Page:Tex; a chapter in the life of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (IA texchapterinlife00mcke).pdf/144



''would like you to write a preface to it Will you do this? I should very much like you to. It involves re-reading the book, I fear; but after that you will not have much to do except to draw an analogy between the hero and the poor Czar, on whose character the recent articles in the Times have thrown an interesting light.''

I reminded Teixeira that I had never read Majesty, as I had never been able to secure a copy. You're perfectly right, he replied on 5. 9. 20. I'll bring the only copy in the world, that I know of, in my suit-case.

''You will be able to point to some remarkable prophecies on C's part (he foretold the Hague Conference years before it happened) and, for the rest, to let yourself go as you please on high continental dynastic politics. I doubt if any writer ever entered into the soul of princes as this astonishing youth of 25 or so did''

I propose to revise Majesty'' so thoroughly that I shall be entitled to eliminate Ernest Dowson's name from the title-page, even as I eliminated John Gray's from that of Ecstacy. There was no true collaboration in either case; and they did little more for me than you did in Old People'':