Dear Mrs. Howe,—Though I was a long time getting to it, when once I started in to read your Reminiscences I was obliged to finish them at as nearly one sitting as the exigencies of the “wrastle for hash” would permit.
I have not been so fascinated with any book since the old days when as a boy I used to sit up half the night to finish one of the Waverly Novels.
I had but two regrets when late last evening I read the beautiful lines with which the book concludes:—the first that there was not another volume, and the second that, charming as it all is, it is after all such an inadequate presentation of the life which is of such inexpressible value to us all. May I add that I hope you will take better care of it than you have recently been taking?
With best love
Ever very affectionately
D. P. Hall.
XVII
“I TAKE MY PEN IN HAND”
Following the Family Tradition.—“Demorest’s” and “Jennie June.”—Marion Crawford and the Little Green Parlor.—Town and Country Club.—Charles Dudley Warner.—How I Came to Write About Manners.—Life of Laura Bridgman.—Helen Keller at the Perkins Institution.—A Luncheon at “Boothden,” the Home of Edwin Booth.—Joseph Jefferson and William Warren.
THE five children of our parents have all written and published books. We have thus followed their example and an hereditary impulse which made writing an easy method of expression for us.