" This arraignment of
his memory was in pure jest, for the doctor's mind was to the end like
an unclouded crystal. It was interesting to note how he studied himself,
taking his own pulse, as it were, and diagnosing his own case in a sort
of scientific, impersonal way, as if it were somebody else's case and he
were the consulting specialist. I intended to spend a quarter of an hour
with him, and he kept me three hours. I went there rather depressed,
but I returned home leavened with his good spirits, which, I think, will
never desert him, here or hereafter. To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be
hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent--that is to triumph over old age.
THE thing one reads and likes, and then forgets, is of no account. The
thing that stays, and haunts one, and refuses to be forgotten, that is
the sincere thing. I am describing the impression left upon me by Mr.
Howells's blank-verse sketch called "Father and Mother: A Mystery"--a
strangely touching and imaginative piece of work, not unlike in effect
to some of Maeterlinck's psychical dramas.
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