“Old Henley!”
“A man who died a little time ago.”
“I knew that man on earth. And he was in Utopia, too! He was a great red-faced man, with fiery hair, a noisy, intolerant maker of enemies, with a tender heart—and he was one of the samurai?”
“He defied the Rules.”
“He was a great man with wine. He wrote like wine; in our world he wrote wine; red wine with the light shining through.”
“He was on the Committee that revised our Canon. For the revising and bracing of our Canon is work for poietic as well as kinetic men. You knew him in your world?”
“I wish I had. But I have seen him. On earth he wrote a thing ... it would run—
“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever Gods may be,
For my unconquerable soul....”
“We have that here. All good earthly things are in Utopia also. We put that in the Canon almost as soon as he died,” said my double.