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AUNTIE TOOTHACHE |
1097 |
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very amusing to read ! Here is only a little part of what was written ; it was a whole book and a little more ; my parents gave half a pound of green soap for it, to the student's landlady. Here is what I rescued.' I borrowed it, and read it, and now I communicate it. The title was:
Auntie Toothache.
Auntie gave me sweet things when I was little. My teeth held out and were not destroyed ; now I am older, and have become a student, she spoils me still with sweet things, and says that I am a poet. I have something of the poet in me, but not sufficient. Often when I am walking in the streets of the town, it seems to me as if I walk in a big library. The houses are bookcases, every floor a shelf with books. There stands an everyday story, there a good old comedy, scientific works in all departments, here filthy literature and there good reading. I can both exercise my fancy and philosophize over all the literature. There is something of the poet in me, but not sufficient. Many people have certainly as much in themselves as I, and yet wear neither badge nor neck-band with the name ' Poet'.
There is given to them and to me a gift of God, a blessing big enough for oneself, but far too small to be given out again to others. It comes like a sunbeam, and fills the soul and the thoughts. It comes as the scent of flowers, as a melody which one knows and remembers, but cannot tell from where.
The other evening I sat in my room, wanting to read, but had neither book nor paper ; just then a leaf, fresh and green, fell from the lime tree. The wind bore it in at the window to me.
I looked at the many spreading veins ; a little insect crawled over these, as if it would make a thorough study of the leaf. Then I had to think of the wisdom of men ; we also crawl about upon a leaf, know only it, and then at once hold a discourse about the whole big tree, the root, the trunk, and the crown, the great tree—God, the world, and eternity, and know of the whole only a little leaf !
As I sat there, I had a visit of Auntie Milly. I showed her the leaf with the insect, told her my thoughts about it, and her eyes shone.
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