what is Fame ? 



alive ! Perhaps, you will say, they are not at all likely to 

 add to your reputation after death, and therefore are not to 

 be interpreted into any such design." 



" I am an author," I replied, growing somewhat senten- 

 tious, " and I believe that I live for some purpose, other- 

 wise I should not have been created. If I happen to enter- 

 tain the wish that when I go from this world I may leave 

 upon the prepared paper of literature, some photographic 

 record of how the world's image looked in through the 

 peculiar lens of my individual mind — it certainly is not out 

 of love for that particular stone which falls heir to my name, 

 and stands at the head of my grave. What would it 

 signify to the mouldering dust beneath, or the disembodied 

 spirit steeped in joy or anguish which no trifle could dis- 

 turb, to know that innumerable Smiths, and Jacksons, and 

 Thomsons had got into the way, some hundred years after 

 my demise, of making pic-nic pilgrimages to the picturesque 

 churchyard, and eating pigeon-pie over my graven epitaph- 

 slab ? Do you think my spirit would have nothing better 

 to do than come and chuckle unseen, while they scrawled 

 their names upon my monument, erasing a cloud of pre- 

 vious Smiths, and Jacksons, and Thomsons, to make a space 

 for themselves ? This is a true vision of that kind of fame 

 which men promise themselves when they say in their hearts 

 * we will leave a name,' No — when I am dead, I care no 

 more for my name than for an old hat which can be worn 

 no more. But I would, and I hope I shall, leave some- 

 thing, which shall remain, a tissue or a tangle of those 

 rays of beauty and of truth I have been able to draw out, 

 unbroken, as I was unravelling away the web of my exist- 

 ence. I would leave something that would either stand for 

 ever, like an ancient walnut dropping a perennial shower of 

 nuts to be cracked by generation after generation, and only 



l6i 



