since I have known the Parker family, I have considered their home life
as ideal. I had hoped that the too few hours I spent in your home might
be multiplied many times in coming years. . . . I have never known a man
more in love with a woman than Carl was with you."

So I write of him for these reasons: because I must, to ease my own
pent-up feelings; because his life was so well worth writing about;
because so many friends have sent word to me: "Some day, when you have
the time, I hope you will sit down and write me about Carl"--the newer
friends asking especially about his earlier years, the older friends
wishing to know of his later interests, and especially of the last
months, and of--what I have written to no one as yet--his death. I can
answer them all this way.

And, lastly, there is the most intimate reason of all. I want our
children to know about their father--not just his academic worth, his
public career, but the life he led from day to day. If I live till they
are old enough to understand, I, of course, can tell them. If not, how
are they to know? And so, in the last instance, this is a document for
them.

C.S.P.
March 17, 1919




AN AMERICAN IDYLL