_Host._ Yes, that was cruel! I suppose you could never finish the poem after that. But poets must have to do a great deal more waiting than any other class of literary workers, for they have to wait not only for ideas but for words, which, in poetry, have so much to do with the mechanism of the verse as well as the expression of the idea. [Illustration] _Guest._ What the _Dii Majores_ may do, or may have done, I could not presume to say; but with us verse-makers, sometimes it is only the _words_ that do come, at first. The sense, import, and whole motive sometimes arrive much later. This ought to be kept a secret, for it is not to our credit. But I remember once, some one used the phrase, “For the time being.” It was immediately invested with a subtle extra value which seemed left to me to discover and define. Any maker of verse, I should guess, would in the same way be followed up continually by refrains and catch-words--the mere gossip of Parnassus, one might say. You have the fragments of a puzzle; they are scattered; some are missing. They must be hunted up and fitted together. Sometimes the last will be first and the first will be last, when the metrical whole is completed. For example of how detached and meaningless these first suggestions may be, take this line and a half: “In the dim meadows flecked with asphodel, I shall remember!” It was months after this suggestion came to me that I found the context and motive of the verse. I had to wait for the rest, and take whatever came. [Illustration: A CORNER OF THE DRAWING-ROOM.] _Host._ This subject of suggestions, and how they come, is an interesting one. It reminds me of what the astronomers tell us of certain methods they employ. For instance, they expose, by means of telescopic action, a sensitive photographic plate to the action of light from portions of the heavens where nothing is seen. After a long exposure they look at the plate, and something may be seen that was never seen before--star, nebulæ, or perhaps a comet--something which the telescope will not reveal to the eye. As an instance of my use of this exposure plan I will mention this: some years ago I read a great deal about shipwrecks--a subject which always interests me--some accounts in the daily papers and some sea stories, such as those of Clark Russell, who is my favorite marine author, and the question came into my mind: “Is it possible that there should be any kind of shipwreck which has not been already discovered?” For days and days I exposed my mind to the influence of ideas about shipwrecks. At last a novel notion floated in upon me, and I wrote “The Remarkable Wreck of the Thomas Hyke.” I have since had another idea of an out-of-the-way shipwreck, which I think is another example of a wreck that has never occurred; but this is a variation and amplification of a wreck about which I read.