of will could induce him to open his boxes again, and the historic portfolio lay prone and inert in a dusty corner of his bedroom.
Ever since the night he had dreamed he was a book the idea of literature had gnawed at him; but the field of letters was so vasty that any vision he could evoke of himself threading a path through it was rather terrifying,—a tiny figure receding among the trees. He had seen so many books ranged on the stacks of the Harvard library that it seemed a positive misservice to the world to increase the plethora. Besides, he had nothing to say that wasn't best expressed in a sigh.
Yet there were moments when, for sheer peace of mind, he was obliged to get rid of his clamorous thoughts on paper. Paragraphs and pages would eventuate, which though they fairly indited themselves,—despite desperate halts while the thought untangled,—proved upon analysis to be nothing but what Walter Bagehot or George Santayana had once said in a single sentence. And there you are, he scornfully told himself: your memory plays tricks on you, and if you were to write a whole novel you'd probably end by discovering that it was merely Bleak House all over again, or Joseph Vance, or Niels Lyhne.
For all which, he was engaged on a story which, to his surprise, and gradually to his excitement, gave promise of growing into a novel. He scarcely realized this himself until one afternoon in January, when he
