I can get along all
right, if I am careful."
"Well," I said, "you are really a very aggravating person. If I
could not have got my book published elsewhere, I would certainly
have had a row--I would have taken out my money's worth in
vituperation."
Willett smiled; "I dare say you would have had some fun," he said,
"but that is not my line. I have told you before that I can't
interest people--I don't think it is wholly my fault."
We sate late, talking; and for the only time in his life he spoke
to me, with a depth of emotion of which I should hardly have
suspected him, of the value he set upon my friendship, and his
gratitude for my sympathy.
And now this morning I have heard of his sudden death. He was found
dead in his room, bent over his papers. He must have been writing
late at night, as his custom was; and it proved on examination that
he must have long suffered from an unsuspected disease of the
heart. Perhaps that may explain his failure, if it can be called a
failure. There is something to me almost insupportably pathetic to
think of his lonely and uncomforted life, his isolation, his
sensitiveness. And yet I do not feel sure that it is pathetic,
because his life somehow seems to me to have been one of the most
beautiful I have ever known.
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