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Edith Whitcomb "Marrell

"In the afternoon they will walk in the fields"

will be alone their little child is gone. In the morning there will be things to put in order in the house. Dusting, breakfast dishes. In the afternoon she will go to the stores, then come home to read. She will get the dinner. Later he, too, will come home.

Yes, he has a good face. His face says: "I did not marry her for her body, as other men marry other women. I married her, because she is my life. She is my home." Days and days, years and years, on and on - she is his life, she is his home. He is her life.

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The dog rises and rubs its head against his shoulder. "Good Bim", he says. Then the dog goes into the house, to her.

Her arm

Gladness sings in his heart on Sunday. He wakes in the morning. He thinks he must hurry to get the train for the city. Then he remembers - he need not hurry, he need not jump quickly out of bed. He may lie there, beside her, as long as he wishes. He touches her arm tenderly. Her eyes open a little and she smiles. goes around him. They doze. It is Sunday they will walk with each other, they will lie in the hammock with each other. Gladness sings in his heart, sings in their hearts. It is Sunday, when he may rest. Today he is not bending over a desk. Today is rest. He is sitting on the porch. She is in the kitchen, standing over the stove, perhaps. He is her life. She is his life.

She has a thin face and a large nose and small eyes. She has a gaunt, awkward body and plain, brown hair. She is beautiful. Her hair is beautiful. He likes to run his fingers through it

it is like the rays of sunlight shining through grey clouds and drawing dampness from the earth. Her eyes are beautiful — they look up

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A man comes out of a house across the street. He is throwing a ball into the air and catching it as it comes down.

"O, John!" the man calls gaily. "What about playing ball?"

"Yes, yes." John crosses the street, and the two men talk.

Soon others appear. They have seen the man throwing the ball into the air, and they, also, wish to play. Then all of them go to a vacant lot.

They play. They play with vigor. They shout, they laugh. These men are free now; they are not closed up in buildings, in small offices in the city. They throw fast, they run fast, they play fast. They are free.

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"Yes, it sails!" cries a third "it sails!"

John watches the ball. It sails why must there be desks and dirty trains? Sometime

After a while the game is finished. John comes back and sits again on the porch. He reaches lazily for the funny paper. He has read it before, but he glances at it, reads it again. It is Sunday.

Sometime they are going away, far away, to another part of the world. They will live in a great castle with large rooms and purple curtains and fine furniture. Many servants and automobiles. Flower gardens and trees and vast lawns. He will not travel on dirty

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He goes into the house to help her.

It is Sunday. Gladness sings in their hearts. Tonight they will lie in the hammock with golden darkness all around. They are of each other.

A man and a woman given to life. Long hours caring for the house dusting, cooking, putting things in order. Long hours over a desk, high in a great building of the city. Years will come and go, and come and go long years, short years, on and on. day is today, tomorrow is yesterday.

To

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WASHINGTON IRVING, ESQUIRE

By George S. Hellman

EDITOR'S NOTE: The publishers of "Washington Irving, Esquire” have given us permission to use quotations from it before publication. Of this first internationally recognized man of letters, Mr. Hellman has made a human and appealing character. Irving was popular in his day and important to America in gaining the understanding of Europe and in furthering amity.

N outstanding fact in considering

AN

the life and work of Irving is that, in contradistinction to far the greater number of our representative authors, he had in him nothing of the Puritan strain. Emerson, Thoreau, Lowell, Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, the genial Curtis and the witty Holmes, whether or not of Puritan ancestry, all carried on that New England tradition which includes an emphatic interest in reform, in moralizing, or in the general relationship of instruction to entertainment. Irving, on the other hand, believed in enjoying life and in making life as pleasant as possible for others. He was not the exponent of morality but the proponent of good will. He was an observer, not a teacher; and he cared much more to observe and to enjoy than to be taught.

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ince (for he took the U. S. to be a mere Province) was not a great wine country and whether it was not in the neighbourhood of Turkey or somewhere thereabout!" At another time Irving records that Americans have a name for drunkenness and public disturbance. "Pho-it's only some drunken American or other", was a comment he overheard at some street ruction, drunkenness being considered in an American “merely as a custom of his country". Still another time he was accosted by a French officer. "Vous etes anglais, Monsieur?" asked the officer. "Pardonnez moi," replied Irving, "je suis des Etats Unis d'Amerique."-"Et bien, c'est la meme chose." Another Frenchman thinks that when America becomes stronger the Americans intend to drive all the Europeans out of their country. A merchant from Frankfort, while interested in our customs, knows little of the United States. At Lure a man asks Irving whether they are near Asia. On being told that they are not, "Alors,' said he, 'ils sont tout pres de l'Afrique.' — 'Non, pardon Monsieur, point du tout.''Diable. Comme je me trompe-ils sont dans le voisinage d'Europe.'-I again informed him he was mistaken.-'F-', replied he, 'est il possible? Ou sont ils donc, Monsieur?"" And so it goes on, vast numbers of persons believing that whoever goes to America "runs the

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narrowest risks of his life there from the yellow fever or the savages". And everywhere Irving, and Cabell with him when they were together, satisfy the curiosity and dispel the ignorance of those they meet. A Geneva merchant, a Protestant minister, engraver of Basle, a gentleman of Lucerne, the nobility of Italy, the peasants of France, these and many more came into their real knowledge of America, imparted to them with that charm, that courtesy, that gayness and geniality, and always that well balanced patriotism which made them friendly not only to their instructor but also to the country which so graciously he represented. As we go on with our study of the life of Washington Irving, Esquire, we shall, if I am not much at fault, reach the conclusion that no other American has won more friends than did he for his country, this first journey to Europe being the initial step in his imponderable yet magnificent service as our ambassador at large.

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M. Irving. In his attempt to perpetuate this gentle myth, Pierre M. Irving had recourse to comments, to suppressions, and to elisions whose nature is now apparent through a careful study of Irving's Dresden diaries.

There are three of these Dresden diaries, and what dances and dinners and all manner of entertainments are packed in their entries! In the merry life of the little capital of Saxony we meet an Irving vastly different from that of immediately preceding or subsequent years

a gay and rejuvenated Irving. The financial cares and the physical ailments from which he was never, for any great length of time, wholly free, were then only the lightest of shadows. He immediately became a great favorite at court, the formal yet intimate, gracious yet intellectual little court of a kingdom still in its teens.

Amateur theatricals, whereof various were given at Mrs. Foster's residence, with Irving as the prime spirit in getting them up, account in great measure for the rapidity with which he fell in love with Emily. That delightful comedy, "Three Weeks After Marriage", was not the only one of the plays in which Irving was either the avowed lover or the actual husband of the young girl. There were frequent rehearsals where histrionic love making, on Irving's part at least, soon began to take on the character of serious courtship.

Mrs. Foster did her best to persuade her daughter into marriage with the distinguished and charming American, but when Emily thanked Irving for his lines it was as a friend; and that was all. Yet he persisted in the hope to win her,

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