human
Can you write a poem for me in the style of Kostantinos Chatzopoulos?
assistant
Sure, here's a poem in the style of Kostantinos Chatzopoulos:
  Colonial bureaus inherited from his mother, and some mirrors and
sculpturesquely bare, or picturesquely heaped with arriving or
departing household stuff.
When the Forsyths went to look at it a nice young fellow from the
Now, when the same young fellow unlocked the iron door and set it
"Horrors, yes!" Mrs. Forsyth said, without turning her head from
"Tata and I," her husband said, "are more interested in the
Her mother looked over her shoulder toward the child. "Come here,
things in her trunk.
The two mothers began politely to ignore each other. She of the
father.
"Ambrose," Mrs. Forsyth said, "you mustn't let him."
"Indeed, indeed, if you can, it's more than I can. You're just
worrying the little girl," she said to the boy.
twenty-dollar room.
"Oh yes, indeed," the Mid-Westerner said, willing to meet the
"You don't mean this is the first time you've stored? I suppose
"It seems very nice," Mrs. Forsyth suggested.
ridiculous habit; most children--little boys, that was--held onto
Tata, without rising from her seat on her heels, watched the
"What did you say?"
"I couldn't tell which," the child still whispered; but now her
mother's ear was at her lips.
One does not store the least of one's personal or household gear
everything out; one puts more things in. Mrs. Forsyth went to the
overflow.
Tata, who had now outgrown her pet name, and was called Charlotte
brother of the girls; at the office Mrs. Forsyth verified her
easier than not.
More and more there was a peculiarity in the goods selected by
"But you choose the right things for me?"
window-sill. He formed a strong contrast to the contents of his
"Why? I don't know. Two or three; three or four. I should have to
"I should say not, decidedly."
"Or recollect a face?"
"Certainly not."
should say, though I haven't the least idea what his age was."
"Then it was the very same little boy!" Charlotte said.
"Who was the very same little boy?" her mother demanded.
"The one that was there to-day; the young man, I mean," Charlotte
"What an idea, mother!" Charlotte said, grouping the several
impossibilities under one head in her answer.
"You had a perfect right to know, if you thought he was the one."
Charlotte laughed a little forlornly, but she only said, "Really,
It was very well, for one reason, that she decided to go with
Charlotte that afternoon. The New-Yorkers must have completed the
When the Forsyths arrived with the mistaken scrim curtains, he
"Oh, indeed!" Mrs. Forsyth said, stiffly, and she turned rather
furniture here."
"It _is_ magnificent," Mrs. Forsyth said, looking down the long
"Is he a painter? Not Mr. Forsyth the painter?"
"Did you remember it from our first meeting?"
sojourn in England, at once pressed himself into the service of
handing about the curate's assistant; Mrs. Forsyth electrically
At all storage warehouses there is a season in autumn when the
warehouse people.
precipitation, which she could not deny was inevitable.
She perceived that they were sitting side by side on two of those
doing, but left him standing among his palatial furniture like a
prince in exile.
proposal with such transport that she did not realize the fact of
"The owner?" she asked, as it were somnambulantly.
"Yes. Marrying him, say, sometime soon."
"Couldn't? You know that's not playing the game exactly."
"Yes; but not--not right away?"
"Why, I suppose a girl can always change," Charlotte said,
suggestively.
"Yes, but you won't always be a girl. I've never asked you if you
Mrs. Forsyth had promised to come, but she came so late in the
afternoon that she owned she had been grudgingly admitted at the
"I don't know about doomsday," Mrs. Forsyth said, "but as far as
"It's all right," he explained. "Mr. Vanecken is a Presbyterian
minister, and he will marry us now."
"But not here!" Charlotte cried, feeling herself weaken.
"By all means!" Mrs. Forsyth said from her mood of universal
approbation.
He looked at Peter, who looked at Charlotte, who burst out with
They all laughed except Charlotte, who was more like crying.
"Certainly not," Mr. Vanecken said. "I've no doubt the manager--"
reception-room."
significantly looked out of it a lingering stenographer, who was
standing before a glass with two hatpins crossed in her mouth
himself.
She laid her hand on the manager's arm, and just as he had
"Yes, you might say that."
"Wasn't there a great deal more said about presentiments forty or
Wanhope had been lapsing deeper and deeper into the hollow of his
Rulledge. "What made you think of that?" he asked.
"Why had you that notion?" Rulledge demanded.
"I don't know that I proposed telling," the painter said, giving
himself to his pipe.
"Perhaps you didn't have it," Rulledge retaliated.
"Perhaps," Minver assented.
"All but Acton," Minver demurred.
spirits or not. That minor question was disposed of when it was
decided that there were no spirits at all."
"The great majority of them have failed to make good, from the
beginning of time," Wanhope replied.
portrait-painter by profession, and a sign-painter by practice. I
peculiarly gentle person, with a pensive cast of face, and the
melancholy accomplishment of playing the flute."
"I wonder why nobody plays the flute nowadays," I mused aloud.
speaking of. I rather wonder, now, that the thought of those poor
"We all went in there after the Sunday night supper, and then the
tipped; people went to sleep to the soft patter of raps on the
"Not permanently, perhaps," I suggested.
spirits; of dreams that came true, or came near coming true; and,
nightmare, waking and sleeping."
"'By stage or packet?' my father asked.
hopelessness. If something had happened--some slight accident--to
having heard the latest news from home.
"Oh!" Rulledge snorted in rude dissatisfaction.
"Yes," Wanhope prompted.
"Really, Rulledge!" I could not help protesting.
"Whatever," Rulledge pursued, "became of the little girl?"
"She died rather young; a great many years ago; and my uncle soon
propinquity--it is all very curious. Possibly we shall some day
discover a law in such matters."
"I was an adoptive Bostonian for a good while, until I decided to
It was against the law, in such case made and provided,
Of the United States, but by the good will of the pilots
Under the windows, or in the worn-smooth arm-chairs. The pilot,
Just before we came in, and the story, begun or beginning,
Always began or ended with some one, or something or other,
Having to do with the river. If one left the wheel to the other,
Going off watch, he would say to his partner standing behind him
Better than I could, I reckon," and then the other would answer,
Never officially failed of without offense among pilots,
One would subside into Jim and into Jerry the other.
Juggle the points of the compass out of true orientation,
Launched himself on a story that promised to be all a story
Could be expected to be, when one of those women--you know them--
Every foot of the channel and change in it, wash-out and cave-in,
Every island, of course, we have got to see them, or feel them."
Never the second time." "Well, let me tell you a story.
It's not the one I begun, but that island you asked about yonder
Puts me in mind of it, happens to be the place where it happened,
Better than Captain Dunlevy, if any one else knew it like him.
Man and boy he had been pretty much his whole life on the river:
Cabin-boy first on a keelboat before the day of the steamboats,
Back in the pioneer times; and watchman then on a steamboat;
On the Ohio. He knew it as well as he knew his own Bible,
And I don't hardly believe that ever Captain Dunlevy
Let a single day go by without reading a chapter."
Won their way to our consciousness as without help of our senses.
In the sleepy sunshine the budding maples and willows,
Where they waded out in the shallow wash of the freshet,
As to which they should colonize first. The indolent house-boats
Loafing along the shore, sent up in silvery spirals
Out of their kitchen pipes the smoke of their casual breakfasts.
And as she passed us poured a foamy cascade from her paddles.
Where had I got about Captain Dunlevy? Oh yes, I remember.
