"This," he murmured fondly, without looking up, "is the complete collection of my poems."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Nicholas, with deep compassion.
"Yes, my complete collection. I have written a great deal more, and should have liked to publish all that I have written. But it was necessary to select, and I have included here only what it was intolerable to see wasted. There is nothing I value more than a group of elegiac poems, which every single member of my large family—who are fine critics—and all my friends, pronounce very beautiful. I think it would be a good idea to inscribe a selection from one on my monument, since those who read the selection would wish to read the entire poem, and those who read the entire poem would wish to read the entire collection. I shall now favour you with these elegies."
"I should be happy to hear them; but my time!" said Nicholas courteously. "The living are too impatient to wait on me; the dead too patient to be defrauded."
"Surely you would not refuse to hear one of them," exclaimed the poet, his eyes flashing.
"Read one, by all means." Nicholas seated himself on a monumental lamb.
The poet passed one hand gently across his forehead, as though to brush away the stroke of rudeness; then, fixing upon Nicholas a look of infinite remoteness, he read as follows:—
"He suffered, but he murmured not;
To every storm he bared his breast;
He asked but for the common lot—
To be a man among the rest.
"Here lies he now——"
"If you ask but for the common lot," interrupted Nicholas, "you should rest content to be forgotten."