Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: WILKIE COLLINS AT THE DINNER IN HIS HONOR, SEPTEMBER 27, 1873 MANY years ago—more years than I now quite like to reckon—I was visiting Sorrento, in the Bay of Naples, with my father, mother, and brothers, as a boy of thirteen. At that time of my life I was an insatiable reader of that order of books for which heavy people have invented the name of light literature. In due course of time I exhausted the modest resources of the library which we had brought to Naples, and found myself faced with the necessity of borrowing from the resources of our fellow-travelers, summer residents of Sorrento like ourselves. Among them was a certain countryman of yours, very tall, very lean, very silent, and very melancholy. In what circumstances the melancholy of this gentleman took its rise I am not able to tell you. The ladies thought it was a disappointment in love. The men attributed it to a cause infinitely more serious than that—I mean indigestion. Whether he suffered in heart or whether he suffered in stomach, I took, I remember, a boy's unreasonable fancy to him, passing over dozens of other people apparently far more acceptable than he was. I ventured to look up to the tall American—it was a long way to look up—and said in a trembling voice, "Can you lend me a book to read?" He looked downto me—it was a long way to look down—and said, "I have got but two amusing books. One of them is the 'Sorrows of Werther' and the other is the 'Sentimental Journey.' You are heartily welcome to both these books. Take them home, and when you have read them bring them back and dine with me and tell me what you think of them.'' I took them home and read them, and told him what I thought of them much more freely than I would now. And last, not least, I had an excellent dinner, crowned with cake, which w...