The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (8.1896)

By Mrs. Ernest Leverson 32?
To be miserable one must desire the unattainable. And of
the fair women who, from time to time, have appealed to my
heart, my imagination, etc., every one, a
has been kindness itself to me. Many others, indeed, for whom
I have no time, or perhaps no inclination, write me those
letters which are so difficult to answer. How can one sit down
and write, " My dear lady—I am so sorry, but I am really too
busy ?"
And with, perhaps, two appointments in one day—a light
comedy one, say, in the Park, and serious sentiment coming to
see one at one's rooms—to say nothing of the thread of a Airtation
to be taken up at dinner and having perhaps to make a jealous
scene of reproaches to some one of whom one has grown tired,
in the evening—you must admit I had a sufficiently occupied
life.
I had heard much of the pangs of disappointed ambition, and
I now turned my thoughts in that direction. A failure in
literature would be excellent. I had no time to write a play
bad enough to be refused by every manager in London, or to be
hissed off the stage ; but I sometimes wrote verses. If I arranged
to have a poem rejected I might get a glimpse of the feelings of
the unsuccessful. So I wrote a poem. It was beautiful, but that
I couldn't help, and I carefully refrained from sending it to any of
the more literary reviews or magazines, for there it would have
stood no chance of rejection. I therefore sent it to a common-
place, barbarous periodical, that appealed only to the masses ;
feeling sure it would not be understood, and that I should taste
the bitterness of Philistine scorn.
Here is the little poem—-if you care to look at it. I called it

The Yellow Book—Voh VIII,

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