Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1883 — Neglected. [ARTICLE]

Neglected.

An author’s own estimate of his work —and of the comparative value of his different performances —is almost never the best one, and is often curiously unreasonable. Milton always wondered why people did not rank “Paradise Regained” above “Paradise Lost,” as he did; and Sir Walter Scott would probably remained merely a poet, in his own chosen literary province, but for the fact that “Byron’s success drove him from the field.” The refusal of the public too like their poetry better than their prose has chagrined a good many able, but to ambitious writers, and disappointment has dashed the spice of flattery in more than one amusing instance.

Bayard Taylor never fully reconciled himself to the vocation of a prosewriter. He believed that the world should have demanded nothing of him but poetry. Concerning this he used to tell a good story at his own expense: During his last lecturing trip through the Western States he was the guest, in a small pity, of the Chairman of the lecture committee, a self-satisfied and prosperous citizen, who met Taylor at the train, and carried him home to his own finely-furnished house. While waiting for the evening repast, the wellfed chairman said, with manifest pride, that probably Mr. Taylor did not remember him. No, Mr. Taylor did not. “Why,” said the Chairman,“you were here in this town ten years ago this very month, and stopped with me, as you are stopping now. Mr. Taylor professed his interest in the important fact. The Chairman, glancing around on the chromos, the new carpets, and the glittering white walls of his home, said: “Yes, you see I have been prospering since then. Yes, the world has been a pretty good place for me. It has for you too, Mr. Taylor. I have watched your course ever since I got acquainted with you, ten years ago, and I suppose I am one of the few people who have read everything you have written.” “What!” said Taylor; “everything?” “Yes, sir; everything I could lay my hands on.” “Then,” said Taylor, “perhaps you will tell me what you think of my new poem, ‘Lars’?” “What!” said the man; “do you write poetry ?”— Harper’s “Drawer. ”