I had their promise before they left me, and
waited confidently for their gratitude. No doubt they also spread
the good news in their turn, and it is just possible that it
reached you in this way, but it was to me, none the less, that
your thanks were due. For instance, you may have noticed a couple
of casual references to it, as if it were a classic known to all,
in a famous novel published last year. It was I who introduced
that novelist to it six months before. Indeed, I feel sometimes
that it was I who wrote The Wind in the Willows, and recommended
it to Kenneth Grahame ... but perhaps I am wrong here, for I have
not the pleasure of his acquaintance. Nor, as I have already
lamented, am I financially interested in its sale, an explanation
which suspicious strangers require from me sometimes.
I shall not describe the book, for no description would help it.
But I shall just say this; that it is what I call a Household
Book. By a Household Book I mean a book which everybody in the
household loves and quotes continually ever afterwards; a book
which is read aloud to every new guest, and is regarded as the
touchstone of his worth. But it is a book which makes you feel
that, though everybody in the house loves it, it is only you who
really appreciate it at its true value, and that the others are
scarcely worthy of it. It is obvious, you persuade yourself, that
the author was thinking of you when he wrote it.
Pages:
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78