Breasted's book store, down in Newark, was where I was nearly always to be found, in the late afternoons.
It was there, in the murky light of a dying twilight, that I came Upon the book that has meant more to my life than any other book ever written....
For a long time I had known of John Keats, that there was such a poet. But, in the fever of my adolescence, in the ferment of my tramp-life, I had not yet procured his poetry....
Now, here were his complete works, right at hand, in one volume ... a damaged but typographically intact copy....
I had, once before, dipped into his Endymion and had been discouraged ... but this time I began to read him with his very first lines—his dedication to Leigh Hunt, beginning:
"Glory and loveliness have passed away."
Then I went on to a pastoral piece:
"I stood tiptoe upon a little hill."
I forgot where I was. A new world of beauty was opened to me.... I read and read....
"Come, Gregory, it's time to close"—a voice at my elbow. It was Breasted's assistant, a little, curious man who reminded me of my sky-pilot at Sydney. He, also, wore a black, long-tailed coat. He was known as "the perfessor."