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Show ANTICIPATING FAME EESANT'S PATHETIC STORY OF"PAUl THE WANDERER." rhe Qolet Dignity of a Man Who Wm I.It-lnj I.It-lnj For Posterity A Tretty little Skit Written In the English 3S'ovelit' Iuiuit-table Iuiuit-table Style. I knew him for several years before his death. When I first made his ac quaintance, he was already an old man. He was also, as was evident from tha first, a very poor man. He went about thabbily dressed. He carried biscuiti In his pocket to the reading room on Which he lunched or took snacks at intervals in-tervals during the day. Perhaps he had Sinner afterward, but I always suspected suspect-ed his dinner to be an uncertain and a movable feast. It was understood that he was something in the literary way. I got to know him by Bitting next to him day after day. We exchanged the amenities of the reading room, apologized apolo-gized for crowding each other with books, abused the talkers, remarked on the impudence of those who go to th oom in order to flirt and so forth. When I got to know him better, I made little discoveries about him, as, for instance, that b liked a glass of beer in the middle of the day and that he eould not afford the twopence. I may say, not boastfully, that I was able to offer hira this little luxury. We used to go out together for the purposa He Was good enough to take an interest in my work. He proved to have a considerable consider-able knowledge of books and gave ma considerable help in this way. One Sunday I met him in the street We 6topped to speak. He lamented the closing of the museum on Sunday. For his own part, he said, he would hava the reading room open every day in the week. Why close the avenues of knowledge? knowl-edge? Wiy damn the fountains and springs of wisdom? So we walked and talked. He was perfectly dignified in his manner, though his great coat was o thin and shabby that cne might be ashamed to be seen with him. He stopped stop-ped presently at the door of a house in High street, Holborn. "I lodge here, " he said. "Will you ecae up stairs and see my hermitage?" I remfi. er that he called it grandly his herm ge. He led the way; the stairs were c ark and dirty; he took me to the fifth, )r fifty-fifth," floor. He liv-c1 liv-c1 in the bac: attic. "This," j said, "is the cell of the reCuse. I lo'--here quite retired. There are other 1 -r&, I believe, but I do not know '. ir. I live herewith my library in ij lurty. The air is whole-Bome whole-Bome at tli t. " He threw i. e window and sniffed sniff-ed the fia'r.nc- W the neighboring chimneys. Th- io.m was clean; the furniture wr : kc-7; there was no five In the grate; :t s! iilf were about 25 booLs hislu ra-y. The man looked perfectly per-fectly content! vith his hermitage. Tfe-jre were no papers on the table, nothing to 6"aow that he was a writer. I do not know how he lived certainly certain-ly he did uo work at the museum but he never borrowed. In one corner stood a wooden chest He lifted the lid and nodded and laughed. "Aha!" he said, "now I am going to reveal a secret You didn't know, no body at the museum knows, the people in the house don't know, that I am what do you think? a poet. It is 30 years since I paid for the publication of my collected poetical works. Yes, Eir, and I am going not only to communicate commu-nicate this secret to your honor in safe keeping but to present you with a copy. There, my young friend! "He produced pro-duced a thin volume. "I am Paul the Wanderer. " In fact, the title page bore the legend, "Collected Poetical Work of Paul the Wanderer. " "Thirty years," he repeated. "There ere 500 copies. The press received 50, the public bought four; there remained 446. I have now given you ona There now remain 445. I have bequeathed these to the public libraries of the nation. na-tion. Sir, you are young. You will yourself perhaps-publish your poems. Remember for your comfort that it takes 50 years, or two generations, for the noblest poets to take their proper placa Greatness true, stablu, 6olid greatness, not the empty applause given to an ephemeral favorite requires re-quires 50 years at least. Go, sir! Take the book I have given you, and in after years, when I am gone, tell the worM that you knew Paul the Wanderer!" I wrung his hand in silence and left him More than 50 years have passed 6ince he published that work. No one has yet spoken to me of Paul the Wanderer. Wan-derer. But I now understood his digni ty, his self respect and his content. He was anticipating and enjoying his future fu-ture fame. He was living for posterity Present poverty and neglect were noth '-ng. Walter Besant in London Queen. GRASSHOPPERS DESTROYING CROPS. ; . : Swarms In Western ew York Ravaging the Potato, Oat and Corn Field. Grasshoppers are proving a great pest and source of annoyance and loss to farmers in western New York. Reports continue to come from nearly all coun-! ties of damage being done the crops by them. In the eastern part of Livingston county they are very numerous. Last year they visited that section about two weeks later than this, but there were not so many as there are this year. They are now doing great damage to potatoes, carrots, corn and all growing croDS. Genesee and Wyoming counties also report considerable havoc from the grasshoppers. In the southwestern part af the 6tate they are also so numerous as to beget apprehension. In Allegany .county they are doing great damaga Since the hay has been cut they have taken to the oats, buckwheat and other grains, in many instances literally ruining ruin-ing whole fields. Several farmers, in order to get a better quality of straw, are cutting their oats while yet green, believing that if left to ripen the grasshoppers grass-hoppers will destroy them. Potatoes, which are very extensively raised in Allegany county, are also saf-fering saf-fering from their ravages, and efforts are being made to protect the crop. One method which is being extensively used is for a number of boys and men, with fishpoles, to march abreast across the fields, driving the pests before them. The process is a tedious and q sivt one, since, in order to effect any pema nent good, it must be continued during the whole day. Another drawback to i is that it leads to many petty quarrels between neighbors. When one drives a swarm of grasshoppers to an adjoining farm, his neighbor is pretty sure to onre them hock, and unpleasantnesi wob,Ut follow Rochester Democrf ',"wr - " 1 - 1 nil) 111 j.ii. m .muni., 1 ...ii..n...im,.-,m.JiWiuJL. |