Well, when the railroads began to run away from the steamboats,
Taking the carrying trade in the very edge of the water,
It was all up with the old flush times, and Captain Dunlevy
Had to climb down with the rest of us pilots till he was only
Captain the same as any and every pilot is captain,
Knew his rights and yours, and never would thought of allowing
Any such thing as a liberty _from_ you or taking one _with_ you.
I had been his cub, and all that I knew of the river
Captain Dunlevy had learnt me; and if you know what the feeling
Having him for my partner; and when I came up to relieve him,
One day, here at the wheel, and actu'lly thought that I found him
No, I couldn't believe my senses, and yet I couldn't endure it.
Seeing him climb the spokes of the wheel to warp the _Kanawha_,
With the biggest trip of passengers ever she carried,
Round on the bar at the left that fairly stuck out of the water.
Well, as I said, he learnt me all that I knew of the river,
And was I to learn _him_ now which side to take of an island
When I knew he knew it like his right hand from his left hand?
'Captain,' I says, and it seemed like another person was talking,
Then he whirled back again, and looked up and down on the river,
Like he was hunting out the shape of the shore and the landmarks.
_I_ knew what was in his mind as well as Dunlevy himself did.
Neither one of us spoke a word for nearly a minute.
In the half-hearted way that people do that don't mean it.
Every one was his friend here on the _Kanawha_, and _we_ knew
Left the boat at Wheeling, and left his life on the river--
Up and down the whole way from Cincinnati to Pittsburg;
Wants to talk all about her and who is her captain and pilot;
Then wants to slide away to that everlastingly puzzling
Thing that happened to him that morning on the _Kanawha_
We were silent again till that woman spoke up, "And what was it,
Captain, that kept him from going back and being a pilot?"
"Well, ma'am," after a moment the pilot patiently answered,
"_I_ don't hardly believe that I could explain it exactly."
He never, by any chance, quite kept his word, though there was a
Disappointed is not just the word, for the ladies did not really
The lady would depart still doubting and slightly sighing, and he
shirt-sleeves in the small, stuffy shop opening directly from the
"A week? Oh, madam! But I assure you--"
_When_ shall I have it?"
"To-morrow. Yes, to-morrow noon. Sure!"
The lady then added some generalities of opprobrium with some
particular criticisms of the garments. Her voice sank into
"Rather a stormy session, Mr. Morrison," the customer said.
"Something fierce," Mr. Morrison sighed. But he did not seem much
"Well, I will trust you once more," the kind creature said.
"You can depend on me, madam, sure."
One day the customer heard two ladies waiting for their
"I always wonder we keep coming," one of them said.
joined in a common sigh.
"Well, I don't believe he means to deceive any one."
"She'll be a good while longer getting through with _him_, if he
hasn't them ready the next time," the second lady said.
"Oh, no hurry," the customer responded.
The customer wondered if they did not all enjoy it; the ladies in
"But why--why--" the customer began.
"Yes, I know. But I thought you liked it, from the way you always
"But you had to think of what they would say."
"But you didn't seem to mind it."
"We have a good deal of work already for some ladies that been
The day before his clothes were promised he dropped in. From the
In the curtained alcove he heard the murmurs of trying on, much
cheerfuller murmurs than before; the voice of a lady lifted in
gladness, in gaiety, and an incredible voice replying, "Oh, sure,
"Why!" the customer exclaimed. "Have you bought back?"
controlled them, in their pause before the woman crouching on the
"She seems to be asleep," he reported.
"Shouldn't you think she would take cold? She will get her death
"Probably somebody will come by."
"That we could leave her to?" the daughter pursued.
"We could do that without waiting," the son commented.
daughter:
"Is she sick, do you think?"
Something velvety in the girl's voice had made its racial quality
"She seems to be sleeping."
The girl looked round at the others and suggested, "She must be
somebody's mother!"
"Well, yes," he said, "if she has children, or has had." The girl
"I don't know exactly what we shall do with her," the son said.
"We ought to get her home somehow," the daughter said.
The woman seemed to have nothing to say further, and they began
"Oh, well, that's good," the father said, with an optimistic
"Oh, you won't have to go with her; we'll just put her aboard the
The effect was the more curious because, except for some almost
The father murmured to himself the lines,
"'Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody--'"
with a remote trouble of mind because the words were at once so
graphic and yet so imperfectly applicable. The son and daughter
exchanged a silent wonder as long as they could bear it; then the
"What is it?"
"It's a boarding-house," the girl answered, simply.
"Oh," the daughter said.
"Swearing? What about? Whom is she swearing at?"
"At me, I reckon. She says, why don't I take her home."
"Well, why doesn't she get up, then?"
"She says she won't."
"We can't carry her to the car," the daughter noted.
"Oh, why not?" the father merrily demanded.
"She walked here well enough," the daughter said.
"Not _very_ well," the father amended.
surprises for the public of the neighborhood, and they in their
momentary relation to it would naturally be without interest.
street from just behind him.
"Sure, lady," the policeman said, and he turned from crossing the
The kind colored girl became a part of the prevalent dark after
"Well, then, we might as well go back to the hotel," the father
decided. "I dare say we shall do quite as well there."
compliance of the old woman with the suggestion of the policeman.
When it came to this the father laughed, too. Why, anyhow, were
He had gone down at Christmas, where our host
Had opened up his house on the Maine coast,
For the week's holidays, and we were all,
On Christmas night, sitting in the great hall,
About the corner fireplace, while we told
Stories like those that people, young and old,
Have told at Christmas firesides from the first,
Till one who crouched upon the hearth, and nursed
His knees in his claspt arms, threw back his head,
And fixed our host with laughing eyes, and said,
"This is so good, here--with your hickory logs
Blazing like natural-gas ones on the dogs,
And sending out their flicker on the wall
And rafters of your mock-baronial hall,
All in fumed-oak, and on your polished floor,
And the steel-studded panels of your door--
I think you owe the general make-believe
Some sort of story that will somehow give
A more ideal completeness to our case,
And make each several listener in his place--
Or hers--sit up, with a real goose-flesh creeping
All over him--or her--in proper keeping
With the locality and hour and mood.
Come!" And amid the cries of "Yes!" and "Good!"
Our host laughed back; then, with a serious air,
Looked around him on our hemicycle, where
He sat midway of it. "Why," he began,
But interrupted by the other man,
He paused for him to say: "Nothing remote,
But something with the actual Yankee note
Of here and now in it!" "I'll do my best,"
Our host replied, "to satisfy a guest.
What do you say to Barberry Cove? And would
Five years be too long past?" "No, both are good.
Go on!" "You noticed that big house to-day
Close to the water, and the sloop that lay,
Stripped for the winter, there, beside the pier?
Well, there she has lain just so, year after year;
And she will never leave her pier again;
But once, each spring she sailed in sun or rain,
For Bay Chaleur--or Bay Shaloor, as they
Like better to pronounce it down this way."
"I like Shaloor myself rather the best.
But go ahead," said the exacting guest.
And with a glance around at us that said,
"Don't let me bore you!" our host went ahead.
"Captain Gilroy built the big house, and he
Still lives there with his aging family.
