“Five? I’d give five thousand!”
“Give your sympathy—give your forbearance. Two-thirds of those who approach him only do it to advertise themselves.”
“Why it’s too bad!” the girl exclaimed with the face of an angel. “It’s the first time I was ever called crude!” she laughed.
I followed up my advantage. “There’s a lady with him now who’s a terrible complication, and who yet hasn’t read, I’m sure, ten pages he ever wrote.”
My visitor’s wide eyes grew tenderer. “Then how does she talk—?”
“Without ceasing. I only mention her as a single case. Do you want to know how to show a superlative consideration? Simply avoid him.”
“Avoid him?” she despairingly breathed.
“Don’t force him to have to take account of you; admire him in silence, cultivate him at a distance and secretly appropriate his message. Do you want to know,” I continued, warming to my idea, “how to perform an act of homage really sublime?” Then as she hung on my words: “Succeed in never seeing him at all!”
“Never at all?”—she suppressed a shriek for it.
“The more you get into his writings the less you’ll want to, and you’ll be immensely sustained by the thought of the good you’re doing him.”