I want both. We cannot call up those
who "left half told" these stories. In a happier world we shall listen
to their endings, and all our dreams shall be coherent and concluded.
Meanwhile, without trouble, and expense, and disappointment, and reviews,
we can all smoke our cigarettes of fairyland. Would that many people
were content to smoke them peacefully, and did not rush on pen, paper,
and ink!
CHAPTER XIV: STORIES AND STORY-TELLING
(From STRATH NAVER)
We have had a drought for three weeks. During a whole week this northern
strath has been as sunny as the Riviera is expected to be. The streams
can be crossed dry-shod, kelts are plunging in the pools, but even kelts
will not look at a fly. Now, by way of a pleasant change, an icy north
wind is blowing, with gusts of snow, not snow enough to swell the loch
that feeds the river, but just enough snow (as the tourist said of the
water in the River Styx) "to swear by," or at! _The Field_ announces
that a duke, who rents three rods on a neighbouring river, has not yet
caught one salmon. The acrimoniously democratic mind may take comfort in
that intelligence, but, if the weather will not improve for a duke, it is
not likely to change for a mere person of letters. Thus the devotee of
the Muses is driven back, by stress of climate, upon literature, and as
there is nothing in the lodge to read he is compelled to write.
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