He built the sloop, and when he used to come
Back from the Banks he made her more his home,
With his two boys, than the big house. The two
Counted with him a good half of her crew,
Until it happened, on the Banks, one day
The oldest boy got in a steamer's way,
And went down in his dory. In the fall
The others came without him. That was all
That showed in either one of them except
That now the father and the brother slept
Ashore, and not on board. When the spring came
They sailed for the old fishing-ground the same
As ever. Yet, not quite the same. The brother,
If you believed what folks say, kissed his mother
Good-by in going; and by general rumor,
The father, so far yielding as to humor
His daughters' weakness, rubbed his stubbly cheek
Against their lips. Neither of them would speak,
In so much show at parting found relief.
"The weeks passed and the months. Sometimes they heard
At home, by letter, from the sloop, or word
Of hearsay from the fleet. But by and by
Along about the middle of July,
A time in which they had no news began,
And holding unbrokenly through August, ran
Into September. Then, one afternoon,
While the world hung between the sun and moon,
And while the mother and her girls were sitting
Together with their sewing and their knitting,--
Before the early-coming evening's gloom
Had gathered round them in the living-room,
Helplessly wondering to each other when
They should hear something from their absent men,--
They saw, all three, against the window-pane,
A face that came and went, and came again,
Three times, as though for each of them, about
As high up from the porch's floor without
As a man's head would be that stooped to stare
Into the room on their own level there.
Its eyes dwelt on them wistfully as if
They could not speak. The women did not start
Or scream, though each one of them, in her heart,
Knew she was looking on no living face,
Here our host paused, and one sigh broke from all
Our circle whom his tale had held in thrall.
But he who had required it of him spoke
In what we others felt an ill-timed joke:
"Well, this is something like!" A girl said, "Don't!"
As if it hurt, and he said, "Well, I won't.
Go on!" And in a sort of muse our host
Said: "I suppose we all expect a ghost
Will sometimes come to us. But I doubt if we
Are moved by its coming as we thought to be.
At any rate, the women were not scared,
But, as I said, they simply sat and stared
Till the face vanished. Then the mother said,
'It was your father, girls, and he is dead.'
But both had known him; and now all went on
Much as before till three weeks more were gone,
When, one night sitting as they sat before,
Together with their mother, at the door
They heard a fumbling hand, and on the walk
Up from the pier, the tramp and muffled talk
Of different wind-blown voices that they knew
For the hoarse voices of their father's crew.
Then the door opened, and their father stood
Before them, palpably in flesh and blood.
The mother spoke for all, her own misgiving:
'Father, is this your ghost? Or are you living?'
'I am alive!' 'But in this very place
We saw your face look, like a spirit's face,
There through that window, just three weeks ago,
And now you are alive!' 'I did not know
That I had come; all I know is that then
I wanted to tell you folks here that our Ben
Was dying of typhoid fever. He raved of you
So that I could not think what else to do.
He's there in Bay Shaloor!'
"Well, that's the end."
And rising up to mend the fire our friend
Seemed trying to shun comment; but in vain:
The exacting guest came at him once again;
"You must be going to fall down, I thought,
There at the climax, when your story brought
The skipper home alive and well. But no,
You saved yourself with honor." The girl said, "Oh,"
Who spoke before, "it's wonderful! But you,
How could you think of anything so true,
So delicate, as the father's wistful face
Coming there at the window in the place
Of the dead son's! And then, that quaintest touch,
Of half-apology--that he felt so much,
He _had_ to come! How perfectly New England! Well,
I hope nobody will undertake to tell
A common or garden ghost-story to-night."
Our host had turned again, and at her light
And playful sympathy he said, "My dear,
I hope that no one will imagine here
I have been inventing in the tale that's done.
My little story's charm if it has one
Is from no skill of mine. One does not change
The course of fable from its wonted range
To such effect as I have seemed to do:
Only the fact could make my story true."
There was something in the event which discharged him of all
strange, large, indeterminate open room, where several of us sat
My mind began to wander from the story and not very relevantly to
temperaments as the stuff of tragedy, and others as the stuff of
something in death-bed repentance, although cultivated people no
largely was, and then sinking into a long, restful slumber, and
possibly never waking again?
The doctor came and knelt over the prostrate figure and felt its
They went on and on, and established in our consciousness the
vague-looking young man, presently in charge of the "Local and
"How do you glaze that in the daytime? You can't use the bolster
"I'm not in, much, in the daytime."
"Which?" Wallace returned.
"She's not my patient."
explain."
"I believe Wallace likes to stay. And yet he must know from his
"Not when there isn't a fire in it."
"I just asked. Wallace's stove smokes, fire or no fire. It takes
advantage of the old lady's indebtedness to him. There seem," he
"You never can tell," Briggs responded. "I think he doesn't know
himself."
"Well, as you insist--"
Blakeley began again, but Briggs jumped to his feet and caught up
"Well, take your hat, Briggs. It may be a prolonged struggle. But
"It _looks_ that way, too," Blakeley admitted. "It has an air of
conspiracy."
"I've got half a mind to let Phillips come in and get his bag
himself."
There came another sharp rattle of small pebbles at the window.
outside.
stairs-post with one hand and pressing the other to her side.
"Oh! It's _you_, Mr. Briggs," the landlady said, with a note of
inculpation. "What made you leave the door open?"
confounded coward! He's left."
"Left? And he said he would stay till spring! Didn't he, Jenny?"
"A great preacher _he'll_ make. What'd he say he left for?"
"He didn't say. Will you let me up-stairs?"
His voice had risen, not so high but that another voice from the
The two at the threshold of Briggs's room retreated within, as he
"Well, Briggs, I hope you feel better now," Blakeley began. "You
"No, no!" the mother's voice came anxiously up. "We can get along
"'Sh, 'sh, deary!" her mother entreated. "He'll _hear_ you, and
twittered the prelude and the voice sang:
"In the Hazel Dell my Nelly's sleeping,
Nelly loved so long!"
Wallace went forward and shut the door. "It's a shame to overhear
"If anybody will pay up my back board, I'll stay, too," Blakeley
Breakfast is my best meal, and I reckon it's always been
Ever since I was old enough to know what breakfast could mean.
I mind when we lived in the cabin out on the Illinoy,
Where father had took up a quarter-section when I was a boy,
I used to go for the cows as soon as it was light;
And when I started back home, before I come in sight,
I come in _smell_ of the cabin, where mother was frying the ham,
Thought he'd got under the stump or inside o' the hollow log!
I pulled up my chair and e't like I never had e't before.
And mother she set there and watched me eat, and eat, and eat,
Like as if she couldn't give her old eyes enough of the treat;
And she piled up my plate with potato and ham and eggs,
Till I couldn't hold any more, or hardly stand on my legs;
And she filled me up with coffee that would float an iron wedge,
And never give way a mite, or spill a drop at the edge.
That so, heigh? I saw that you was United States as soon
As ever I heard you talk; I reckon I know the tune!
Pick it out anywhere; and _you_ understand how I feel
About these here foreign breakfasts: breakfast is my best meal.
My! but my wife was a cook; and the breakfasts she used to get
And crisp as cracklin'; and steak that you couldn't have the face
Maryland style--I couldn't get through the bill if I tried.
And then, her waffles! My! She'd kind of slip in a few
Between the ham and the chicken--you know how women'll do--
For a sort of little surprise, and, if I was running light,
To take my fancy and give an edge to my appetite.
Done it all herself as long as we was poor, and I tell _you_
_She_ liked to see me eat as well as mother used to do;
I reckon she went ahead of mother some, if the truth was known,
And everything she touched she give a taste of her own.
_She_ was a cook, I can tell you! And after we got ahead,
And she could 'a' had a girl to do the cookin' instead,
I had the greatest time to get Momma to leave the work;
She said it made her feel like a mis'able sneak and shirk.
