My modesty is as great as my talent!
No, I do not wish this great genius to be discovered just yet. It must
all go to help and illustrate and adorn the work of a much greater
genius, from which it has drawn every inspiration it ever had.
It is a splendid and delightful task I have before me: to unravel and
translate and put in order these voluminous and hastily-penned
reminiscences of Mary's, all of them written in the cipher we invented
together in our dream--a very transparent cipher when once you have
got the key!
It will take five years at least, and I think that, without presumption,
I can count on that, strong and active as I feel, and still so far from
the age of the Psalmist.
First of all, I intend
* * * * *
_Note_.--Here ends my poor cousin's memoir. He was found dead from
effusion of blood on the brain, with his pen still in his hand, and his
head bowed down on his unfinished manuscript, on the margin of which he
had just sketched a small boy wheeling a toy wheelbarrow full of stones
from one open door to another. One door is labelled _Passe_, the
other _Avenir_.
I arrived in England, after a long life spent abroad, at the time his
death occurred, but too late to see him alive.
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