Should n't mind being done in
bronze after I was dead. On second thoughts not so clear about it,
remembering how some of them look that we have got stuck up in public;
think I had rather go down to posterity in an Ethiopian Minstrel
portrait, like our friend's the other day.
--You were kind enough to say, I remarked to the Master, that you read my
poems and liked them. Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what
it is you like about them?
The Master harpooned a breakfast-roll and held it up before me.--Will you
tell me,--he said,--why you like that breakfast-roll?--I suppose he
thought that would stop my mouth in two senses. But he was mistaken.
--To be sure I will,--said I.---First, I like its mechanical consistency;
brittle externally,--that is for the teeth, which want resistance to be
overcome; soft, spongy, well tempered and flavored internally, that is
for the organ of taste; wholesome, nutritious,--that is for the internal
surfaces and the system generally.
--Good,--said the Master, and laughed a hearty terrestrial laugh.
I hope he will carry that faculty of an honest laugh with him wherever he
goes,--why shouldn't he? The "order of things," as he calls it, from
which hilarity was excluded, would be crippled and one-sided enough. I
don't believe the human gamut will be cheated of a single note after men
have done breathing this fatal atmospheric mixture and die into the ether
of immortality!
I did n't say all that; if I had said it, it would have brought a pellet
from the popgun, I feel quite certain.
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