Cook she would from the first, and we just had to let her alone;
And after she got married, and had a house of her own,
She tried to make me feel, when I come to live with her,
Like it was my house, too; and I tell you she done it, sir!
She remembered that breakfast was my best meal, and she tried
To have all I used to have, and a good deal more beside;
Grape-fruit to begin with, or melons or peaches, at least--
Any such an oyster fry or sausage of country pork.
Well, I don't know what-all it means; I always lived just so--
Never drinked or smoked, and yet, here about two years ago,
I begun to run down; I ain't as young as I used to be;
And the doctors all said Carlsbad, and I reckon this is me.
The doctors say that's the trouble, and very likely it's that.
This is my little grandson, and this is the oldest one
Of Girly's girls; and for all that the whole of us said and done,
To see that they didn't starve him. Ain't that about so, my dear?
Before the children, but I can almost seem to see
All of 'em lookin' down, like as if they pitied me,
After the breakfasts they give me, to have me have to put up
With nothing but bread and butter, and a little mis'able cup
Of this here weak-kneed coffee! I can't tell how _you_ feel,
But it fairly makes me sick! Breakfast is my best meal.
autumnal, but it was not from this, or from the lines of maturity
She was quite alone, and she gave the sense of claiming their
protection, and sheltering herself in the fact of them. When she
mentioned her daughters she had the effect of feeling herself
presumed while they implored. A mother-bird must not hover too
equally sorrowful to learn.
One night, the night before getting into port, when the curiosity
The moment of my own acceptance in this quality came in the first
This, indeed, was always tempered by what seemed a constitutional
inarticulate apology as he passed.
carriage he had been so benevolently pushing up and down; or the
passion for active amusement.
generous.
faction, and perhaps drive it from power, or overset it from its
After full many a mutual delay
My friend and I at last fixed on a day
For seeing Black Cross Farm, which he had long
Boasted the fittest theme for tale or song
In all that charming region round about:
Something that must not really be left out
Of the account of things to do for me.
It was a teasing bit of mystery,
He said, which he and his had tried in vain,
Ever since they had found it, to explain.
The right way was to happen, as they did,
Upon it in the hills where it was hid;
But chance could not be always trusted, quite,
You might not happen on it, though you might;
Encores were usually objected to
By chance. The next best thing that we could do
Was in his carryall, to start together,
And trust that somehow favoring wind and weather,
With the eccentric progress of his horse,
Would so far drift us from our settled course
That we at least could lose ourselves, if not
Find the mysterious object that we sought.
So one blithe morning of the ripe July
We fared, by easy stages, toward the sky
That rested one rim of its turquoise cup
Low on the distant sea, and, tilted up,
The other on the irregular hilltops. Sweet
The sun and wind that joined to cool and heat
The air to one delicious temperature;
And over the smooth-cropt mowing-pieces pure
The pine-breath, borrowing their spicy scent
In barter for the balsam that it lent!
And when my friend handed the reins to me,
And drew a fuming match along his knee,
And, lighting his cigar, began to talk,
I let the old horse lapse into a walk
From his perfunctory trot, content to listen,
Amid that leafy rustle and that glisten
Of field, and wood, and ocean, rapt afar,
From every trouble of our anxious star.
From time to time, between effect and cause
In this or that, making a questioning pause,
My friend peered round him while he feigned a gay
Hope that we might have taken the wrong way
At the last turn, and then let me push on,
Or the old horse rather, slanting hither and yon,
And never in the middle of the track,
Except when slanting off or slanting back.
He talked, I listened, while we wandered by
The scanty fields of wheat and oats and rye,
With patches of potatoes and of corn,
And now and then a garden spot forlorn,
Run wild where once a house had stood, or where
An empty house yet stood, and seemed to stare
Upon us blindly from the twisted glass
Of windows that once let no wayfarer pass
Unseen of children dancing at the pane,
And vanishing to reappear again,
Pulling their mother with them to the sight.
Still we kept on, with turnings left and right,
Past farmsteads grouped in cheerful neighborhoods,
Or solitary; then through shadowy woods
Of pine or birch, until the road, grass-grown,
Had given back to Nature all her own
Save a faint wheel-trace, that along the slope,
Rain-gullied, seemed to stop and doubt and grope,
And then quite ceased, as if 't had turned and fled
Out of the forest into which it led,
And left us at the gate whose every bar
Was nailed against us. But, "Oh, here we are!"
My friend cried joyously. "At last, at last!"
And making our horse superfluously fast,
He led the way onward by what had been
A lane, now hid by weeds and briers between
Meadows scarce worth the mowing, to a space
Shaped as by Nature for the dwelling-place
Of kindly human life: a small plateau
Open to the heaven that seemed bending low
In liking for it. There beneath a roof
Still against winter and summer weather-proof,
With walls and doors and windows perfect yet,
Between its garden and its graveyard set,
Stood the old homestead, out of which had perished
And which, when at our push the door swung wide,
We might have well imagined to have died
And had its funeral the day before:
So clean and cold it was from floor to floor,
So lifelike and so deathlike, with the thrill
Of hours when life and death encountered still
Passionate in it. They that lay below
The tangled grasses or the drifted snow,
Husband and wife, mother and little one,
From that sad house less utterly were gone
Than they that living had abandoned it.
In moonless nights their Absences might flit,
Homesick, from room to room, or dimly sit
Around its fireless hearths, or haunt the rose
And lily in the neglected garden close;
But they whose feet had borne them from the door
Would pass the footworn threshold nevermore.
We read the moss-grown names upon the tombs,
With lighter melancholy than the glooms
Of the dead house shadowed us with, and thence
Turning, my heart was pierced with more intense
Suggestion of a mystical dismay,
As in the brilliance of the summer day
We faced the vast gray barn. The house was old,
Though so well kept, as age by years is told
In our young land; but the barn, gray and vast,
Stood new and straight and strong--all battened fast
At every opening; and where once the mow
Had yawned wide-windowed, on the sheathing now
A Cross was nailed, the bigness of a man,
Aslant from left to right, athwart the span,
And painted black as paint could make it. Hushed,
I stood, while manifold conjecture rushed
To this point and to that point, and then burst
In the impotent questionings rejected first.
What did it mean? Ah, that no one could tell.
Who put it there? That was unknown as well.
Was there no legend? My friend knew of none.
No neighborhood story? He had sought for one
In vain. Did he imagine it accident,
With nothing really implied or meant
By the boards set in that way? It might be,
But I could answer that as well as he.
Then (desperately) what did he guess it was:
Something of purpose, or without a cause
Other than chance? He slowly shook his head,
And with his gaze fixed on the symbol said:
"We have quite ceased from guessing or surmising,
For all our several and joint devising
Has left us finally where I must leave you.
But now I think it is your part to do
Yourself some guessing. I hoped you might bring
A fresh mind to the riddle's unraveling.
And thus challenged I could not deny
The sort of right he had to have me try;
And yielding, I began--instinctively
Proceeding by exclusion: "We agree
It was not put there as a pious charm
To keep the abandoned property from harm?
The owner could have been no Catholic;
And yet it was no sacrilegious trick
To make folks wonder; and it was not chance
Assuredly that set those boards askance
In that shape, or before or after, so
Painted them to that coloring of woe.
