* * * * *
Here my companion made a pause, and I waited in anxious suspense;
hoping to have a whole volume of literary life unfolded to me. He
seemed, however, to have sunk into a fit of pensive musing; and when
after some time I gently roused him by a question or two as to his
literary career. "No," said he smiling, "over that part of my story I
wish to leave a cloud. Let the mysteries of the craft rest sacred for
me. Let those who have never adventured into the republic of letters,
still look upon it as a fairy land. Let them suppose the author the
very being they picture him from his works; I am not the man to mar
their illusion. I am not the man to hint, while one is admiring the
silken web of Persia, that it has been spun from the entrails of a
miserable worm."
"Well," said I, "if you will tell me nothing of your literary history,
let me know at least if you have had any farther intelligence from
Doubting Castle."
"Willingly," replied he, "though I have but little to communicate."
THE BOOBY SQUIRE.
A long time elapsed, said Buckthorne, without my receiving any accounts
of my cousin and his estate. Indeed, I felt so much soreness on the
subject, that I wished, if possible, to shut it from my thoughts.
