Life — February 16, 1928 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

Awake late, after as sleepless a night as ever I put in, nor would of the proverbial mental sedative: avail me, neither, the slow recital of “Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane,” ete., being a distinct dis- turbant, for when I did reach “'Tis well that such seditious words are sung Only by priests and in the Latin tongue!” I could proceed no further, for the life of me, and the inability did so rack me that I knew I should never slumber unless I wakened Samuel and was prompted, and he, poor wretch, was so wroth as to threaten me with divorce for such doings, for he could not think of it, neither, so we both up and stalking the shelves for Longfellow’s Poems, which we did not find, and both so sleepless thereafter that we did sit up awhile over beakers of ale and stuffed celery, Sam feeling justified by the occasion in taking me to task for this and that, and I was indeed astonished to learn that the point in my recent conduct to which he takes chiefest exception is my having dis- patched a dozen wrongly marked handkerchiefs to a perfect stranger whose initials in the Social Register coincided with the mistake made by the embroiderer, but Lord! I, like W. E. Hill's old lady who couldn't January 24th “Are you angry with me, Joe?” “OF course not, Sammie, old pal.” “Then why did you cut me last night?” see why they made so much fuss ody’s sending violets to the heroine of “The Captive,’ thought it was a kindly thing to do, and do know well that should I receive such a handsome, anonymous present out of a sky which might possibly be gray, Mr. Browning’s Pippa would have nought on me for the ensuing twenty-four hours, at least. But I “Women use more powder than men.” “Yes, and they’re better shots.” did not contend with Sam, for how- socver effective his reasoning may be before juries and magistrates, it sel- dom impresses me even when I do yield to it, and what is the sense, at such an hour in the morning, of bringing up the facts that he occa- sionally uses my pen and never turns out the light in his clothes closet? Marge Boothby in this morning, a-begging me to accompany her to Atlantic City, she being in so nerv- ous a state that she does even fly into a fury at a triple bromide tablet when it does not dissolve enough. But I did plead s minent afternoon bridge engag ments, which I do regard as seri- ously as I should regard jury duty. January The journals still print- ing various items about 25th Thomas Hardy, whose death does mark, meseems, the fall of the last outpost of our civilized literature, and getting down ‘ Lyrics and Earlier,” which Shipman gave me, I did read here and there in it with extreme satis- faction, and was even obliged to shed a tear over “An Ancient to Ancients.” Then up and off to lunch with Mr. and Mistress Westman from Dan- ville, Illinois, in the dining-room of the great (Please turn to page 3+) comicbooks.com aie da ea eee a: