THE MARBLE FAUN

HIRAM POWERS




INTRODUCTION


Inheritance of friendships--Gracious giants--My own good fortune--My
father the central figure--What did his gift to me cost him?--A
revelation in Colorado--Privileges make difficulties--Lights and
shadows of memory--An informal narrative--Contrast between my father's
life and mine.

The best use we can make of good fortune is to share it with our
fellows. Those to whom good things come by way of inheritance,
however, are often among the latest to comprehend their own advantage;
they suppose it to be the common condition. And no doubt I had nearly
arrived at man's estate before it occurred to me that the lines of few
fishers of men were cast in places so pleasant as mine. I was the son
of a man of high desert, who had such friends as he deserved; and
these companions and admirers of his gave to me in the beginning of my
days a kindly welcome and encouragement generated from their affection
and reverence for him. Without doing a stroke of work for it, I found
myself early in the enjoyment of a principality of good will and
fellowship--a species of freemasonry, I might call it, though the
secret was patent enough--for the rights in which, unaided, I might
have contended my lifetime long in vain. Men and women whose names are