We dismiss them as we grow
older and the present with its crowding interests shuts them out;
but in youth they were more persistent. With him they appeared to
have remained, growing in reality. His recent existence, closed
under the white sheet in the hut behind me as I read, was only one
chapter of the story; he was looking forward to the next.
He wondered, so the letter ran, whether he would have any voice in
choosing it. In either event he was curious of the result. What he
anticipated confidently were new opportunities, wider experience.
In what shape would these come to him?
The letter ended with a strange request. It was that, on returning
to England, I should continue to think of him: not of the dead man
I had known, the Jewish banker, the voice familiar to me, the trick
of speech, of manner--all such being but the changing clothes--but
of the man himself, the soul of him, that would seek and perhaps
succeed in revealing itself to me.
A postscript concluded the letter, to which at the time I attached
no importance. He had made a purchase of the hut in which he had
died. After his removal it was to remain empty.
I folded the letter and placed it among other papers, and passing
into the hut took a farewell glance at the massive, rugged face.
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