Possibly the honor does
not take away your respiration; but you are bound by courtesy to make
an acknowledgment, and you express your insincere thanks to the obliging
secretary of a literary organization which does not exist anywhere on
earth.
A scheme of lighter creative touch is that of the correspondent who
advises you that he is replenishing his library and desires a detailed
list of your works, with the respective dates of their first issue,
price, style of binding, etc. A bibliophile, you say to yourself. These
interrogations should of course have been addressed to your publisher;
but they are addressed to you, with the stereotyped "thanks in advance."
The natural inference is that the correspondent, who writes in a brisk
commercial vein, wishes to fill out his collection of your books, or,
possibly, to treat himself to a complete set in full crushed Levant.
Eight or ten months later this individual, having forgotten (or hoping
you will not remember) that he has already demanded a chronological list
of your writings, forwards another application couched in the self-same
words.
Pages:
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130