Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/168

 terested in Jack read the book. Then, as always, you were amazed at his maturity, but bitterly disappointed for him and for yourself that the verses were not prettier. Here is the prelude for a fair sample:

The wide world is already filled with that sort of singing. Any practised writer can do it for volumes—many do, alas!—and without proper guidance you cannot find anything of the real Jack in the pages of his one and only book. You must remember that he was only fifteen, very much in love—with a passion that had endured longer than do the passions of most grown men—and dying. Then the book, if you can find a copy anywhere,