Do you suppose, then, that it could have been
Some secret sorrow or some secret sin,
That tried to utter or to expiate
Itself in that way: some unhappy hate
Turned to remorse, or some life-rending grief
That could not find in years or tears relief?
Who lived here last?"
"Ah," my friend made reply,
"You know as much concerning that as I.
All I could tell is what those gravestones tell,
And they have told it all to you as well.
The names, the dates, the curious epitaphs
At whose quaint phrase one either sighs or laughs,
Just as one's heart or head happens to be
Hollow or not, are there for each to see.
But I believe they have nothing to reveal:
No wrong to publish, no shame to conceal."
"And yet that Cross!" I turned at his reply,
Fixing the silent symbol with my eye,
Insistently. "And you consent," I said,
"To leave the enigma uninterpreted?"
"Why, no," he faltered, then went on: "Suppose
That some one that had known the average woes
Of human nature, finding that the load
Was overheavy for him on life's road,
Had wished to leave some token in this Cross,
Of what had been his gain and been his loss,
Of what had been his suffering and of what
Had also been the solace of his lot?
Whoever that unknown brother-man might be,
I think he must have been like you and me,
Who bear our Cross, and when we fail at length,
Bow down and pray to it for greater strength."
I mused, and as I mused, I seemed to find
The fancy more and still more to my mind.
"Well, let it go at that! I think, for me,
I like that better than some tragedy
Of clearer physiognomy, which were
In being more definite the vulgarer.
For us, what, after all, would be the gain
Of making the elusive meaning plain?
I really think, if I were you and yours,
I would not lift the veil that now obscures
The appealing fact, lest I should spoil the charm
"A good suggestion! I am glad," said he,
"We have always practised your philosophy."
He smiled, we laughed; we sighed and turned away,
And left the mystery to the summer day
That made as if it understood, and could
Have read the riddle to us if it would:
The wide, wise sky, the clouds that on the grass
Let their vague shadows dreamlike trail and pass;
The conscious woods, the stony meadows growing
Up to birch pastures, where we heard the lowing
Of one disconsolate cow. All the warm afternoon,
Lulled in a reverie by the myriad tune
Of insects, and the chirp of songless birds,
Forgetful of the spring-time's lyric words,
Drowsed round us while we tried to find the lane
That to our coming feet had been so plain,
And lost ourselves among the sweetfern's growth,
And thickets of young pine-trees, nothing loath,
Amidst the wilding loveliness to stray,
And spend, if need were, looking for the way,
Whole hours; but blundered into the right course
Suddenly, and came out upon our horse,
Where we had left him--to our great surprise,
Stamping and switching at the pestering flies,
But not apparently anxious to depart,
When nearly overturning at the start,
We followed down that evanescent trace
Which, followed up, had brought us to the place.
Then, all the wayside scenes reversing, we
Dropped to the glimpses of the distant sea,
Content as if we brought, returning thus,
The secret of the Black Cross back with us.
It had long been the notion of Frederick Erlcort, who held it
Erlcort laughed with him, and in going out he stopped at the
"Yes, but is it a book worth reading--worth the money?"
"And you advise me to buy it?"
something we can guarantee or not?"
"Well, Mr. Jeffers, there's the publisher's advertisement."
"It's all printed on this slip inside," the blonde said, and she
"No, no, thank you, I'll take it with me. Let me--"
On his way up-town in the Subway he clung to the wonted strap,
"You want to _give_ it to me? Well, that's something that never
painting-apron still on, and her thumb through the hole in her
palette, when she opened her door to him.
"Too soon?" he asked.
"Oh! _That!_ I thought it had failed 'way back in the dark ages."
"No; I always borrow an old one."
"I shouldn't mind. Or, yes, I should, rather. Where's it to be?"
"Poor fellow!"
friends ever since we've been acquainted."
"Go on," the elderly girl said.
Erlcort was not stopping, but she spoke so as to close her mouth,
"When shall you begin--open shop?" she asked.
"My old codger's lease expires in the fall," he answered, "but he
"Do you think the situation will be--on Sixth Avenue?"
"Oh, mine's setting-hen's time," he justified his hospitality in
"That would be a good motto for your bookstore," she screamed to
old-fashionedness now. There should be a fireplace, or perhaps a
Franklin stove, at the rear of the room, with a high-shouldered,
This was Margaret Green's idea.
"And would you guarantee the quality?" Erlcort asked.
"Perhaps they wouldn't be for sale, though if any one insisted--"
"I see. Well, pass the sketches. What else?"
"Pass the little figures and low reliefs. But don't forget it's a
"What's the matter with the Casino?"
"Nothing; only it's rather early for tea yet."
"It isn't for soda-lemonade."
She set him the example of instantly rising, and led the way back
frequentation. He got some paper from the waiter who came to take
"Well," he said, "I had no idea that I had imagined anything so
"Oh--mirrors. Little round ones."
"But why mirrors of any shape?"
He looked at the ruin her rubber had wrought. "They _were_ rather
"No time at all. It's half-past three."
address the Intellectuals in explanation of his project. This was
"Why, of course you must accept. You're not going to hide your
The Leading Society Woman flowed in fulsome gratitude at his
experiment tried.
"You're looking rather peakéd, aren't you?"
"You mean you've lost sleep?"
"Something like that."
"Well, you mustn't. How many books do you start with?"
"About twenty-five."
"Good ones? It's a lot, isn't it? I didn't suppose there were so
"You'll never sell them in the world! You'll be ruined."
"Oh no; the publishers will take them back."
A month off, the prospect was brilliant, and when the shelves and
"Mr. Erlcort, have we got a book called _The Egg-beater_?"
"Why don't you stock it?" they demanded.
"Because I don't think it's worth reading."
"Oh, indeed!" The sarcastic customers were commonly ladies. "I
thought you let the public judge of that!"
"Oh!" the customer would say, and she, too, would go away without
There were other ladies who came, links of the endless chain of
volunteer readers who had tried to help Erlcort in making his
"But here is _The Green Bay Tree_, and _The Biggest Toad in the
Then another head went away high in the air, with its plumes
quivering. One afternoon late a lady came flying in with all the
marks, whatever they are, of transatlantic travel upon her.
"I'm just through the customs, and I've motored up here the first
unmolestedly about (it was the primary rule of the place not to
assistant and said, gently, "I believe I should like _this_ book,
It was now almost on the stroke of six, and Erlcort said to his
writing nothing but best-sellers from now on. He urged Erlcort to
They had a jolly time, and the ex-best-seller went away in high
spirits, prophesying that Erlcort would come to his fiction yet.
believed in it, and he liked having it recognized as a feature of
friends to look and the strangers to buy. He had no reason to
implicated by a critical bookstore would come off on them without
His longing had no effect upon her till deep in January, when the
"Waiting here for you," he answered.
"I don't want your advice now."
"How did you know I didn't?"
"Lots of people told me."
"I see. But since Christmas?"
shameful."
"They've sold more of the best books than anything else."
"There's an idea in that. I believe I'll try it."
Margaret Green was now dry enough, and she rose and removed the
"Who said I was? I'm exultant."
"You have a commercial genius, Margaret Green."
"I've noticed that they seem to do that."
"And better paint out that motto."
"I've sometimes fancied I'd better. _That_ invites loafing, too;
though some nice people like it."
"No. I shall come to see you."
"On the contrary, it has been a _succès fou_. But I don't feel
"Of course they do; they must; rubbish is the breath in their
nostrils."
stove, so busy at something that he scarcely seemed aware of her.
"What in the world are you doing?" she demanded.
