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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: 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
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
