“I well-nigh fixed my mind never to affiance with a man too genteel to hit me. “Woman is a revolting little bit of thing. “If you say ‘Yes,’ I am quite ready to slam my ‘No!’ “Oscar San! “I am afraid that you are too amiable. “What you have to do for your next missive is to collect every kind of dreadful adjectives from your dictionary, and throw them in. “You know what to do when I get angry, don’t you? “Ellis San! “You are too handsome. “I am fond of a comely face as anybody else. “But I fancy often how it would be if I fell in love with a deformity. “People would laugh at me doubtless. But how dramatic it would be when I proclaimed, ‘Because I love him!’ “What a romantic phrase that is! “Can’t you deform yourself? “Sayonara, “With a thousand bows, “M. G. “P.S.—My letter never finishes without a P.S. “Isn’t that awful? “My uncle asked me whom I was corresponding with. I mentioned ‘Olive.’ “Old man is jealous always. “So you got to counterfeit your sister’s penmanship for your envelope.” 29th—I drank the last drop of my coffee. “Oji San, when shall we go to New York?” I said, pillowing my face on my hands on the breakfast table. “As soon as spring begins to flicker in the East, my little woman! It’s snow and snow there at present.” “I love snow, Uncle.” “Old gentleman can’t bear tyrannical cold, Morning Glory.” “Don’t you notice how tired I am of Frisco? Aren’t you tired?” “Yes—frankly!” “Why don’t you then contrive some novel diversion to pass a month?” “I’ve a fancy, but——” “What is it?” “It may not strike you as romantic.” “Tell me!” “I am known to one poet who dreams and erects a stone wall on the hillside. He is unlike another. His garden and cottage are open to everybody. I ever incline to loaf in an irregular puff of odour from his acacia trees. If you lean towards a poetical life, I have no hesitation in seeing him to make an arrangement.” “Great Uncle, it’s romantic! Is he married?” “Why?” “Because a poet is not one woman’s property, but universal. My ideal poet is melancholy. Fat poet is ridiculous. Happy poet isn’t of the highest order. Tennyson? I wish his life had been more hard up. I suppose your friend-poet won’t mind if I sleep all day. Is he particular about the dinner time? Does he look up to the stars every night? Does he wash his shirt once in a while?” “Stop!” Then I asked respectably: “Is the sight from there beautiful?” “Wonderful! The only place where you can breathe the air of divinity!” “Very well, Uncle. We will settle there, and hasten to become poets.” “It wouldn’t be a bad idea, I say, to start again with your honourable ‘Lotos Eaters!’” “‘Paradise Lost’ shall be my next subject.” “If nobody publishes it?” “I will present it solemnly to our Empress. She is a poetess, you know.” My uncle went to see Mr. Poet.