Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/622

614 successful bon-mot established a claim to office, and a well-turned leg did more for a man than the best mind in Europe, Burr would have risen to distinction. He might have shone in the literary circles at Sceaux, and in the petits soupers at the Palais Royal. Among the wits, the littérateurs, the fashionable men and women of the time, he would have found society congenial to his tastes, and sufficient employment for his talents. He would have exhibited in his own life and character their vices and their superficial virtues, their extravagance, libertinism, and impiety, their politeness, courage, and wit. He might have borne a distinguished part in the petty statesmanship, the intriguing diplomacy, and the wild speculations of that period. But here, among the stern rebels of the Revolution and the practical statesmen of the early Republic, this trickster and shallow politician, this visionary adventurer and boaster of ladies' favors, was out of place. He has given to his country nothing except a pernicious example. The full light, which shows us that his vices may have been exaggerated, shows likewise that his talents have surely been overestimated. The contrast which gave fascination to his career is destroyed; and for a partial vindication of his character he will pay the penalty which he would most have dreaded, that of being forgotten.

A conception—my friend, the Poet, said—hits me like a bullet in the forehead. I have often had the blood drop from my cheeks when it struck, and felt that I turned as white as death. Then comes a creeping as of centipedes running down the spine,—then a gasp and a great jump of the heart,—then a sudden flush and a beating in the vessels of the head,—then a long sigh,—and the poem is written.

It is an impromptu, I suppose, then, if you write it so suddenly,—I replied.

No,—said he,—far from it. I said written, but I did not say copied. Every such poem has a soul and a body, and it is the body of it, or the copy, that men read and publishers pay for. The soul of it is born in an instant in the poet’s soul. It comes to him a thought, tangled in the meshes of a few sweet words,— words that have loved each other from the cradle of the language, but have never been wedded until now. Whether it will ever fully embody itself in a bridal train of a dozen stanzas or not is uncertain; but it exists potentially from the instant that the poet turns pale with it. It is enough to stun and scare anybody, to have a hot thought come crashing into his brain, and ploughing up those parallel ruts where the wagon trains of common ideas were jogging along in their regular sequences of association. No wonder the ancients made the poetical impulse wholly external. Goddess,—Muse,—divine afflatus, —something outside always. I never wrote any verses worth reading. I can’t. I am too stupid. If I ever copied any that were worth reading, I was only a medium.

[I was talking all this time to our boarders, you understand,—telling them what this poet told me. The company listened rather attentively, I thought, considering the literary character of the remarks.]

The old gentleman opposite all at once asked me if I ever read anything bet-