hat becomes of the ink-pots of glory? The conduit from which
Boswell drew, for Charles Dilly in The Poultry, the great river of his
Johnson? The well (was it of blue china?) whence flowed _Dream Children:
a Revery_? (It was written on folio ledger sheets from the East India
House--I saw the manuscript only yesterday in a room at Daylesford,
Pennsylvania, where much of the richest ink of the last two centuries is
lovingly laid away.) The pot of chuckling fluid where Harry Fielding
dipped his pen to tell the history of a certain foundling; the ink-wells
of the Cafe de la Source on the Boul' Mich'--do they by any chance
remember which it was that R.L.S. used? One of the happiest tremors of
my life was when I went to that cafe and called for a bock and writing
material, just because R.L.S. had once written letters there. And the
ink-well Poe used at that boarding-house in Greenwich Street, New York
(April, 1844), when he wrote to his dear Muddy (his mother-in-law) to
describe how he and Virginia had reached a haven of square meals. That
hopeful letter, so perfect now in pathos--

For breakfast we had excellent-flavored coffee, hot and strong--not
very clear and no great deal of cream--veal cutlets, elegant ham
and eggs and nice bread and butter. I never sat down to a more
plentiful or a nicer breakfast. I wish you could have seen the
eggs--and the great dishes of meat. Sis [his wife] is delighted, and
we are both in excellent spirits. She has coughed hardly any and had
no night sweat. She is now busy mending my pants, which I tore
against a nail. I went out last night and bought a skein of silk, a
skein of thread, two buttons, a pair of slippers, and a tin pan for
the stove. The fire kept in all night. We have now got four dollars
and a half left. To-morrow I am going to try and borrow three
dollars, so that I may have a fortnight to go upon. I feel in
excellent spirits, and haven't drank a drop--so that I hope soon to
get out of trouble.

[Illustration]

Yes, let us clear the typewriter off the table: an ink-well is a sacred
thing.

Do you ever stop to think, when you see the grimy spattered desks of a
public post-office, how many eager or puzzled human hearts have tried,
in those dingy little ink-cups, to set themselves right with fortune?
What blissful meetings have been appointed, what scribblings of pain and
sorrow, out of those founts of common speech. And th