If any one tells you otherwise it is because he is thinking in terms of art and not in terms of life. And some will tell you otherwise, for the world never has lacked those to whom art was more than life just as the world has never lacked those to whom a future life was more than the life of this earth. With these we have no quarrel; we can but respect them; God made them so. It takes all kinds of people, we agree, to make a world; if that is so, manifestly it takes all kinds of views to get the true view. In any triangle the sum of all three angles is equal to two right angles. If, therefore, one of the angles of the triangle is a right angle, the sum of the other two will equal a right angle. The angle of outlook which sees only the artistry in a piece of literary work added to the angle of outlook which sees only the livingness in the same work may make the right angle which we all aspire to look from. BOOKS BY EDITH WHARTON _The Greater Inclination_, 1899. _The Touchstone_, 1900. _Crucial Instances_, 1901. _The Valley of Decision_, 1902. _Sanctuary_, 1903. _The Descent of Man, and Other Stories_, 1904. _Italian Villas and Their Gardens_, 1904. _Italian Backgrounds_, 1905. _The House of Mirth_, 1905. _Madame de Treymes_, 1907. _The Fruit of the Tree_, 1907. _The Hermit and the Wild Woman_, 1908. _A Motor-Flight Through France_, 1908. _Artemis to Actæon and Other Verse_, 1909. _Tales of Men and Ghosts_, 1910. _The Reef_, 1912. _The Custom of the Country_, 1913. _The Book of the Homeless_, 1915. _Fighting France_, 1915. _Ethan Frome._ _The Decoration of Houses._ _The Joy of Living._ _Xingu and Other Stories._ _Summer_, 1917. _The Marne_, 1918. _French Ways and Their Meaning_, 1919. _The Age of Innocence_, 1920. _The Glimpses of the Moon_, 1922. _The Reef, Summer, The Marne, French Ways and Their Meaning, The Age of Innocence, and The Glimpses of the Moon were published by D. Appleton & Company, New York; Mrs. Wharton’s other books were published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York._ CHAPTER II ALICE BROWN From New Hampshire Alice Brown responded, July 29, 1918, to a request for something from herself about herself with a letter as follows: “I have been too busy in legitimate ways--gardening, cooking, cursing the Hun--to write you a human document. But these are some of the dark facts. I was born in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, about six miles inland from the sea, near enough to get a tang of salt and a ‘sea turn’ of walking--[a word that looks like ‘mist’ or ‘twist’.] The country there is slightly rolling, with hills enough to give nice little dips and climbs in the winding roads, and the farms are fertile. My people were farmers. We lived, not at Hampton Falls village, but in a little ‘neighborhood’ on the road to Exeter, and at Exeter all the shopping was done. It was one postoffice, and any neighbor who drove over brought back the mail for the rest.