"And _what_ a mess you're making!"
"Of course it will have to dry before it's put on sale."
"I should think so. Listen to me, Frederick Erlcort: you're going
arrogance. Who am I that I should set up for a critical
going to do with your critical bookstore?"
"I'm going to sell it. I've had an offer from the author of that
"By marrying me!"
"I never thought of that," she said. Then, with the conscientious
"What do you mean?" she demanded excitedly, almost resentfully.
"We women!" she protested.
"Yes, you--you women. You give the dinners. Can you deny it?"
"It's because we can't get you to the lunches."
"In the country you can; and so you will give the lunches."
"We would give dinners if it were not for the distance, and the
darkness on those bad roads."
"I don't see where your reasoning is carrying you."
"Don't, Florindo! It _is_ awful."
"Yes, yes! That's dreadful, too. But when people are young--"
night, it bored me to death! And what good stories people used to
"I don't; and I don't deny that the forms of dining are still
charming. It's the dining itself that I object to."
"That's because your digestion is bad."
"Of course it is. What has that got to do with it?"
"I know that. I believe they do, now. But--
'Sweet are the uses of adversity,'
"Yes, ridiculous. But there was an element of the grotesque in a
She listened in dreamy inattention. "It was a step in the right
"Or hide their faces in them when they couldn't."
"It's reduced to a minimum."
hospitality--the feeding form of it--lurks somewhere. In our
farm-boarding days--"
"Don't speak of them!" she implored.
insisted or a lady had a change of guests, or three days at the
latest, for no reason.
It would be invidious to say what the nature of Lindora's
spirits of all, they fell into different attitudes of the despair
fainting by the way.
Lindora and Florindo watched them from their veranda.
"Don't _speak_ to me!" she cried.
"But it leaves one rather hungry, doesn't it?"
"_Hungry!_" she hurled back at him. "I could eat a--I don't know
A Long-distance Eclogue
_Morrison._ Hello! Hello! Is that you, Wetherbee?
_Wetherbee._ Yes. Who are you? What do you want with me?
_Morrison._ Oh, nothing much. It's Morrison, you know;
Morrison--down at Clamhurst Shortsands.
Why, Morrison, of course! Of course, I know!
How are you, Morrison? And, by the way,
_Where_ are you? What! You never mean to say
You are down there _yet_? Well, by the Holy Poker!
What are you doing there, you ancient joker?
_Morrison._ Sticking it out over Thanksgiving Day.
I said I would. I tell you, it is gay
Down here. You ought to see the Hunter's Moon,
These silver nights, prinking in our lagoon.
You ought to see our sunsets, glassy red,
Shading to pink and violet overhead.
You ought to see our mornings, still and clear,
White silence, far as you can look and hear.
You ought to see the leaves--our oaks and ashes
Crimson and yellow, with those gorgeous splashes,
Purple and orange, against the bluish green
Of the pine woods; and scattered in between
The scarlet of the maples; and the blaze
Of blackberry-vines, along the dusty ways
And on the old stone walls; the air just balm,
And the crows cawing through the perfect calm
Of afternoons all gold and turquoise. Say,
You ought to have been with wife and me to-day,
A drive we took--it would have made you sick:
The pigeons and the partridges so thick;
And on the hill just beyond Barkin's lane,
Before you reach the barn of Widow Payne,
Showing right up against the sky, as clear
And motionless as sculpture, stood a deer!
Say, does that jar you just a little? Say,
How have you found things up there, anyway,
Since you got back? Air like a cotton string
To breathe? The same old dust on everything,
And in your teeth, and in your eyes? The smoke
From the soft coal, got long beyond a joke?
The trolleys rather more upon your curves,
And all the roar and clatter in your nerves?
Don't you wish you had stayed here, too?
_Wetherbee._                          Well, yes,
I do at certain times, I must confess.
I swear it is enough at times to make you swear
You would almost rather be anywhere
Than here. The building up and pulling down,
The getting to and fro about the town,
The turmoil underfoot and overhead,
Certainly make you wish that you were dead,
At first; and all the mean vulgarity
Of city life, the filth and misery
You see around you, make you want to put
Back to the country anywhere, hot-foot.
Yet--there are compensations.
There is the club.
_Morrison._         The club I can't deny.
Many o' the fellows back there?
_Wetherbee._                     Nearly all.
Over the twilight cocktails there are tall
Stories and talk. But you would hardly care;
You have the natives to talk with down there,
And always find them meaty.
_Morrison._                  Well, so-so.
Their words outlast their ideas at times, you know,
And they have _staying_ powers. The theaters
All open now?
_Wetherbee._    Yes, all. And it occurs
To me: there's one among the things that you
Would have enjoyed; an opera with the new--
Or at least the last--music by Sullivan,
And words, though not Gilbertian, that ran
Trippingly with it. Oh, I tell you what,
I'd rather that you had been there than not.
_Morrison._ Thanks ever so!
_Wetherbee._                Oh, there is nothing mean
About your early friend. That deer and autumn scene
Were kind of you! And, say, I think you like
Afternoon teas when good. I have chanced to strike
Some of the best of late, where people said
They had sent you cards, but thought you must be dead.
I told them I left you down there by the sea,
And then they sort of looked askance at me,
As if it were a joke, and bade me get
Myself some bouillon or some chocolate,
And turned the subject--did not even give
Me time to prove it is not life to live
In town as long as you can keep from freezing
Beside the autumn sea. A little sneezing,
At Clamhurst Shortsands, since the frosts set in?
_Morrison._ Well, not enough to make a true friend grin.
Slight colds, mere nothings. With our open fires
We've all the warmth and cheer that heart desires.
Next year we'll have a furnace in, and stay
Not till Thanksgiving, but till Christmas Day.
It's glorious in these roomy autumn nights
To sit between the firelight and the lights
Of our big lamps, and read aloud by turns
As long as kerosene or hickory burns.
We hate to go to bed.
_Wetherbee._           Of course you do!
And hate to get up in the morning, too--
To pull the coverlet from your frost-bit nose,
And touch the glary matting with your toes!
Are you beginning yet to break the ice
In your wash-pitchers? No? Well, that is nice.
I always hate to do it--seems as if
Summer was going; but when your hand is stiff
With cold, it can be done. Still, I prefer
To wash and dress beside my register,
When summer gets a little on, like this.
But some folks find the other thing pure bliss--
Lusty young chaps, like you.
_Morrison._                   And some folks find
A sizzling radiator to their mind.
What else have you, there, you could recommend
To the attention of a country friend?
_Wetherbee._ Well, you know how it is in Madison Square,
Late afternoons, now, if the day's been fair--
How all the western sidewalk ebbs and flows
With pretty women in their pretty clo'es:
I've never seen them prettier than this year.
Of course, I know a dear is not a deer,
But still, I think that if I had to meet
One or the other in the road, or street,
All by myself, I am not sure but that
I'd choose the dear that wears the fetching hat.
_Morrison._ Get out! What else?
_Wetherbee._                Well, it is not so bad,
If you are feeling a little down, or sad,
To walk along Fifth Avenue to the Park,
When the day thinks perhaps of getting dark,
And meet that mighty flood of vehicles
Laden with all the different kinds of swells,
Homing to dinner, in their carriages--
Victorias, landaus, chariots, coupés--
There's nothing like it to lift up the heart
And make you realize yourself a part,
Sure, of the greatest show on earth.
_Morrison._                           Oh, yes,
I know. I've felt that rapture more or less.
