It's slim and trim and bound in blue;
Its leaves are crisp and edged with gold;
Its words are simple, stalwart too;
Its thoughts are tender, wise and bold.
Its pages scintillate with wit;
Its pathos clutches at my throat:
Oh, how I love each line of it!
That Little Book I Never Wrote.
In dreams I see it praised and prized
By all, from plowman unto peer;
It's pencil-marked and memorized,
It's loaned (and not returned, I fear);
It's worn and torn and travel-tossed,
And even dusky natives quote
That classic that the world has lost,
The Little Book I Never Wrote.
Poor ghost! For homes you've failed to cheer,
For grieving hearts uncomforted,
Don't haunt me now. . . . Alas! I fear
The fire of Inspiration's dead.
A humdrum way I go to-night,
From all I hoped and dreamed remote:
Too late . . . a better man must write
That Little Book I Never Wrote.
Talking about writing books, there is a queer character who shuffles up
and down the little streets that neighbor the Place Maubert, and who,
they say, has been engaged on one for years. Sometimes I see him
cowering in some cheap _bouge_, and his wild eyes gleam at me through
the tangle of his hair. But I do not think he ever sees me. He mumbles
to himself, and moves like a man in a dream. His pockets are full of
filthy paper on which he writes from time to time. The students laugh at
him and make him tipsy; the street boys pelt him with ordure; the better
cafes turn him from their doors. But who knows? At least, this is how I
see him: