"Don't force him to have to take account of you; admire him in
silence, cultivate him at a distance and secretly appropriate his
message. Do you want to know," I continued, warming to my idea,
"how to perform an act of homage really sublime?" Then as she hung
on my words: "Succeed in never seeing him at all!"

"Never at all?"--she suppressed a shriek for it.

"The more you get into his writings the less you'll want to, and
you'll be immensely sustained by the thought of the good you're
doing him."

She looked at me without resentment or spite, and at the truth I
had put before her with candour, credulity, pity. I was afterwards
happy to remember that she must have gathered from my face the
liveliness of my interest in herself. "I think I see what you
mean."

"Oh I express it badly, but I should be delighted if you'd let me
come to see you--to explain it better."

She made no response to this, and her thoughtful eyes fell on the
big album, on which she presently laid her hands as if to take it
away. "I did use to say out West that they might write a little
less for autographs--to all the great poets, you know--and study
the thoughts and style a little more."

"What do they care for the thoughts and style? They didn't even
understand you. I'm not sure," I added, "that I do myself, and I