, like a mother, I could not tell whether it was
handsome or hideous, sense or nonsense. I have since found out that the
true plan, for myself at least, is to write off as much as possible at a
time, and then lay it by and forget it for weeks--if I can, for months.
After that, on returning to it, the mind regards it as something altogether
strange and new, and can, or rather ought to, judge of it as it would of
the work of another pen.
But really, between conceit and disgust, fancying myself one day a great
new poet, and the next a mere twaddler, I got so puzzled and anxious, that
I determined to pluck up courage, go to Mackaye, and ask him to solve the
problem for me.
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