Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Volume 4 by William Dean Howells
page 12 of 117 (10%)
page 12 of 117 (10%)
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"No, no! Nothing of that kind; perfectly sincere and disinterested
enjoyment." "Oh, a few handbills to be scattered around: 'Buy Every Other Week,' 'Look out for the next number of "Every Other Week,"' 'Every Other Week at all the news-stands.' Well, I'll talk it over with Mrs. March. I suppose there's no great hurry." March told his wife of the idyllic mood in which he had left Fulkerson at the widow's door, and she said he must be in love. "Why, of course! I wonder I didn't think of that. But Fulkerson is such an impartial admirer of the whole sex that you can't think of his liking one more than another. I don't know that he showed any unjust partiality, though, in his talk of 'those girls,' as he called them. And I always rather fancied that Mrs. Mandel--he's done so much for her, you know; and she is such a well-balanced, well-preserved person, and so lady-like and correct----" "Fulkerson had the word for her: academic. She's everything that instruction and discipline can make of a woman; but I shouldn't think they could make enough of her to be in love with." "Well, I don't know. The academic has its charm. There are moods in which I could imagine myself in love with an academic person. That regularity of line; that reasoned strictness of contour; that neatness of pose; that slightly conventional but harmonious grouping of the emotions and morals--you can see how it would have its charm, the Wedgwood in human nature? I wonder where Mrs. Mandel keeps her urn and her willow." |
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