"Listen, my friend," I said earnestly--"You know I have been busy for
the last fortnight correcting the proofs of my book for the press,--do
you not?"
He nodded with a smiling air.
"Well I have arrived almost at the end of my work and I have come to the
conclusion that the book is not Me,--it is not a reflex of my feelings
at all,--and I cannot understand how I came to write it."
"You find it stupid perhaps?" said Lucio sympathetically.
"No," I answered with a touch of indignation--"I do not find it stupid."
"Dull then?"
"No,--it is not dull."
"Melodramatic?"
"No,--not melodramatic."
"Well, my good fellow, if it is not dull or stupid or melodramatic, what
is it!" he exclaimed merrily--"It must be something!"
"Yes,--it is this,--it is beyond me altogether." And I spoke with some
bitterness. "Quite beyond me. I could not write it now,--I wonder I
could write it then. Lucio, I daresay I am talking foolishly,--but it
seems to me I must have been on some higher altitude of thought when I
wrote the book,--a height from which I have since fallen."
"I'm sorry to hear this," he answered, with twinkling eyes--"From what
you say it appears to me you have been guilty of literary sublimity. Oh
bad, very bad! Nothing can be worse. To write sublimely is a grievous
sin, and one which critics never forgive. I'm really grieved for you, my
friend--I never thought your case was quite so desperate."