FICTION ‘A PEARL.’

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XI, Issue 46, 18 November 1893, Page 423

FICTION ‘A PEARL.’

[‘ 1 am inclined to believe that Het ion is a beautiful disease of the brain. Something, an incident or an experience, or a reflection gets imbedded, incrasted, in the properly constituted mind, and becomes the nucleus of u pearl of romance.' See • Stories and Story-Telling.' by Andrew Lang, in the Idler for August. | A little grain of sand—a common grain That swelled th’ uncounted millions of the shore, Drifted upon an oyster's marble floor, And there for years did secretly remain ; Until (oh 1 fair reward of toil and pain !) Men saw a radiance through the open door, — When it abandoned shelter, prized before, And, as a beauteous pearl, came forth again. So, iu the mind creative lies a thought,— A common incident of every day,— Till it becomes a pearl of fiction, rare. With subtle iridescent beau tv fraught,— Which, raised from depths of silence where it lay. Sets all the little gaping world a-stare. Alice F. Barry.