When he recovered enough to open the envelope, this note was found within:
"To Lawrence Gouger, Esq:—Dear Sir: Enclosed herewith you will find the novel for which you have waited so long. I hope it will please you in all respects, as I certainly have taken the greatest pains with it.
"On reading it over I thought it best to more thoroughly disguise the personality of the characters, lest any of them might be injured by its publication. There was the happiness of a newly-made bride to be considered; her husband's ease of mind; her father's serene old age; her sister's feelings. There was even a black man who had perhaps suffered enough, and a critic employed by a large publishing firm who would not like his true character made manifest in type. In order to protect these people I have applied a match to the pages. You can best tell whether I have performed the work too well.
"If this novel does not bring me the fame you anticipate I shall not much care; I have lost some of my ambitions. If it fails to add to my fortune, never mind; a single man has no great need of wealth.
"I go to-night on board a steamer which sails for Europe at daybreak. When you read this I shall be on the sea. I have secured a position as resident correspondent abroad for one of the great newspapers. Perhaps I never shall return. Truly your friend, S. R."
"The idiot!" cried the reader, as he finished perusing this letter. "The imbecile! Was there ever such a fool born on this earth!"
Then he apostrophised the heap of ashes that lay in the box before him.
"There never was and never will be so great a work of fiction as you were yesterday! And yet a little touch of flame, and all was extinguished! How like you were to man! Let him have the brain of a Shakespeare, and a pound weight falling on his skull ends everything.
"There was a flood in Hungary last week, in which a thousand people were drowned. There was an earthquake in Peru where five hundred perished. A vessel went down off the Caroline Islands. Taken all together, they did not equal to this world your loss.
"The poet knew what he was saying: 'Great wits are sure to madness near allied.' Oh, to think that a mind that could execute your thrilling pages knew no more than to destroy them!