Famous Single Poems
what afterwards proved to be the elements of its popularity. While Duyckinck was the most genial of companions and the most impartial of critics, he was too much of a recluse, buried in his books, almost solitary in his life, and entirely removed from the circle of worldly and fashionable life, to judge of my work as a possible palpable hit.
However, he immediately possessed himself of it for publication in Harper’s Weekly, then recently started, and I at once acquiesced, making the single condition that they should publish it in columns wide enough to prevent breaking of the lines. No thought of securing the copyright or of retaining any control in reference to the publication of it occurred to me, and the check for fifty dollars which in due course I received from Harper’s, represented the entire pecuniary benefit that ever came to me from “Nothing to Wear.”
The poem as it went to Harper’s contained 305 lines. When I received the proof sheets they were accompanied by a note stating that the addition of 24 lines would fill out the last page, and I wrote the required number, inserting them in the body of the poem, which appeared very handsomely printed in the number of Harper’s Weekly for February 7, 1857.Mr. Butler never stated where these twenty-four lines were added, but it is fairly safe to guess that they comprise the section beginning
But why harrow the feelings by lifting the curtain,
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