The Right Words at the Wrong Time

HTImpressMarquess_medDear Gentle Reader,

Please do me a great favor. When you are reading devouring my upcoming book How to Impress a Marquess, at some point in your reading, imagine that the following quotation is spoken by my heroine, Lilith Dahlgren: “No coward soul is mine.” Be sure to attribute the line to Emily Brontë. May I suggest mentally inserting something like:

 Lilith could no longer stomach George’s cruel attempts to squash her wild, unfettered heart and, borrowing from Emily Bronte, proclaimed, “No coward soul is mine.”

Confused?

Allow me to explain.

When I was fleshing out my heroine, I imagined that Lilith adored the written word so much she could readily quote poetry and would carry about a tattered beloved volume of Keats’ poems—a literary security blanket of sorts. I borrowed from some of my favorite Romantic era poems, as well as dug through old poems to find the perfect words Lilith would use to express her emotions to my stodgy, unyielding, and uncreative (or so it would seem) hero George. For example, in the first chapter she tells him:

“What would I do with something as horrid as sense? I want wild, overpowering feeling, passion, zest. ‘More happy love! more happy, happy love! / For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d, / For ever panting, and for ever young; / All breathing human passion far above…’ That’s Keats, dearest,” she said. “I know you wouldn’t recognize it.”

How to Impress A Marquess includes snippets from Keats, Tennyson, Milton, and Whitman (yes, Whitman was read in England in 1879, the time period in which the book is set. I looked it up just for you.)

I thought I had gathered a wonderful collection of public domain poems for the story until I visited the Emily Dickinson Museum during my summer vacation. I had forced my family to stop at the museum as we traveled between New York and Maine, because several years ago I fell in love with the book White Heat by Brenda Wineapple, which is about Dickinson and her professional relationship with her editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson. After you read my book, you must immediately purchase White Heat because it’s all things wonderful.

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Emily Dickinson. FYI-she had bright red hair.

I ambled through Dickinson’s home, lulling about in a soft mellow high that only a history and literature geek could derive from a preserved home, knowledgeable tour guide, and poetry. The docent led us to a room with an installation about Dickinson’s poetry for that last segment of the tour. I hadn’t considered Dickinson’s poems for my book because the time frame is wrong. Almost all of her poems were published after her death in 1886. However, the installation listed earlier poets who influenced Dickinson, including Emily Brontë. Painted on the museum walls were Brontë’s words: “No Coward Soul Is Mine.” Dickinson had requested that Brontë’s poem be read at her funeral.

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Emily Brontë

When I read Brontë’s line, I sucked in my breath. My heart stilled. I wanted those words in a greedy, rapacious way. Lilith needed to say them. They were her essence. Why, oh why, did I not know about this poem? And I had even referenced the Brontës in my book. I wanted to bang my head on Emily D’s small writing desk, located by the windows where she would lower gingerbread in a basket to the local children.

Brontë’s words —

Had I discovered — their beautiful violence —

In time for revisions!

I would have captured  —  their substance  —

Rebirthed — on my final copy

Just Dammit!

By now How to Impress A Marquess had been released on Netgalley for review (Review it! Spread your book love around!) I had long passed the point of no return regarding significant revisions to the manuscript. Brontë’s words were perfect, but it was all too late for their gleaming perfection to physically appear on the book’s pages.

But you, gentle reader, have the power of imagination to insert them for me.

So I implore you to mentally sprinkle “No Coward Soul Is Mine” quotes into scenes where you think they would work.

For instance, when George, desperate to improve Lilith’s unruly ways, develops a regime to transform her into a gentle and submissive lady, she might cry out in defiance, “As Bronte said, ‘No coward soul is mine.’”

When George lashes out at Lilith because she has discovered George’s painful secret—that he had been an artist prodigy, but his father had beaten him until he gave up painting—that would also be an excellent time to unleash the quote.

When Lilith takes off her clothes and… Wait, I don’t want to spoil that part for you. But when you get there, you’ll know it.

If you feel the single line “No coward soul is mine” simply isn’t enough to get the meaning across, you might try inserting the entire poem into a scene. It’s included below for your convenience.

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No Coward Soul Is Mine
by Emily Brontë

No coward soul is mine
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere
I see Heaven’s glories shine
And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

O God within my breast
Almighty ever-present Deity
Life, that in me hast rest,
As I Undying Life, have power in Thee

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men’s hearts, unutterably vain,
Worthless as withered weeds
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by thy infinity,
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though earth and moon were gone
And suns and universes ceased to be
And Thou wert left alone
Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death
Nor atom that his might could render void
Since thou art Being and Breath
And what thou art may never be destroyed.

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HTImpressMarquess_med

Read the first chapter of How to Impress a Marquess

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2 Replies to “The Right Words at the Wrong Time”

  1. Oh gosh don’t you hate it when that happens! When you find the perfect lines to describe a feeling, a scene or all together a person far past the bridge of return. I’ll be looking forward to inserting as much of Emily’s line into the story as I can, with lots of sticky notes.

  2. Thank you! Writing this blog post really helped. In some sense, I managed to get Emily’s poem into the story. It has such a bright, powerful punch on that opening line. So Lilith!

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