
which causes you to perceive a fallacy, or Paley to argue a point, but a natural
or acquired aptitude for that kind of truth; and a poet sets down his thoughts
and experiences upon paper as a painter does a landscape or a face upon canvas,
to the best of his ability, and according to his particular gift. If ever I
think I have the stuff in me to write an epic, by Jove, I will try. If I only
feel that I am good enough to crack a joke or tell a story, I will do that.«
    »Not a bad speech, young one,« Warrington said, »but that does not prevent
all poets from being humbugs.«
    »What - Homer, Æschylus, Shakespeare, and all?«
    »Their names are not to be breathed in the same sentence with you pigmies,«
Mr. Warrington said; »there are men and men, sir.«
    »Well, Shakespeare was a man who wrote for money, just as you and I do,« Pen
answered; at which Warrington confounded his impudence, and resumed his pipe and
his manuscript.
    There was not the slightest doubt then that this document contained a great
deal of Pen's personal experiences, and that »Leaves from the Life-book of
Walter Lorraine« would never have been written but for Arthur Pendennis's own
private griefs, passions, and follies. As we have become acquainted with these
in the earlier part of his biography, it will not be necessary to make large
extracts from the novel of »Walter Lorraine,« in which the young gentleman had
depicted such of them as he thought were likely to interest the reader, or were
suitable for the purposes of his story.
    Now, though he had kept it in his box for nearly half of tte period during
which, according to the Horatian maxim, a work of art ought to lie ripening (a
maxim, the truth of which may, by the way, be questioned altogether), Mr. Pen
had not buried his novel for this time in order that the work might improve, but
because he did not know where else to bestow it, or had no particular desire to
see it. A man who thinks of putting away a composition for ten years before he
shall give it to the world, or exercise his own maturer judgment upon it, had
best be very sure of the original strength and durability of the work;
otherwise, on withdrawing it from its crypt, he may find that, like small wine,
it has lost what flavour it once had,
