The length of time it takes him to "replenish" his library (with
your books) strikes you as pathetic. You cannot control your emotions
sufficiently to pen a reply. From a purely literary point of view this
gentleman cares nothing whatever for your holograph; from a mercantile
point of view he cares greatly and likes to obtain duplicate specimens,
which he disposes of to dealers in such frail merchandise.
The pseudo-journalist who is engaged in preparing a critical and
biographical sketch of you, and wants to incorporate, if possible, some
slight hitherto unnoted event in your life--a signed photograph and
a copy of your bookplate are here in order--is also a character which
periodically appears upon the scene. In this little Comedy of Deceptions
there are as many players as men have fancies.
A brother slave-of-the-lamp permits me to transfer this leaf from the
book of his experience: "Not long ago the postman brought me a letter of
a rather touching kind. The unknown writer, lately a widow, and plainly
a woman of refinement, had just suffered a new affliction in the loss
of her little girl.
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