llen in love, and who, though
he used to be talkative, can now only stammer. He wants to propose to a
beautiful girl but he can't. 'One day they were walking through a
bluebell wood.... "I must speak," he said to himself unhappily, while he
realised he was physically incapable of bringing out the most
common-place phrase....'

"He decided to speak when he saw the next orchis.

"He thought of a woman he had once imagined himself in love with. She
had had red hair and green eyes ... and red hair had seemed infinitely
wicked and alluring and adventurous....

"He saw an orchis and hastily averted his eyes.

"He thought of a rocking horse he had had as a child, dappled grey with
a grey yellow tail and a scarlet saddle....

"Another orchis. He looked at her imploringly.

"'What are you thinking about?' she responded to his appeal.

"'Rocking horses,' he said. 'Will you marry me?' And then desperately,
'I know that's not the way to put it'; and then convulsively, 'I love
you.'

"She waited till he had finished and then she said.... 'That's a very
nice way to put it.'"

"This seems to one reader at least one of the best proposals in fiction.

"Perhaps these stories are not classics. But they are of the very best
of to-day's. They are not only charming, and fresh, but they have a
nobility; they are seriously concerned with our lonely emotional needs.

"And there are things in them that touch the very core of one's heart.
Things a reader is startled to find in print--things he had supposed not
expressible. Secret things that make him whisper, 'Why I thought no one
knew that but myself.'

Clarence Day, Jr."

In answer to a letter of thanks from Elizabeth he wrote:

"It made me so sad to read some of the reviews of your book. I knew of
course how few people appreciated fine writing, but now I know how few
people have ever been in love."

* * * * *

Mr. Heath Moore put this review into my hands before we parted and I
thought it was clever of him to know the pleasure it would give me.

XVI: CRITICISM AND FAREWELL

CRITICISM AND FAREWELL

DOLL SALESMAN TALKS ON PROHIBITION--PERILS OF COMMERCIALISM AND
MATERIALISM IN AMERICA--PLEA FOR LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP

On April 3--the day before I sailed for England--I went out early to buy
toys to entertain my grand-baby on our voyage in the _Mauretania_; and
had an interesting talk with one of the many civil salesmen tha