Lest my fall be unnoted by them, I write this essay. I want
that glance.
Do not, reader, suspect that because I am choosing my words nicely,
and playing with metaphor, and putting my commas in their proper
places, my sorrow is not really and truly poignant. I write
elaborately, for that is my habit, and habits are less easily broken
than hearts. I could no more `dash off' this my cri de coeur than I
could an elegy on a broomstick I had never seen. Therefore, reader,
bear with me, despite my sable plumes and purple; and weep with me,
though my prose be, like those verses which Mr. Beamish wrote over
Chloe"'s grave, `of a character to cool emotion.' For indeed my
anguish is very real. The collection I had amassed so carefully,
during so many years, the collection I loved and revelled in, has been
obliterated, swept away, destroyed utterly by a pair of ruthless,
impious, well-meaning, idiotic, unseen hands. It cannot be restored to
me. Nothing can compensate me for it gone. It was part and parcel of
my life.
Orchids, jade, majolica, wines, mezzotints, old silver, first
editions, harps, copes, hookahs, cameos, enamels, black-letter folios,
scarabaei--such things are beautiful and fascinating in themselves.
Railway-labels are not, I admit.
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