Memories and Vagaries

Memories and Vagaries have been out of print for long. Death was due to natural cause, and the few mourners who accompanied the book to the common grave of oblivion, have so far borne their loss with stubborn resignation. So have I, until the long-forgotten book was read to me the other day by a friendly voice. As I listened with a compassionate smile on my lips to these humble stories, I suddenly felt a pang in my heart, and I wished I could write to-day just such a book as this with all its shortcomings, its boyish boisterousness, its guileless self-consciousness, its incorrigible joie de vivre and its unshaken faith. Alas! I shall wish it in vain, it is my youth I wish for! La vie s'en va, Madame, la vie s'en va ! Hélas! la vie non, mais nous, nous en allons.