Had it been otherwise he never would have endeavored
to make me believe that he had stood upon the very spot in the Colosseum
where Caesar addressed the Roman mob in impassioned words, exhorting them
to resist the encroachment upon their liberties of the Pope!
At first it seemed to me that my late friend was indulging in a posthumous
joke, and I paid his memory the compliment of seeing the point. But when,
some days later, I received a note from his executors stating that they
had found in the store-room of Bragdon's house a large packing-box full of
papers and books, upon the cover of which was tacked a card bearing my
address, I began to wonder whether or not, after all, the imagination of
my dead friend had really led him to believe that he possessed literary
ability.
I immediately sent word to the executors to have the box forwarded to me
by express, and awaited its coming with no little interest, and, it must
be confessed, with some anxiety; for I am apt to be depressed by the
literary lucubrations of those of my friends who, devoid of the literary
quality, do yet persist in writing, and for as long a time as I had known
Bragdon I had never experienced through him any sensations save those of
exhilaration, and I greatly feared a posthumous breaking of the spell.
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