Page:Tales of Today.djvu/45

Rh something of interest in it, and in one of my leisure moments I had roughly drafted a solution of it, which seemed to give general satisfaction.

There was not a day that I failed to receive complimentary verses, congratulatory letters, and anonymous declarations of love. As to callers, I adhered unflinchingly to the resolution that I had formed for my protection: my door was rigorously barred against all the world. Still, I could not help receiving two foreigners who had announced themselves as relatives of mine; they were blackbirds both, one from Senegal, the other from China.

"Ah! sir," said they, with an embrace that nearly drove the breath out of my body, "what a great blackbird you are! How well have you depicted in your immortal lay the pangs of unrecognized genius! If we were not already as uncomprehended as possible, we should become so after having read you. How we sympathize with you in your sorrow, in your sublime scorn for the vulgar! We, too, dear sir, have reason to know something, of our own knowledge, of the secret griefs that you have sung so well. Here are two sonnets that we composed while coming hither and that we beg you will accept."

"Here also is some music," added the Chinese, "that my wife composed on a passage in your preface. It is marvelous in its illustration of the meaning of the author."

"Gentlemen," I said to them, "so far as I can judge, you appear to me to be endowed with great depth of feeling and great brilliancy of intellect; but pardon me for asking you a question. Why are you so sad?"