Never think yourself singular, never think
your own case much harder than other people’s.
Think of yourself rather as something much humbler and less spectacular, but to my mind, far more interesting — a
poet in whom live all the poets of the past, from whom all poets in time to come will spring. You have a touch of Chaucer in
you, and something of Shakespeare; Dryden, Pope, Tennyson — to mention only the respectable among your ancestors — stir in
your blood and sometimes move your pen a little to the right or to the left.
In short you are an immensely ancient, complex,
and continuous character, for which reason please treat yourself with respect and think twice before you dress up as Guy
Fawkes and spring out upon timid old ladies at street corners, threatening death and demanding twopence-halfpenny.
Virginia Woolf - A letter to a young poet.
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