But I would rather put it off as long
As possible. I suppose you like the song
Of the sweet car-gongs better than the cry
Of jays and yellowhammers when the sky
Begins to redden these October mornings,
And the loons sound their melancholy warnings;
Or honk of the wild-geese that write their A
Along the horizon in the evening's gray.
Or when the squirrels look down on you and bark
From the nut trees--
_Wetherbee._           We have them in the Park
Plenty enough. But, say, you aged sinner,
Have you been out much recently at dinner?
_Morrison._ What do you mean? You know there's no one here
That dines except ourselves now.
_Wetherbee._                Well, that's queer!
I thought the natives-- But I recollect!
It was not reasonable to expect--
_Morrison._ What are you driving at?
_Wetherbee._              Oh, nothing much.
But I was thinking how you come in touch
With life at the first dinner in the fall,
When you get back, first, as you can't at all
Later along. But you, of course, won't care
With your idyllic pleasures.
_Morrison._                   _Who was there?_
_Wetherbee._ Oh--ha, ha! What d'you mean by _there_?
_Morrison._                              Come off!
_Wetherbee._ What! you remain to pray that came to scoff!
_Morrison._ You know what I am after.
_Wetherbee._                         Yes, that dinner.
Just a round dozen: Ferguson and Binner
For the fine arts; Bowyer the novelist;
Dr. Le Martin; the psychologist
Fletcher; the English actor Philipson;
The two newspaper Witkins, Bob and John;
A nice Bostonian, Bane the archæologer,
And a queer Russian amateur astrologer;
And Father Gray, the jolly ritualist priest,
And last your humble servant, but not least.
The food was not so filthy, and the wine
Was not so poison. We made out to dine
From eight till one A.M. One could endure
The dinner. But, oh say! _The talk was poor!_
Your natives down at Clamhurst--
_Morrison._                      Look ye here!
What date does Thanksgiving come on this year?
_Wetherbee._ Why, I suppose--although I don't remember
Certainly--the usual 28th November.
_Morrison._ Novem-- You should have waited to get sober!
It comes on the 11th of October!
And that's to-morrow; and if you happen down
Later, you'd better look for us in town.
They were talking after dinner in that cozy moment when the
spread more among the first circles. The time was when you seldom
"Why, I don't know," he returned, thoughtfully, after a little
interval. "I don't just call one to mind."
"You mustn't brag," the bachelor said.
difficult."
enough, and sometimes they were high enough placed and far enough
"Why, persons of quality seldom can be," the bachelor contended.
The host believed it had influenced legislation.
"For or against?" the bachelor inquired.
relation themselves."
Being asked to tell what it was, she could not remember, but her
"About one in seven of us doesn't," the stop-gap said.
"'A paradox, a paradox;
A most ingenious paradox!'"
"Whichever you like."
there's nothing in heredity."
"Oh, come!" one of the husbands said.
divorce, if it is an evil, we have simply been suppressing the
symptoms; and your Swiss method--"
"Oh, it isn't _mine_," the man said who had stated it.
"Some," the daring bachelor said, "think it ought to be made
"I don't go as far as that," the stop-gap resumed, "but as an
inveterate enemy of divorce--"
entirely selfish young creatures who enter into it. The blind and
As if they were afraid of worse things if they spoke, the company
novelists, the superstition of the victims, the unscrupulous
preventing their escape through divorce."
"Not at all. I am quite literal. I would have it begin with the
engagement. I would have the betrothed--the mistress and the
"And you see nothing novel, nothing that makes for the higher
civilization in the application of that law to marriage? You all
"Oh, I don't know that," the hardy bachelor said. "What about the
"Ah?" the host inquired, with a provisional smile.
The sort of laugh which expresses uncertainty of perception and
conditional approval went up.
"How long do you think it will take you to get your breath in the
"Well, at least it's a change," the younger sage allowed, "and I
sunset over the westward trees.
"Well, people can't afford that, either. Nine-tenths of them are
consciousness of him. If Daniel began delivering one of his
His gaiety did not seem to enliven his senior much. "Ah, the old
"Few?" the elder retorted. "There are lots of them. I've counted
twenty in a single round of the Park. I was proud to be in one of
"They didn't set their fruit, I suppose."
The elder did not seem quite pleased. "A joke?" he challenged.
"I didn't know you were a poet."
"That's true," the younger sage assented. "But there was always a
tamed, but, after all, they were only _trained_ animals, like
Hagenback's."
"And what is a chauffeur?"
overhead foot-bridges at all the corners, crossing one another
another hero to win one."
"Well, we must hope for the best. I rather like the notion of the
What he was going to add in amplification cannot be known, for a
The younger sage silently and somewhat guiltily escaped from the
tumult of emotion which ignored him, and shuffled slowly down the
young, but aim at being much older than they are, with occasional
_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, distinctly. I knew you couldn't know, and I
provisionally into her seat. "And I think it needs thought, don't
_Miss Garnett_: "That is what I expected of you."
_Miss Garnett_: "No. Not unless--he wishes he wasn't."
_Miss Ramsey_: "That would give him _less_ than no right."
_Miss Garnett_, admiringly: "I knew you would say that."
_Miss Ramsey_, dreamily: "The question is what the thing is."
_Miss Garnett_: "Thank you; do you think they go well with tea?"
_Miss Garnett_: "How splendidly you do reason! And he ought to
understand that Emily has a right--"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, I don't know that I care about _her_--or not
_pri_marily. Or do you say pri_mar_ily?"
_Miss Garnett_: "I never know. I only use it in writing."
_Miss Garnett_: "She certainly did, from what Conny says."
_Miss Garnett_: "We must stand together."
_Miss Garnett_: "And cruel to the girl he is engaged to."
_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, I like that in him. It's so invigorating. It
_Miss Ramsey_: "I'm _not_ in love with Mr. Ashley, please."
_Miss Garnett_: "No; I'm supposing an extreme case."
_Miss Garnett_: "Not just in our set. But I know it's done
continually."
_Miss Ramsey_: "It seems to me as if I had read something of the
_Miss Garnett_: "Why, there was Peg Woffington--"
_Miss Ramsey_: "What did _she_ do?"
_Miss Garnett_: "Well, it's a long time since I read it; and it's
beautiful. They become the greatest friends."
_Miss Ramsey_: "Rather silly, I should say."
little--loved him, in fact."
_Miss Ramsey_: "And I _don't_ like Mr. Ashley at all. Of course I
_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, that is what I mean. And poor Emily is so
uninteresting! In the play that Kentucky Summers does, she is
_Miss Ramsey_: "That sounds rather more practical than the Peg
Woffington plan. What does she do?"
_Miss Garnett_: "Nothing you'd like to do."
_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, when he is calling on her, Kentucky Summers
_Miss Ramsey_: "It's rather loathsome, isn't it?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "An actress?"
_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, I'm quite sure he isn't married. He's merely
_Miss Ramsey_, with state: "Why are you going, Esther? Sit down."
_Miss Garnett_: "Yes! Do you think he deserves it?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "I've no wish to punish him."
_Nora_: "He's got the whole bottle full of them yet."
_Miss Ramsey_: "Full yet?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "What did I say?"
_Nora_: "They were vulgar."
cigarette." She reaches the box to him.
_Ashley_: "No, I didn't know." He regards her with amaze, rapidly
_Ashley_: "I think I've heard. I didn't know that American ladies
_Ashley_: "And do Englishwomen all drink cocktails?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "No, no! The window! A little faint--it's so
close-- There, it's all right now. Or it will be--when--I've
_Ashley_: "I wasn't saying anything!"
