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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"From Mine Own People"

I can do it now because I have it inside me. Binkie, I'm going to
hold you up by your tail. You're an omen. Come here."
Binkie swung head downward for a moment without speaking.
"Rather like holding a guinea-pig; but you're a brave little dog, and you don't
yelp when you're hung up. It is an omen."
Binkie went to his own chair, and as often as he looked saw Dick walking up and
down, rubbing his hands and chuckling. That night Dick wrote a letter to Maisie
full of the tenderest regard for her health, but saying very little about his
own, and dreamed of the Melancolia to be born. Not till morning did he remember
that something might happen to him in the future.
He fell to work, whistling softly, and was swallowed up in the clean, clear joy
of creation, which does not come to man too often, lest he should consider
himself the equal of his God, and so refuse to die at the appointed time. He
forgot Maisie, Torpenhow, and Binkie at his feet, but remembered to stir
Bessie, who needed very little stirring, into a tremendous rage, that he might
watch the smouldering lights in her eyes.
He threw himself without reservation into his work, and did not think of the
doom that was to overtake him, for he was possessed with his notion, and the
things of this world had no power upon him.


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