Page:Letters of Life.djvu/388

376 A man was employed in shingling a neighboring house, belonging to a colored family. From the top of the roof descrying a servant of mine, he called to her that he should be glad to have me write some verses for him. A relation of his had died, and he wanted to have the death printed in the newspaper, but thought "some poetry to put with it would be nice, and that likely I could write it as easy as anybody."

But I spare you any further inflictions of these peculiar requirements. You may, perhaps, think that some of them testified a want of respect. I believe they were not thus intended, though their deficiency in the sense of propriety is frequently obvious. This selection is not a decimation of the requests in my record, though it comprises some of the most unique. The ruling fault was with myself, in occasional compliance, which encouraged exactions.

If there is any kitchen in Parnassus, my Muse has surely officiated there as a woman of all work, and an aproned waiter. Lacking firmness to say no, I consented so frequently, that the right of refusal began to be counted invidious. Those who requested but a few verses considered them, what they appeared to be, a trifle. Yet "trifles make up the sum of human things," and this trifle involved thought, labor, and time. This habit of yielding to persuasion occasionally led to the curtailment of sleep, and of meals, as the poems which were to be sung in public audiences must