Your first
volume of poems has been read by one man, at least, beside wild
watchfires in the Rocky Mountains."
Tom did not say that he pitched the said volume into the river in
disgust; and that it was, probably, long since used up as house
material by the caddis-baits of those parts,--for doubtless there are
caddises there as elsewhere.
Poor Elsley rose at the bait, and smiled and bowed in silence.
"I have been so long absent from England, and in utterly wild
countries, too, that I need hardly be ashamed to ask if you have
written anything since 'The Soul's Agonies'? No doubt if you have, I
might have found it at Melbourne, on my way home: but my visit there
was a very hurried one. However, the loss is mine, and the fault too,
as I ought to call it."
"Pray make no excuses," says Elsley, delighted. "I have written, of
course. Who can help writing, sir, while Nature is so glorious, and
man so wretched? One cannot but take refuge from the pettiness of the
real in the contemplation of the ideal. Yes, I have written. I will
send you my last book down. I don't know whether you will find me
improved."
"How can I doubt that I shall?"
"Saddened, perhaps; perhaps more severe in my taste; but we will not
talk of that. I owe you a debt, sir, for having furnished me with
one of the most striking 'motifs' I ever had. I mean that miraculous
escape of yours. It is seldom enough, in this dull every-day world,
one stumbles on such an incident ready made to one's hands, and
needing only to be described as one sees it.
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