XI
When I had recovered a little from the disturbing thoughts the sight of my artificial dove had caused, the pain of the blow I had received made itself keenly felt. I passed my hand over my forehead and discovered a new protuberance, exactly on that part of the head where Dr. Gall has located the bump of poetry. But I did not at that time give it a thought; experience alone was to demonstrate to me the truth of that celebrated man’s theories. After some moments, pulling myself together to make a last effort to write my dedication, I seized a pencil and set to work. To my great astonishment the verses flowed of their own accord from my pen, and I filled two pages with them in less than an hour, and I conclude from this fact that, if motion was necessary to enable Pope’s head to compose verses, nothing less than a concussion would suffice to drag them out of mine. However, I shall not show the reader the verses I made at that time, for the tremendous rapidity with which the adventures of my journey succeeded one another, prevented me from giving them the finishing touches. In spite of this reticence, we must, doubtless, consider the accident which had befallen me in the light of a most valuable discovery, one of which poets could not do better than take frequent advantage.
In reality I am so convinced of the infallibility of this new method, that in a poem of twenty-four cantos which I have since composed, and which will be published with “La Prisonière de Pignerol,” I have not thought it necessary up to the present to begin writing the verses, but have written out clearly five hundred pages of notes, which contain, as we know, all the merit, and most of the bulk of our modern poetry.
As I was walking about my room, thinking over my profound discoveries, I came across my bed, and sitting down on it, my hand, by chance, falling on my night cap, it occurred to me to put it on, and I lay down.