: "She will cook with renewed energy when she begins to
sing _Sieglinde_ and _Tosca_.... She will practise _Vissi d'Arte_ over
the gumbo soup and _Du herstes Wunder_! while the Frankfurters are
sizzling. Her trills, her chromatic scales, and her _messa di voce_
will come right in the kitchen; she will equalize her scale and learn
to breathe correctly bending over the oven. It is even likely that she
will improve her knowledge of _portamento_ while she is washing
dishes. When she can prepare a succulent roast suckling pig she will
be able to sing _Ocean, thou mighty monster_! and she will understand
_Abscheulicher_ when she understands the mysteries of old-fashioned
strawberry shortcake. If you hear her shrieking _Suicidio_! invoking
Agamemnon, or appealing to the _Casta Diva_ among the kettles and pots
be not alarmed.... For the love you bear of good food, man, do not
discourage your wife's ambition. The more she loves to sing, the
better she will cook!"

_July 17, 1917._

An Interrupted Conversation

_"We can never depend upon any right adjustment of emotion to
circumstance."_

Max Beerbohm.

An Interrupted Conversation

Ordinarily one does not learn things about oneself from Edmund Gosse,
but my discovery that I am a Pyrrhonist is due to that literary man. A
Pyrrhonist, says Mr. Gosse, is "one who doubts whether it is worth
while to struggle against the trend of things. The man who continues
to cross the road leisurely, although the cyclists' bells are ringing,
is a Pyrrhonist--and in a very special sense, for the ancient
philosopher who gives his name to the class made himself conspicuous
by refusing to get out of the way of careering chariots." Now the most
unfamiliar friend I have ever walked with knows my extreme impassivity
at the corners of streets, remembers the careless attitude with which
I saunter from kerb to kerb, whether it be across the Grand Boulevard,
Piccadilly, or Fifth Avenue. Only once has this nonchalant defiance of
traffic caused me to come to even temporary grief; that was on the
last night of the year 1913, when, in crossing Broadway, I became
entangled, God knows how, in the wheels of a swiftly passing vehicle,
and found myself, top hat and all, in the most ignominious position
before I was well aware of what had really happened. Then a policeman
stooped over me, book and pencil in hand, and another held the
chauffeur of the victorious ta