greatly in demand as a writer of biographical prefaces to poetical
reprints.

The Wise Man heard him to the end and replied as follows: "Sire, you
have been ill-advised. Who ever heard of a happy poet? Poetry and
prosperity are incompatible. Instead of trying to make your _protégé_
joyful you should have heaped sorrow upon him. It is well known that
sorrow ennobles a man and enlarges his emotional experience. 'Poets
learn in suffering what they teach in song' sang one of them who knew.

"However it is not too late. When next he seeks your Presence, indicate
to him with that tact which is the birthright of princes that he no
longer enjoys your favour. At the same time stop his pension and allow
him to taste once more the life from which your bounty removed him.
Could you contrive that he loses the affection of his wife, and that he
falls into a consumption, so much the better. In addition, if it please
your Highness, I will arrange that all his work is unfavourably noticed
in the Press and that calumnies concerning his private life are
circulated in the personal paragraph columns."

"Thanks very much," said the Prince, and dismissed the Wise Man with a
handsome fee.

A few days later, when the poet presented himself at Court, the monarch
rose from his throne, took a short run and kicked him in a vulnerable
part. Breathless the poet was borne by lackeys from the royal presence,
wherein he never again showed himself. At the next meeting of the
Council the Prince annulled his pension by a stroke of the pen. Thus the
poet was thrust back into the cold world.