Life — June 24, 1886 — page 9: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND. IN YOUR CLASS? Alumnus : OW, HE'S TAKEN ORDERS SOME TIME, Hostess: HE'S 1N THE MINISTRY, THEN ? Alumnus: NO, IN A RESTAURART, Hostess: WHAT HAS BECOME OF SANDY SMITH, WHO STOOD SO HIGH At the same time I know that you are a young lady of much intel- ligence and some learning. You do not want to read books that will shock your literary taste or moral sensibilities, You may be frivolous, bat you have an American girl's detestation for duplicity and intrigue. I know that you play tennis, and row, and ride along the beach with the sparkle of health in your wide, blue eyes, and its glorious color in your cheeks, You could not read an unhealthy book, and I am glad that the number of our girls who resemble you is increasing rapidly. It gives an old man like me keen pleasure to see the younger generations living with greater zest a strong, full, physical life. You love the open air and the song of birds, the changing color of the sky, and the full hum of life around you in field and forest ? Then read Signs and Seasons,” by John Burroughs ; ‘* By-ways and Bird- Notes,” by Oliver Thorne Miller, and ‘ Upland and Meadow,” by C. C. Abbott: They will add new pleasures to every ramble, and a new sentiment to every flirtation. UT what about novels? you ask. ‘The bulk of your summer reading must be fiction, and new at that. You have read the classics and want the modern froth. For your lighter moods read Howells's “Indian Summer,” Bunner’s “The Midge,” Janvier's ‘‘ Color Stud- ies,” Bret Harte’s “‘Snow-Bound at Eagle's,” and Stockton’s “The Late Mrs, Null.” Every one of them will give you genuine pleasure with some acute fun. For those listless days when you must have a haunting mystery, or an impending sorrow, or a bitter fate to arouse your interest in any- thing other than the oppressive weather, I recommend Sidney Luska's “Mrs, Peixada,” Stevenson's ‘Strange Case of Dr, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Arlo Bates's “A Wheel of Fire,” Andrew Lang’s ‘* The Mark of Cain,” and Hardy's “The Wind of Destiny.” These books will cast a lurid glow even on the sultry darkness which precedes an August storm. A very pretty summer idyll which is, however, a year old, is Miss Jewett's “A Marsh Island,” and there is that recent story of quiet Moravian life, ‘A Victorious Defeat,” by Wolcott Balestier. For satire read ‘‘ The Life of a Prig,” by One, and Andrew Lang’s “Letters to Dead Authors”; for biography, ‘Mary Clemmer,” and “ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ” ; for rhyme, ‘* At the Sign of the Lyre,” by Austin Dobson, ‘ Ballades and Verses Vain,” by Andrew Lang, and “Airs from Arcady,” by H. C. Bunner. * * . ND now, dear Jean, I fear that I have overweighted your Saratoga trunk, and perhaps crowded out a perfectly bewitching costume. You say that you are going to the coast of Maine? The prospect is charming. Ihave a vision of you sitting on the rocks at Bar Harbor with ‘one of my favorite books in your shapely hands. You are not reading now, but looking out on a twilight sea such as Alexander Harrison loves to paint. The brown, and lake, and gold which play over the water have deepened the color of your eyes and hair, and added a gen- tle seriousness to your lovely face. You are thinking of Jack, and wondering when he will come back from Nova Scotia. You are sure that no novel you have ever read has pictured so fine and manly a hero. God bless you my children, Your venerable adviser, Drock. comicbooks.com