Little Poems in Prose

THE STRANGER WHOM do you love best, man of enigmas? Tell us:—Your father, your mother, your sister, or your brother? “I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother.” “Your friends?” “There you employ a word whose sense I have never understood.” “Your country?” “I do not know its latitude.” “Beauty?” “I would love it willingly, Goddess and Immortal.” “Gold?” “I hate is as you hate God.” “Ah, what then do you love, strange man?” “I love the clouds . . . . the clouds that float . . . down there . . . the marvellous clouds.”