MY EPIGRAM
For long it was a fugitive dream. I would catch sight of it, as one sees, or seems to see, a wild animal far down a forest clearing, or might it be a woodland nymph or faun? Or perhaps I would trace it written in the colours of the sunset, or in the morning among the folds of mist as they cleared from the chimneys on the mountain tops.
I am speaking now of my epigram. I had always intended to make (and utter) at least one epigram before I died. Other men had done it. Could I not also join their mighty company?
Then it would be written, perhaps, in the Dictionary of National Biography, "His early years and middle age were undistinguished, but during his fifty-ninth year, he suddenly made the now famous remark, ' ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ '"
But what would be those words? And should I ever say them? As the years rolled on I despaired of supposing they would ever rise unbidden to my lips,
