...
.... Poor dear soul! Her ideas had got a little mixed, and her heart was
overflowing, and the white handkerchief closed the scene with its timely
and greatly needed service.
--What a pity, I have often thought, that she came in just at that
precise moment! For the old Master was on the point of telling us, and
through one of us the reading world,--I mean that fraction of it which
has reached this point of the record,--at any rate, of telling you,
Beloved, through my pen, his solution of a great problem we all have to
deal with. We were some weeks longer together, but he never offered to
continue his reading. At length I ventured to give him a hint that our
young friend and myself would both of us be greatly gratified if he would
begin reading from his unpublished page where he had left off.
--No, sir,--he said,--better not, better not. That which means so much
to me, the writer, might be a disappointment, or at least a puzzle, to
you, the listener. Besides, if you'll take my printed book and be at the
trouble of thinking over what it says, and put that with what you've
heard me say, and then make those comments and reflections which will be
suggested to a mind in so many respects like mine as is your own,--excuse
my good opinion of myself,
(It is a high compliment to me, I replied) you will perhaps find you have
the elements of the formula and its consequences which I was about to
read you.
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