There was a silence for a few moments.
At last he lifted up his head; looked across at me, and jerked his cigar-end under the grate, saying:
'By-the-by, Leicester, I have something to say to you.… It's about my book.' He paused for a moment. Then proceeded:
'You know that it is not yet published?—indeed, it is not fit to be published.—It is like Çæsar's Commentaries—nudi, recti et venusti (I think that's the expression all right), omni omatu orationis tamquam veste detracto—'Unadorned, severe and decent, stripped of all the embellishment of expression, like a garment.' But I was carried away from its actual state, nudus, into its ideal state, rectus et vemtstus.—Decent, comely, that is the best attribute for a man, his thoughts and his actions, that there can be. But you see my poor book never got beyond starkness! It was meant to be as a sort of introduction, or prelude, to a future work, my magnum opus! I did not care to tell the tale of my failure—not, at least, till I could tell with it the tale of my success. But … if anything happened to me—who can foresee even a moment here?—Quid humanitus, as Cicero has it—any of those chances to which humanity is liable' He paused again. His speech seemed perseveringly jerky.
I waited.—He resumed:
'I should like it brought out—then: supposing, I mean—supposing aliquid humanitus. For, you see, it might be of some use to others: more especially to those following on my track. It contains my attempt from the south, and my last journey ending at Injiji.'
' Yes?' I said.
Another pause.
Then he:
'Ah, but I thought I had the bird in my hand that time! Only in the bush, only in the bush! And I with no more twine with which to mend broken nets and snare it. I have not told you before, how bitter that moment was to me. To turn back at Mount Nebo, within sight of Canaan, into the sandy desert, so hot and waterless!—And as I turned, verily my anguish shamed me out of my manliness to play the woman. I did restrain myself till they had pitched the tent there.
