Читать книгу The Collected Letters of Henry Northrup Castle - Henry Northrup Castle - Страница 11

THE following letters have been subjected to no editing beyond the sacrifice of some passages, which reflected rather the personality of others than Henry’s own. As they are intended only for the eyes of his own intimate circle, we have felt that there was no revelation of himself which was too intimate for these readers. There has been no thought of a literary whole; on the contrary, the trifles, catch-words, and repetitions of familiar correspondence have been retained, to be filled in by the memories of those to whom he wrote. It has not been our task to construct Henry out of his letters, but simply to present materials from which the readers of these pages will mentally reproduce the personality with which they were familiar. We have presumed upon the confidence reposed in us as collators of this correspondence only in the two added chapters of recollections; and the only excuse we offer for them is, that they sprang almost without premeditation, and quite inevitably, from the months spent with Henry by the medium of his letters.

“For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,

Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.

Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew

Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.

He must not float upon his watery bier

Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,

Without the meed of some melodious tear.”

“Alas, that Spring should vanish with the rose!

That youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should close!

The nightingale that in the branches sang,

Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows I”

—OMAR KHAYYAM.