JAVA HEAD

By Joseph Hergesheimer

1918




It is only the path of pure simplicity which guards and preserves the
spirit. _CHWANG-TZE_




TO HAZLETON MIRKIL, JR.

_from Dorothy and Joseph Hergesheimer_




I

Very late indeed in May, but early in the morning, Laurel Ammidon lay in
bed considering two widely different aspects of chairs. The day before
she had been eleven, and the comparative maturity of that age had filled
her with a moving disdain for certain fanciful thoughts which had given
her extreme youth a decidedly novel if not an actually adventurous
setting. Until yesterday, almost, she had regarded the various chairs of