One always
wants somebody else's. And when you have them, where's the difference?
Ah, let us pray. These little fishes have none of our troubles."
I inquired about the new romance. At first he refused to disclose
anything. Then he told me it was to be entitled "With Christ at
Harvard," and that it promised some rather novel situations. I shall
look forward to its appearance.
What good things one could relate of M. M., but for the risk of
incurring his wrath! It is a thousand pities, I often tell him, that he
is still alive; I am yearning to write his biography, and cannot afford
to wait for his dissolution.
"When I am dead," he always says.
"By that time, my dear M., I shall be in the same fix myself."
"Try to survive. You may find it worth your while, when you come to look
into my papers. You don't know half. And I may be taking that little
sleeping-draught of mine any one of these days...." [12]
Mused long that night, and not without a certain envy, on the lot of M.
M. and other earthquake-connoisseurs - or rather on the lot of that true
philosopher, if he exists, who, far from being damaged by such
convulsions, distils therefrom subtle matter of mirth, I have only known
one single man - it happened to be a woman, an Austrian - who approached
this ideal of splendid isolation.
