uling all human affairs--YOUR FIREWORKS
WON'T GO OFF WHILE THE CROWD IS AROUND.

Our brilliant repartees do not occur to us till the door is closed upon
us and we are alone in the street, or, as the French would say, are
coming down the stairs. Our after-dinner oratory, that sounded so
telling as we delivered it before the looking-glass, falls strangely
flat amidst the clinking of the glasses. The passionate torrent of
words we meant to pour into her ear becomes a halting rigmarole, at
which--small blame to her--she only laughs.

I would, gentle Reader, you could hear the stories that I meant to
tell you. You judge me, of course, by the stories of mine that you have
read--by this sort of thing, perhaps; but that is not just to me. The
stories I have not told you, that I am going to tell you one day, I
would that you judge me by those.

They are so beautiful; you will say so; over them, you will laugh and
cry with me.

They come into my brain unbidden, they clamour to be written, yet when
I take my pen in hand they are gone. It is as though they were shy of
publicity, as though they would say to me--"You alone, you shall read
us, but you must not write us; we are too real, too true. We are like
the thoughts you cannot speak. Perhaps a little later, when you know
more of life, then you shall tell us."

Next to these in merit I would place, were I writing a critical essay
on myself, the stories I have begun to write and that remain unfinished,
why I cannot explain to myself. They are good stories, most of them;
better far than the stories I have accomplished. Another time, perhaps,
if you care to listen, I will tell you the beginning of one or two and
you shall judge. Strangely enough, for I have always regarded myself as
a practical, commonsensed man, so many of these still-born children of
my mind I find, on looking through the cupboard where their thin bodies
lie, are ghost stories. I suppose the hope of ghosts is with us all. The
world grows somewhat interesting to us heirs of all the ages. Year by
year, Science with broom and duster tears down the moth-worn tapestry,
forces the doors of the locked chambers, lets light into the
secret stairways, cleans out the dungeons, explores the hidden
passages--finding everywhere only dust. This echoing old castle, the
world, so full of mystery in the days when we were children, is losing
somewhat its charm for us as we grow older. The king sleeps no longer in
the hollow of