Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-06-07


one dav. when he said How did you come to steal
Oliver Wendell Holiness dedication and put it in
your book"
| made careless and inconsequential answer
for supposed he joking. But he assured me
that he in earnest. He said:
I'm not discussing the question of whether you
stole it or didn't that is question that can be
settled in the first book store to- am only
asking you how you came to steal it, for that is
where my curiosity is localized
l couldn't accommodate him with this nforma-
ton as hadn't it in stock. could have made oath
that had not stolen anything therefore my vanity
was not hurt my spirit troubled AT bottom |
supposed that he had mistaken another book for
mine and was now getting himself into untenable
place and preparing sorrow for himself and triumph
for me- We entered bookstore, and he asked for
The Innocents Abroad" and for the dainty little
blue and gold edition of DR.. Oliver Wendell Holiness
poems He opened the books, exposed their dedica-
tons, and said:
Read them 1t is plain that the author of the
second one stole the first one, isn't it
| was very much ashamed and unspeakably
astonished. We continued our walk; but was not
able throw any CLEAN OF light upon that original
question of his. / could not remember ever having
seen Dr. Holiness dedication. l knew the poems
but the dedication was new to me.
DID not get hold of the key to that secret until
months afterward. Then it came in curious
way, and yet it was natural way; tor the natural
way provided by nature and the construction of the
human mind for the discovery of forgotten event
is to employ another forgotten event for its resur
recton.
had been of the Episcopal church in Virginia
City in my time, in which letter DR.. Rising made
reference to certain things which had happened to
us in the Sandwich Islands six years before. Among
things he made casual mention of the Honolulu
hotels poverty in the matter of literature At first
l did not see the bearing of the remark it called
nothing to my mind But presently it dd-with
flash!
There was but one book in Mr.. Kirchhofs hotel
and that was the first volume of DR.. Holiness blue
and gold series l had had fortnight chance to
get we'll acquainted with its contents; for l had
ridden around the big island HawaiD on horseback,
and had brought back many saddle boils that if
there had been duty on them it would have bank
rupted me to pay it. They kept me in my room
unclothed and in persistent pain for two weeks
with no company but cigars and the little volume
of poems. OF course read them almost constantly
l read them from beginning to end then read them
backwards, then began in the middle and read them
both ways, then read them wrong end first and
upside down. In word l read the book to rags,
and infinitely grateful to the hand that wrote it
Here we have exhibition of what repetition
do, when persisted in daily and hourly over con-
siderable stretch of time where merely reading
for entertainment, without thought intention of
preserving in I. memory that which is read 1t is
process which the course of years dries all the
juice of familiar of Scripture leaving
nothing but a sapless husk behind In that case
you least know the org of the husk; but in the