to him continually ... preluded by strains of music ...
he lived from day to day with her lovely speech, a clairaudient.

As long as nothing material was involved, he was regarded as merely a
gentle eccentric ... by his relatives and the bourgeoisie....

But as soon as word came that he had inherited a fortune through the
death of a rich uncle in America--the attitude of the people around him
changed. His relatives began intriguing to have him declared insane.

But the village burgomaster, ordinarily decent, saw through their
artifices....

Goaded and goaded, finally Iistral assailed his pestering relatives with
a shovel with which he was working among the gentle flowers in the
garden ... at his customary task of tending them with Lisel....

And now the burgomaster, bribed, had reason to adjudge him insane.

And Iistral was dragged off, wailing, to the asylum.

* * * * *

With my clothes in literal rags I went through the rehearsals, attended
classes, kept up my athletics....

Often I woke up in the night, crying out, with tears rolling down my
cheeks, the lines of unhappy Iistral ... the spirit-woman Egeria grew
real as flesh and blood to me....

"Egeria! Egeria!--"

I woke, time and again, and heard my own voice, like the voice of
another, calling her name in the dark.

* * * * *

"You mustn't take the play so desperately ... remember it's just a play
... you rehearse as if the whole thing were a part of your life."

"Some of the boys," I replied, "some of the football boys lost ten or
twelve pounds in our Thanksgiving game at Kansas City last fall ... why
do you rebuke me for taking art and beauty as seriously as athletes take
a football match?"

* * * * *

Two days before the play, as I was walking by the Bellman House, I saw
Jarvis Alexander Mackworth standing there, come up from Osageville for a
regents' conference....

"Hello!" the dear, good man called, "you heavenly bum! You starry young
tramp!"

His eyes were twinkling in appreciative merriment over his quaint
phraseology.

"What are you doing in Laurel, Mr. Mackworth?"

I noticed that he did not wear his many-patched trousers, but was well
dressed....

--"attending a regents' meeting, young man,--where I suppose I'll have
to stand up in your defence again....

"It's a good thing you don't run after the women, Gregory, or your case
would be