Word: staves
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Dates: during 1873-1873
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...educated men, at some time in their lives, write poetry. Many acquire the habit at an early age, and go about shedding blotted scraps of paper from their pockets with an infantile-Byronic air, to the delight of their mothers and to the horror of all reasonable people; others stave off the evil hour until they fall in love, when, inspired, I suppose, by the object of their sonnets, they often astonish every one but themselves by the excellence of their verses, just as madmen have been known to develop powers of which their hours of sanity showed no trace...