“Well,” said he, genially, anticipating my applause, “Good-bye. But before you go please let me beg you to tell the public that I lately wrote something for the Times a great deal better than anything else I have ever written. Nobody seems to read the Times,” he continued, in a tone of slight petulance, “and I have not seen it quoted anywhere. I wonder if it is properly known? Please tell people that that little note about ‘copyright’ is only for fun. Anyone may use it who likes—I had a paragraph put in the papers to say so. It’s like this—” He then added a few conventional words of God-speed, and I left him. I have never seen him since.
And yet ... and yet....
The student will now pardon me, I trust, if I go somewhat more deeply into things than is customary in text books of this class. That little conquest over pride, that little task honestly performed, earned me something I shall value for ever, something that will be handed down in our family “even unto the third and the fourth generation” (Habb. vii. 13). It is something that means far, far more to me than a mere acquaintance with an author could possibly have done. For who can gauge so volatile a thing as friendship? Who could with certitude have pointed me out and said, “There goes His friend”? The Written Thing remained.
In my room, nay, just above me as I write, hangs framed the following note in pencil.
“Awfully glad to see the stuff in the ‘Herald,’ but say—are you old Caliban? That was rather stiff on a jack high? Wasn’t it? Never mind. You didn’t ask me for my auto, but I send it herewith right along, for I like you.”
There is the Man Alone as He IS—.... It seems of small moment, but there is something more. Framed in dark oak and gold very sumptuously, and hanging quite apart, is the little shred of paper which He enclosed. Shall I whisper what is written upon it?...?... The first few jotted notes of the glorious song which rang through the Empire like a bugle-call, and hurled it at Nicaragua.
Mem.—Can a preposition begin with a capital?
Hark and attend my Chosen: Ye have heard me
ye people
Out of the East,
with an introduction?
Mem.—Alternative, “with a bag and a blanket.”
I came and the nations trembled: I bore the Mark
with a ■■■■■■■■■■■■
■■■■■■■
glory about me?
of the Beast,