The Wreck of the South Pole and Other Strange Tales — page 172: what you’re looking at

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

WRITTEN IN WATER. Once upon a time, it may or may not have been a long time ago, a fair young girl came to an old country house in which dwelt a philosopher and author. Whether or no he could, as yet, lay just claims to the latter name there might be a difference of opinion, but he was most certainly the first, if conscientious study and a well bal- anced mind make one a philosopher. But, although a philosopher in the truest sense of the word, he was not an old man. Ten years at the university, three in Germany, two in travel and then five in study in his old home were all that had passed since Gerald Leslie first left that home, a bright, merry school-boy. He owned houses and lands and bonds, and so he could afford to bury himself in the large old farm-house, there to pursue those studies in which he took greatest delight and labor, upon the great work that was to make his name famous through all time. Whether he was an author or not an author was to rest upon this work. For all these years he had thought of nothing else, written nothing else, save now and then a stray article for some review. ECORNIE OOOLKS (EO)