THE PATH OF VISION
VIII
THE MOTHER OF COMMON SENSE
I ONCE knew a dreamer of golden
dreams. He was young, handsome,
robust and impecunious; and he was betrothed
to that fickle, elusive, flirtatious
and fascinating creature, Fame. He nursed
his genius in a little studio for sevral years,
setting up on a pedestal near his typewriter
an image of his Beloved, whom he secretly
and openly denounced. He
covered her with flowers of his dream at
night, and pretended in the open day to
be impervious to her wiles and charms.
They coquetted and flirted and quarrelled
for a couple of years, and were, indeed,
periodically estranged. Once he turned her
away from his door, because she doubted
the value of the dowry he offered her. A
trinket, she called it, a brummagem!
But who shall evaluate genius? Who, but Genius, is competent to say whether or not it is a fitting dowry for that elusive
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