"The world is wide-mouthed, long-eared, and stupid—it will probably like that affair of yours, though I doubt if the book sells."
And Barry pointed to the curled up novel on the table.
I bowed with, "I hope it will."
"The world," he continued, "that gave Milton £10 for Paradise Lost, ought surely to be in ecstacies over Daisy's Necklace."
"Barry," said I, somewhat nettled, "is it my good nature, or your lack of it, that seduces you into saying such disagreeable things?"
"Neither, Ralph, for I no more lack good nature than you possess it. But we won't quarrel. I am sore because the day of great books has gone by! Once we could boast of giant minds: we have only pigmies now."
"But let them speak, Barry. There may be some among us that are not for a day. Who foresaw in the strolling player, in the wild, thoughtless Will Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, the Dramatist of all time? Your pet Homer was a mendicant. Legions of our best poets were not acknowledged, until the brain that thought, was worn out, the hand that toiled, cold, and the lips that murmured, patient forever!
'So angels walked unknown on earth,
But when they flew were recognized!'
What if my poor story is stale and flat beside the chef-d'œuvre of Sir Walter Scott's genius? Barry, there is a little bird in our New-England woods known only by its pleasant chirp; yet who would break its amber bill because the nightingales in eastern lands warble so deliciously?"
Barry laughed.