The Angel and the Author, and Others

ch Pos

when he took to sending postcards abandoned almost every other pursuit in life. The German tourist never knew where he had been until on rea

ould have found time while I was there to have gone outside the hotel and

t have much time?" hi

ark buying postcards, and then in the morning there was the writing and addressing to be

r card showing the pano

"If I had known it was anything like that, I'd

erman tourists in a Schwartzwald village. Leaping from

"Tell us-we have only two ho

stouter Frauen gathering up their skirts with utter disregard to all propriety, slim Fr?ulein clinging to their beloved wou

suddenly the tray would be snatched from her. She would burst into tears, and hit the person nearest to her with her umbrella. The cunning and the strong would secure the best cards. The weak and courteous be left with pictures of post offices and railway stations. Torn and dishevelled, the crowd would rush back t

rd as a Fa

ew tiresome. In the Fliegende Bl?tter two young clerks we

you going?"

e," ans

rd it?" asks th

for the postcards," answers B, glo

they had promised to send cards. Everywhere, through winding forest glade, by silver sea, o

om that last village that we stopped at

ntment. Uninteresting towns clamoured, as ill-favoured s

of these second-rate photographers make one look quite plain. I don't w

own, the wart becomes a dimple, her own husband doesn't know her. The

ard artist to himself, "this might have been a

ets mad. I bought a postcard myself once representing the market place of a certain French town. It seemed to me, looking at the postcard, that I hadn't really seen France-not yet. I travelled nearly

as there-tha

s one, I want the other o

ket square they had. I took

l the girls?"

rls?" he

tist's

, he said he would like to see a few girls in that town worth looking at. In the square itself sat six motherly old souls round a lamp-post. One of them had a moustache, and was smoking a pipe, but in other respects, I have no doubt, was all a woman should be. Two of them were selling fish. That is they would have sold fish, no doubt, had anyone been there to buy fish. The gaily clad thousands of eager purchasers pictured in the postcard were represented by two workmen

said there had once been a cathedral. It was now a brewery; he pointed it out to me. He said he thought some portion

" I demanded, "and

a fountain. He believed the d

the original of the picture postcard. Maybe others have had like experienc

rrect to say one girl in fifty to a hundred different hats. I have her in big hats, I have her in small hats, I have her in no hat at all. I have her smiling, and I have her looking as if she had lost her last sixpen

Eternal Male

y should there not be portraits of young men in different hats; young men in big hats, young men in little hats, young men smiling archly, you

oung men don't. The girl in real life is feeling it keenly:

e of skirts. You can't have feet that size. It isn't our fault, they are

ay at Christmas by the local grocer; on the advertisement of Jones' soap, and thinks with discontent of Polly Perkins, who in a natural way is as pretty a gir

are ruin

of his acquaintance could compete with her. If I remember rightly he died a bachelor, still dreaming of wax-like perfection. Perhaps it is as well we men are not handicapped to the same extent. If every hoarding, if every picture shop window,

uck or a daisy, or hinting shyly that she is his bee or his honeysuckle: in his excitement he is not quite sure which. In the novel she has been reading the hero has likened the heroine to half the vegetable kingdom. Elementary astronomy has been exhausted in his attempt to describe to her the impression her appearance leaves on him. Bond Street has been sacked in his endeavour to get it clearly hom

f living up

n represented by the picture postcard. The play, I fear me, does not always come up to the poster. Polly Perkins is pretty enough as girls go; but oh for the young lady of the grocer's almanack! Poor dear John is very nice and