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Дата написания1970-01-01
Язык книгиen
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зарубежная классиказарубежная старинная литература

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"Phil," he said in a moment, "don't be afraid. I couldn't hurt you if I would, and you know—or if you don't know you ought to know—that to promote your welfare has always been the supremest of my desires. I have returned to you here to-night to explain my motive in making the alterations in those books, and to account for the peculiarities of those verses. We have known each other, my dear boy, how many years?"

"Fifteen, Tom," I said, my voice husky with emotion.

"Yes, fifteen years, and fifteen happy years, Phil. Happy years to me, to whom the friendship of one who understood me was the dearest of many dear possessions. From the moment I met you I felt I had at last a friend, one to whom my very self might be confided, and who would through all time and under all circumstances prove true to that trust. It seemed to me that you were my soul's twin, Phil, and as the years passed on and we grew closer to each other, when the rough corners of my nature adapted themselves to the curves of yours, I almost began to think that we were but one soul united in all things spiritual, two only in matters material. I never spoke of it to you; I thought of it in communion with myself; I never thought it necessary to speak of it to you, for I was satisfied that you knew. I did not realize until—until that night a fortnight since, when almost without warning I found myself on the threshold of the dark valley, that perhaps I was mistaken. I missed you, and so sudden was the attack, and so swiftly did the heralds of death intrude upon me, that I had no time to summon you, as I wished; and as I lay there upon my bed, to the watchers unconscious, it came to me, like a dash of cold water in my face, that after all we were not one, but in reality two; for had we been one, you would have known of the perilous estate of your other self, and would have been with me at the last. And, Phil, the realization that chilled my very soul, that showed me that what I most dearly loved to believe was founded in unreality, reconciled me to the journey I was about to take into other worlds, for I knew that should I recover, life could never seem quite the same to me."

Here Bragdon, or his spirit, stopped speaking for a moment, and I tried to say something, but could not.

"I know how you feel, Phil," said he, noticing my discomfiture, "for, though you are not so much a part of me that you thoroughly comprehend me, I have become so much a part of you that your innermost thoughts are as plain to me as though they were mine. But let me finish. I realized when I lay ill and about to die that I had permitted my theory of happiness to obscure my perception of the actual. As you know, my whole life has been given over to imagination—all save that portion of my existence, which I shall not dignify by calling life, when I was forced by circumstances to bring myself down to realities. I did not live whilst in commercial pursuits. It was only when I could leave business behind and travel in fancy wheresoever I wished that I was happy, and in those moments, Phil, I was full of aspiration to do those things for which nature had not fitted me, and to the extent that I recognized my inability to do those things I failed to be content. I should have liked to be a great writer, a poet, a great dramatist, a novelist—a little of everything in the literary world. I should have liked to know Shakespeare, to have been the friend of Milton; and when I came out of my dreams it made me unhappy to think that such I never could be, until one day this idea came to me: all the happiness of life is bound up in the 'let's pretend' games which we learn in childhood, and no harm results to any one. If I can imagine myself off with my friend Phil Marsden in the lakes of England and Scotland, in the African jungle, in the moon, anywhere, and enter so far into the spirit of the trips as to feel that they are real and not imagination, why may I not in fancy be all these things that I so aspire to be? Why may not the plays of Shakespeare become the plays of Thomas Bragdon? Why may not the poems of Milton become the poems of my dearest, closest friend Phil Marsden? What is to prevent my achieving the highest position in letters, art, politics, science, anything, in imagination? I acted upon the thought, and I found the plan worked admirably up to a certain point. It was easy to fancy myself the author of Hamlet, until I took my copy of that work in hand to read, and then it would shock and bring me back to earth again to see the name of another on the title-page. My solution of this vexatious complication was soon found. Surely, thought I, it can harm no one if I choose in behalf of my own conceit to substitute my name for that of Shakespeare, and I did so. The illusion was complete; indeed, it became no illusion, for my eyes did not deceive me. I saw what existed: the title-page of Hamlet by Thomas Bragdon. I carried the plan further, and where I found a piece of literature that I admired, there I made the substitution of my name for that of the real author, and in the case of that delightful copy of Milton you gave me, Phil, it pleased me to believe that it was presented to me by the author, only the inscription on the title-page made it necessary for me to foist upon you the burden or distinction of authorship. Then, as I lived on in my imaginary paradise, it struck me that for one who had done such great things in letters I was doing precious little writing, and I bethought me of a plan which a dreadful reality made all the more pleasing. I looked into literature to a slight extent, and I perceived at once that originality is no longer possible. The great thoughts have been thought; the great truths have been grasped and made clear; the great poems have been written. I saw that the literature of to-day is either an echo of the past or a combination of the ideas of many in the productions of the individual, and upon that basis I worked. My poems are combinations. I have taken a stanza from one poet, and combining it with a stanza from another, have made the resulting poem my own, and in so far as I have made no effort to profit thereby I have been clear in my conscience. No one has been deceived but myself, though I saw with some regret this evening when you read my lines that you were puzzled by them. I had believed that you understood me sufficiently to comprehend them."

Here my ghostly visitor paused a moment and sighed. I felt as though some explanation of my lack of comprehension early in the evening was necessary, and so I said:

"I should have understood you, Tom, and I do now, but I have not the strength of imagination that you have."

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