us, -- not only the book, but the
repose.

One bright June morning a young
man, who happened to be waiting at
a rural station to take a train, dis-
covered one of the foremost of
American writers, who was, all
things considered, perhaps the most
richly cultivated man whom the
country has yet produced, sitting on
the steps intent upon a book, and
entirely oblivious of his surround-
ings. The young man's reverence
for the poet and critic filled him with
desire to know what book had such
power of beguiling into forgetfulness
one of the noblest minds of the time.
He affirmed within himself that it
must be a novel. He ventured to
approach near enough to read the
title, holding, rightly enough, that a
book is not personal property, and

[[31]]

p030 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p031w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p032

v?