to the publisher, and he returned it, saying it was not
the least what he wanted--he suggested my retaining about a third of
it, and rewriting the rest. Of course I could do nothing of the kind."
"What have you done with it?" I asked. "Oh, I have destroyed it." "But
didn't you see him," I said, "or do something--or at all events insist
on payment?" "Oh no," he said, "I could not do that--the man was
probably right--he wanted a particular kind of book, and mine was not
what he wanted. I did say that I wished he had explained to me more
clearly what he wanted--but after all it doesn't very much matter. I
can get along all right, if I am careful."

"Well," I said, "you are really a very aggravating person. If I could
not have got my book published elsewhere, I would certainly have had a
row--I would have taken out my money's worth in vituperation."

Willett smiled; "I dare say you would have had some fun," he said, "but
that is not my line. I have told you before that I can't interest
people--I don't think it is wholly my fault."

We sate late, talking; and for the only time in his life he spoke to
me, with a depth of emotion of which I should hardly have suspected
him, of the value he set upon my friendship, and his gratitude for my
sympathy.

And now this morning I have heard of his sudden death. He was found
dead in his room, bent over his papers. He must have been writing late
at night, as his custom was; and it proved on examination that he must
have long suffered from an unsuspected disease of the heart. Perhaps
that may explain his failure, if it can be called a failure. There is
something to me almost insupportably pathetic to think of his lonely
and uncomforted life, his isolation, his sensitiveness. And yet I do
not feel sure that it is pathetic, because his life somehow seems to me
to have been one of the most beautiful I have ever known. He did
nothing much for others, he achieved nothing for himself; but it is
only our miserable habit of weighing every one's life, in a hard way,
by a standard of performance and success, which makes one sigh over
Francis Willett's life. It is very difficult at times to see what it is
that life is exactly meant to do for us. Most of the men and women I
know--I say this sadly but frankly--seem to me to leave the world
worse, in essential respects, than they entered it. There is generally
something ingenuous, responsive, eager, sweet, hopeful about a
child--but though I admit