Read "Figures of Earth" by James Branch Cabell online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
To H. L. Mencken.
"Consider, faire Miserie, (quoth Manuel) that it lyes not in mans power to place his loue where he list, being the worke of an high Deity. A Birde was neuer seen in Pontus, nor true loue in a fleeting mynde: neuer shall remoue the affection of my Hearte, which in nature resembleth the stone Abiston. "