Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story by Clara E. Laughlin
page 34 of 61 (55%)
page 34 of 61 (55%)
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violinist about whom all New York was talking. The gray-haired man
with the goatee was an admiral. The gentle-spoken, shy man with the silver hair was a famous Indian fighter of the old frontier days. The man who spoke informedly of the Children's Theatre was one of the best-known of American men of letters. The lady who was anxious to interrogate him about it was one whose fame as an uplifter of humanity has travelled 'round the globe. This one was a painter, and that one a sculptor, and another was a poetic dramatist. "My!" sighed Mary Alice, "I'm glad you _didn't_ tell me before we went. As nearly as I can remember, I talked to the Admiral about the Fifth Avenue shopwindows, and to the General about the Jumel Mansion--which he said he had never seen but had always meant to see--and to the painter--what _did_ I talk to the painter about? Oh! my pink beads. He admired the colour." "Yes," said Godmother, "and if you had known who they were you would probably have tried to talk to the Admiral about ships and sea-fights, and to the painter about the Metropolitan Museum, and would have bored them terribly. Most real people, I think, like to be taken for what they are rather than for what they may have done. That is one of the things I learned in my long years in Europe where I was constantly finding myself in conversation with some one I did not know. We always began on a basis of common humanity, and we soon found our mutual interests, and enjoyed talking about them. It taught me a great deal about people and the folly of taking any of them on other people's estimates." But all this was only mildly interesting, now, compared with "the young man lion." |
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