Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/295

Rh men have thought great thoughts invisible cathedrals erect themselves where understanding worships.

Books pursue us through the long avenues of days that are not our own.

He bows unalertly, Mephistopheles. He is always tired, and he never quite convinces us, this German allegory of the ancient evil. It is our dangerous friend Paul, of the subtle mind in debate, Paul the thistle-down-tongued, who spoke fetters aside.

It is the gentleman whom we know through the imagination of that Spaniard of whom we know so little. His blade peeps and his stocking is darned with a differing coloured silk. He stands, the wittiest, wisest, realest, maddest of mankind, cursed with a Sancho who has blessed us ever since—he bends and bows grave welcome.

The brittle laughter or the elastic cares of life find no response in the ceremonious welcome of their greeting.

Men leave us, and moods depart, and perhaps hurt memory at re-meeting; but books have no unkindness, and it is we who change. Friends force on us their content, or exhibit their woes as sign-boards to say our laughter trespasses on life. But books gravely await our coming and are our hospitable hosts entertaining the moods of us, their guests.

The better a book is the better it could be, yet it is a good book that for centuries can uphold reputation's incessant challenge, for it is more difficult to bear a reputation than to make it.

Now, our hurried days seldom admit of the building of a great fortress-book—our strong books are only outworks around literature. We are tired with eccentricity, the cheapest apology for originality. We are ashamed of the nakedness of sincerity and deal in transient things—from the shades no wail immortal of sad Orpheus ascends from his interminable search.

Rh