_Ashley_: "Sha'n't I ring for the maid? I'm afraid--"
_Ashley_: "One lump or two?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Only one, thank you." She takes the cup.
_Ashley_, offering the milk: "Cream?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "A drop." He stands anxiously beside her while she
_Ashley_: "Yes, there was tobacco."
_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, do you think it was the tobacco? Do throw the
_Miss Ramsey_, with wide-flung eyes: "You? You said you wouldn't
_Ashley_, laughing: "May I change my mind? One talks better." He
lights a cigarette. "And, Miss Ramsey, I believe I _will_ have a
cocktail, after all."
_Miss Ramsey_, with nervous shrinking: "No--"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Mr. Ashley, do you wish to insult me?"
_Ashley_: "What in the world are you talking about?"
_Ashley_: "My shameless perf-- I don't understand! I came here
to tell you that I love you--"
_Miss Ramsey_: "How dare you! To speak to me of that, when-- Or
lesson to you. And yes!--I _will_ say it! If it will add to your
misery to know that I did respect you very much, and thought
everything--very highly--of you, and might have answered you very
_Ashley_: "I shall be glad to have you tell me--or any one."
_Miss Garnett_: "I don't understand. Has Isobel--"
_Ashley_: "Miss Garnett, did you know I was engaged?"
_Miss Garnett_: "Why, yes; I was just going to congrat--"
_Miss Garnett_: "Why, aren't you engaged to Emily Fray?"
_Ashley_: "Not the least in the world."
_Miss Garnett_, in despair: "Then _what_ have I done? Oh, what a
_Ashley_: "On general principles, I shouldn't know, but in this
particular instance I happen to know that she is engaged to Owen
Brooks. They were a great deal more together last summer."
_Miss Garnett_, with a burst of involuntary candor: "Why, _I_ did
_Ashley_: "No, certainly not. What was the confidence?"
_Ashley_: "Very much indeed."
_Ashley_: "Why, she offered me a cocktail--"
_Ashley_: "And she smoked cigarettes--"
_Miss Garnett_: "How perfectly divine! And what else?"
_Ashley_: "But what--what was the meaning of it all?"
_Ashley_: "It depends upon the confidence. What is it?"
_Miss Garnett_: "Why-- But you're sure it's my duty?"
_Ashley_: "If you care what I think of her--"
_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, Mr. Ashley, you mustn't think it strange of
_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, and drive you back to Emily Fray."
_Miss Ramsey_, with the effect of cold surprise: "Mr. Ashley? I
thought I heard-- Wasn't Miss Garnett--"
_Ashley_: "It's my having been smoking."
_Ashley_: "I shouldn't mind. But I'm so sorry if--and I will go."
_Miss Ramsey_: "But you're not engaged to her! You just--"
_Ashley_: "I fancied you must."
_Ashley_: "And what do you wish me to do about it?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, you can ask anything of me now!"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Now you _are_ insulting me! And that is just the
_Ashley_: "Brought what on?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Mr. Ashley! I won't be cross-questioned."
remember my duty, and go back to Miss Fray? Well, it was a dead
_Ashley_: "Trample on you? I would rather be run over by a
steam-roller than tread on the least of your outlying feelings,
dearest. Do you mind my saying dearest?"
_Ashley_: "No, I understand that. You merely wish _me_ to despise
_Miss Ramsey_, nervously: "You know."
_Miss Ramsey_: "I've told you."
_Miss Ramsey_, self-contemptuously: "Oh yes."
_Ashley_: "Thank you. Where were we?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Did I say that?"
_Ashley_: "Words to that effect. And they have made me feel how
_Miss Ramsey_, springing to her feet indignantly: "Now, you are
ridiculing me--you are making fun of me."
getting them here."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "What do you mean by all of them?"
_Mrs. Fountain_, staying his hand: "What are you doing? Putting
maddening. And the rain outside, and everybody coming in reeking;
_Fountain_: "Now, look out, Lucy!"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, to please you, and to help you forget the
_Fountain_: "Oh, I like that. You think I was leading a life of
complete leisure here, with the thermometer among the nineties
nine-tenths of the time?"
bath-gown?" Undoing it: "I simply _must_ see it. Blue! His very
color!" Holding it up: "From you, Frank?" He nods. "Clarence!"
_Watkins_: "If Fountain tries to kiss me, I'll--"
_Watkins_: "Don't overwhelm me."
_Fountain_, reaching for it: "Why, open it--"
literally dropping by the way at Shumaker's."
Christmas she would leave the country months before the shopping
_Fountain_: "I had just called you a serpent."
_Fountain_: "No, but you called me a laughing hyena, and said I
scoffed at everything sacred."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "I can't remember using the word hyena, exactly,
_Maggie_: "It's Mr. Fountain's sisters just telephoned up."
presents?"
_Aggie_: "The germs must have been swarming."
_Fountain_: "Lucy was black with them when we got home."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "And you made me do it. Never thanking them, or
_Fountain_: "You ought to have said that to them."
_Fountain_: "Hazard's the only one who has survived your rigorous
_Maggie_, bringing in a bundle: "Something a District Messenger
brought. Will you sign for it, ma'am?"
_Mrs. Fountain_, dropping the robe and seizing the card: "_Mrs._
_Mrs. Fountain_, capering about joyfully: "Oh, how funny you are,
_Susy_: "We've caught you, we've caught you."
_Jim_: "You can't fool _us_! We know you, we know you! And mother
thing. If I had my way, there wouldn't be."
_Jim_: "And if we go right back?"
_Susy_: "And promise not to come in any more?"
_Jim_: "It's a bargain, then! Come on, Susy!"
_Jim_: "We just came for a surprise."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "What _are_ you mooning about?"
worshipers, sitting and standing and kneeling, and singing and
Christmas of ours is as unlike a Christian Christmas?"
_Fountain_, offering his handkerchief: "Take mine."
_Fountain_: "Oh, yes, I have. I can see you. You look like one of
_Mrs. Fountain_, taking a bundle from her: "If this is another
_Maggie_, opening: "It's just a District Messenger."
Philip, if you have sent Clarence-- _Clarence!_" breaking into
a whimper: "It is, it is! It's another."
_Susy_: "Oh, father, are you sending them back?"
_Jim_: "She's just making believe. Isn't she, father?"
_Mrs. Fountain_, desisting: "Will you go right back to bed?"
_Jim and Susy_: "Yes, we will."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "And to sleep, instantly?"
_Jim_, derisively: "Oh, yes, Santa Claus!"
_Susy_: "I guess if you wait for Santa Claus to take them back!"
_Fountain_: "They'll grow to another. When they're men and women
they'll pretend that Christmas is delightful, and go round giving
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Then why did you ever think of it?"
superstition. It must be extirpated root and branch, and the
Anti-Christmas pledge; to--"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Clarence! I have an idea."
_Fountain_: "Not a _bright_ one?"
_Fountain_: "Oh, hello! Wouldn't that leave Jim and Susy out? I
couldn't have _them_ left out."
children like Benny it ought to be perpetuated to the end of the
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Didn't you say that Christmas began with the
pagans? How monstrously you prevaricate!"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "We will, we will!"
_Fountain_: "Do you think we will?"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "And the children."
_Fountain_: "I forgot the children!"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Oh, how delightful you are!"
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