The Debatable Land

Bourn and

fortune airily, and lost it. He surely married another, lost part of that, and his wife of a year or two, who died and surprised him into regretting her with some sincerity. He became an official of the Hamilton County Bank, and floated on in middle life, buoyant, carrying an aroma of old fashions, a flower in his buttonhole, a tall hat, a silver-headed cane. His eyes had wrinkles

lady, and was gracious and fluent. He brought the best flowers o

id to the widow. "Positively she must not hav

erhaps placidly, at any rate patiently. Thad

, my dear, your back will be as stra

d on the pillow, were losing their brown tan in the passage of slow weeks. The delicate creepin

id, "why do you abo

y to punctuate, emphasize, distinguish, for illustration, for ornament-"I have the opinion that to feel agreeable and to be agreeable are two habits that one cultivates like a garden. The first is a vegetable, the second

the conduct of life, Nellie's grave eyes no

on feeling agreeable-"When I buy a pair of glasses of a seller of glasses, personally, I buy a pair that-a-slightly idealize"-partly by surrounding one's self by, in point of fact, a judicious selection of circumstances. Circumstances were, in the main, people. One surrounded one's self with-that is, one sought and lived among-agreeable people, and these were found commonly among such as had circumstances already agreeable

. Some time"-the wrinkles of his smile shot out around his eyes-"I'll explain to you how it is a

had much to do with gesture and expression; so that "good society" may have been to her a phrase of the haziest quality, except as it might mean a pair of slightly idealized eye-glasses, rimmed with gold, and pointed at one in a manner to abs

nal shadows. They have no names in language. Only here and there one finds a thing said of them that is touched with reco

ation, such pains to be agreeable. If we charge him with calculation, it is only to admire the refinement of it, and refer the charge to his doctrine. For if the confession that he was secretly growing old meant that he foresaw life would come presently to seem a little vacant, without the intimate interest it once had, and his house on Shannon Street be visited perhaps by ghosts that would not always take pains to be agreeable, it would seem to show a skill in the pursuit of happiness, an eye for a blind trail, not unworthy of the doctrine. To foresee coming changes, what provision the soul would need in a year or two more when middle life was past and the strong pull of the ebbing t

ee of the garden. The lilacs hung heavily and seemed almost to drip with thick perfume. Thrush, oriole, a

uld rather have som

s," protested t

an injury. It makes a prett

n you s

ere is no positive opinion that can be attributed to you. I give you a character and you d

peacefully, "Oh no, Thadde

d assurance. It was no trouble, except to fit her denials to the form of the attack. Thadd

ed hair cut Quakerly, ponderously grave, except that his left eyelid drooped and twitched. It was the one place on his wide face where the old spirit of demonry hinted of itself, and spoke of the days of the consulship of Tad and Pete. Without doubt the world was degenerate,

soon then. Been loadin'

d think she did. In point of fact, it served you right. You roasted Starr Atherton's litter of pigs yours

n't me

I said, any pig of that size would squeal loud enough to wake a congregation. And Starr Atherton was out in the

is eyelid and reverte

ety now. She might gunpowder the mayor an' let it go at that. What's in w

It is even said they

th paint-brushes-anybody

eaned forw

as the

re must've been some white on the

postmaster's face. There were vast vacant spaces on it, where, it seemed,

peated Mr. Paulus, heavi

the pale flowers glimmered against the grass, he thought of Mr. Paulus's face smitten with paint; and so of Nellie, a slim, white ghost, with eyes that sometimes looked wistfulness after nameless things, and sometim

three; hair and brows of a Celtic yellow with a glint of red in them, a face of cliffs and caverns, bones of length and massiveness. "Picts

on the gate, looking at Morgan contemplativ

mned brute jockey

the Mill Stream was crooning to itself-Hagar, by dusk at least, was much the same as in the consulship of Tad and Pete, now forty years later when Tad and Pete had come to consider each other exquisite absurdities. Even after another forty years, is there any change in Hagar at dusk? You cannot see how the charcoal-burners have cut along the Cattle Ridge. Tad and Pete have gone where one hopes for

ut the door. Thaddeus dropped the

p the garden path, tapping the ground briskly with his ca