(no subject)

[yuki_no_ningyou]

I discovered a poet named Robert Graves in college and fell in love with his work, periodically picking up one of his books and immersing myself again in his world.
Today, this poem started calling to me, even though I haven't picked up his book for many a moon.
It makes even more sense now that I have gotten so deep into my writings of Gauze and Enanti.

The Devil's Advice to Story-Tellers
Robert Graves

Lest men suspect your tale to be untrue,
Keep probability --some say-- in view.
But my advice to story-tellers is:
Weigh out no gross of probabilities,
Nor yet make diligent transcriptions of
Known instances of virtue, crime or love.
To forge a picture that will pass for true,
Do conscientiously what liars do--
Born liars, not the sort that raid
The mouths of others for their stock-in-trade:
Assemble, first, all casual bits and scraps
That may shake down into a world perhaps;
People this world, by chance created so,
With random persons whom you do not know--
The teashop sort, or travellers in a train
Seen once, guessed idly at, not seen again;
Let the erratic course they steer surprise
Their own and your own and your readers' eyes;
Sigh then, or frown, but leave (as in despair)
Motive and end and moral in the air;
Nice contradiction between fact and fact
Will make the whole read human and exact.