Project Gutenberg's The Book-Bills of Narcissus, by Le Gallienne, Richard

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Title: The Book-Bills of Narcissus
An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne

Author: Le Gallienne, Richard

Release Date: January 25, 2004 [EBook #10826]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK-BILLS OF NARCISSUS ***

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THE BOOK-BILLS OF NARCISSUS

AN ACCOUNT RENDERED BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY ROBERT FOWLER

1895

TABLE OF CHAPTERS

I. INTRODUCTORY
II. STILL INTRODUCTORY, BUT THIS TIME
OF A GREATER THAN THE WRITER
III. IN WHICH NARCISSUS OPENS HIS 'GLADSTONE'
IV. ACCOUNTS RENDERED
V. AN IDYLL OF ALICE SUNSHINE, WHICH
REALLY BELONGS TO THE LAST CHAPTER
VI. THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS
VII. THE CHILDREN OF APOLLO
VIII. GEORGE MUNCASTER
IX. THAT THIRTEENTH MAID
X. 'IN VISHNU-LAND WHAT AVATAR?'

TO MILDRED

Always thy book, too late acknowledged thine,
Now when thine eyes no earthly page may read;
Blinded with death, or blinded with the shine
Of love's own lore celestial. Small need,
Forsooth, for thee to read my earthly line,
That on immortal flowers of fancy feed;
What should my angel do to stoop to mine,
Flowers of decay of no immortal seed.

Yet, love, if in thy lofty dwelling-place,
Higher than notes of any soaring bird,
Beyond the beam of any solar light,
A song of earth may scale the awful height,
And at thy heavenly window find thy face--
know my voice shall never fall unheard.

_December 6th,_ 1894.

NOTE.--_This third edition has been revised, and Chapter V. is entirely
new_.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY--A WORD OF WISDOM, FOUND WRITTEN, LIKE THE MOST ANCIENT, ON
LEATHER

'Ah! old men's boots don't go there, sir!' said the bootmaker to me one
day, as he pointed to the toes of a pair I had just brought him for
mending. It was a significant observation, I thought; and as I went on
my way home, writing another such chronicle with every springing step,
it filled me with much reflection--largely of th