They were merely intended as suggestions,
and so the friends were filled with consternation when the minister
stood in the pulpit and proceeded to read off the curious odds
and ends in ghastly detail and in a loud voice! And their
consternation solidified to petrification when he paused at the end,
contemplated the multitude reflectively, and then said, impressively:
"The man would be a fool who tried to add anything to that.
Let us pray!"
And with the same strict adhesion to truth it can be said that the
man would be a fool who tried to add anything to the following
transcendent obituary poem. There is something so innocent,
so guileless, so complacent, so unearthly serene and self-satisfied
about this peerless "hog-wash," that the man must be made of stone
who can read it without a dulcet ecstasy creeping along his backbone
and quivering in his marrow. There is no need to say that this
poem is genuine and in earnest, for its proofs are written all
over its face. An ingenious scribbler might imitate it after
a fashion, but Shakespeare himself could not counterfeit it.
It is noticeable that the country editor who published it did
not know that it was a treasure and the most perfect thing of its
kind that the storehouses and museums of literature could show.
He did not dare to say no to the dread poet--for such a poet
must have been something of an apparition--but he just shoveled
it into his paper anywhere that came handy, and felt ashamed,
and put that disgusted "Published by Request" over it, and hoped
that his subscribers would overlook it or not feel an impulse to read it:
(Published by Request)
LINES
Composed on the death of Samuel and Catharine Belknap's children
by M.
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