him and suffered, at last, his mortality. I needed him too. He added a dimension to my being. As for my own identity: I can scarcely, «Dr.» Marloe, be an invention of Bradley's, since I have survived him. Falstaff, it is true, sur– vivid Shakespeare, but did not edit his plays. Nor am I, let me assure Mrs. Hartbourne, in the publishing trade, though more than one publisher has reason to be grateful to me. I hear it has even been suggested that Bradley Pearson and myself are both simply fictions, the invention of a minor novelist. Fear will inspire any hypothesis. No, no. I exist. Perhaps Mrs. Baffin, though her ideas are quite implausibly crude, is nearer to the truth. And Bradley existed. Here upon the desk as I write these words stands the little bronze of the buffalo lady. (The buffalo's leg has been repaired.) Also a gilt snuffbox inscribed A Friend's Gift. And Bradley Pearson's story, which I made him tell, remains too, a kind of thing more durable than these. Art is not cosy and it is not mocked. Art tells the only truth that ultimately matters. It is the light by which human things can be mended. And after art there is, let me assure you all, nothing. P.L. The EndNote1One page missingNote2One page missingNote3One page missingNote4One page missingNote5One page missingNote6One page missingNote7One page missingNote8One page missing
