If the essay
so inspires you I would suggest that you make a commencement with
purely narrative poetry.
There is an infinitely finer English novel, written by a woman, than
anything by George Eliot or the Brontes, or even Jane Austen, which
perhaps you have not read. Its title is "Aurora Leigh," and its
author E.B. Browning. It happens to be written in verse, and to
contain a considerable amount of genuinely fine poetry. Decide to
read that book through, even if you die for it. Forget that it is
fine poetry. Read it simply for the story and the social ideas. And
when you have done, ask yourself honestly whether you still dislike
poetry. I have known more than one person to whom "Aurora Leigh" has
been the means of proving that in assuming they hated poetry they
were entirely mistaken.
Of course, if, after Hazlitt, and such an experiment made in the
light of Hazlitt, you are finally assured that there is something in
you which is antagonistic to poetry, you must be content with
history or philosophy. I shall regret it, yet not inconsolably.
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