could
spare from business and the cares of state was spent in organizing
the amusement of little Marty Josselin, and I was foolish enough to
be almost jealous of her own father and mother's devotion to the
same object.

Unlike her brothers and sisters, she was a studious little person,
and fond of books--too much so indeed, for all she was such a
tomboy; and all this amusement was designed by us with the purpose
of winning her away from the too sedulous pursuit of knowledge. I
may add that in temper and sweetness of disposition the child was
simply angelic, and could not be spoiled by any spoiling.

It was during these happy years at Marsfield that Barty, although
bereft of his Martia ever since that farewell letter, managed,
nevertheless, to do his best work, on lines previously laid down for
him by her.

For the first year or two he missed the feeling of the north most
painfully--it was like the loss of a sense--but he grew in time
accustomed to the privation, and quite resigned; and Marty, whom he
worshipped--as did her mother--compensated him for the loss of his
demon.

_Inaccessible Heights_, _Floreal et Fructidor_, _The Infinitely
Little_, _The Northern Pactolus_, _Pandore et sa Boite_, _Cancer and
Capricorn_, _Phoebus et Selene_ followed each other in leisurely
succession. And he also found time for those controversies that so
moved and amused the world; among others, his famous and triumphant
confutation of Canon ----, on one hand, and Professor ----, the
famous scientist, on the other, which has been compared to the
classic litigation about the oyster, since the oyster itself fell to
Barty's share, and a shell to each of the two disputants.

Orthodox and agnostic are as the poles asunder, yet they could not
but both agree with Barty Josselin, who so cleverly extended a hand
to each, and acted as a conductor between them.

That irresistible optimism which so forces itself upon all
Josselin's readers, who number by now half the world, and will
probably one day include the whole of it--when the whole of it is
civilized--belonged to him by nature, by virtue of his health and
his magnificent physique and his happy circumstances, and an
admirably balanced mind, which was better fitted for his particular
work and for the world's good than any special gift of genius in one
direction.

His literary and artistic work never cost him the slightest effort.
It amused him to draw and write more than did anything e