I shall not die; I shall not utterly die,
For beauty born of beauty--that remains.
[Footnote: Madison Cawein, _To a Windflower_.]




CHAPTER VIII.

A SOBER AFTERTHOUGHT


Not even a paper shortage has been potent to give the lie to the author
of _Ecclesiastes_, but it has fanned into flame the long smouldering
resentment of those who are wearily conscious that of making many books
there is no end. No longer is any but the most confirmed writer suffered
to spin out volume after volume in complacent ignorance of his readers'
state of mind, for these victims of eye-strain and nerves turn upon the
newest book, the metaphorical last straw on the camel's load, with the
exasperated cry, Why? Why? and again Why?

Fortunately for themselves, most of the poets who have taken the poet's
character as their theme, indulged their weakness for words before that
long-suffering bookworm, the reader, had turned, but one who at the
present day drags from cobwebby corners the accusive mass of material on
the subject, must seek to justify, not merely the loquacity of its
authors, but one's own temerity as well, in forcing it a second time
upon the jaded attention of the public.

If one had been content merely to make an anthology of poems dealing