An Occidental Luminary

Sebastian determined to make himself interesting. The public has a
fawning respect for fame. One or two abortive attempts convinced Mr.
Early that his literary efforts would bring him not even the distinction
of infamy. At last he hit upon an idea. He would be a patron of the
Arts--not one of your little ordinary buyers, but a man whose purse was,
so to speak, regilded by mind. He spent six months of hard work as a
student of the situation and then he made his début. He selected a few
gems of half-forgotten eighteenth century literature--gems that deserved
to be given life-preservers on that stream of oblivion into which they
were too surely being sucked. These he brought forth in tiny volumes,
wide-edged and thick-papered, illuminated as to capitals and bound in
ooze or in old brocade on which were scattered a few decorations,
calculated, so unthinkable were they, to upset the reasoning power of
the average reader, and thus prepare him for the literary matter which
he should find within.

These books naturally "took." They invited no man to read, but they were
interesting to look at and therefore particularly adapted to those
occasions when one must make a small gift to a friend. Scarce a
center-table in the country but held at least one. The beauty of it was
that the literary matter cost him nothing, and the books were their own
advertising bill-boards; for wherever they went they lay in conspicuous
places.

From books Mr. Early passed on to furniture; and he begot strange
shapes, wherein forgotten Gothic forms were commingled with forms that
never man saw before; and these also took. So the circle widened, until
glass pottery and rugs were gathered into the potpourri of Mr. Early's
genius.