Aunt sends her best wishes and says, “Men are April when they woo, and December when they wed.” I’m afraid that is true to life—don’t you think so?
A. D. TO POLLY
Rome,
October.
Oh, little Polly the Pagan, you say that variety is the spice of life and accordingly you won’t write any more sweet letters for a time, so I must hurry to tell you that spice is one of the things forbidden in the diet of my cure, and so I know you won’t force me to take any. You must, you must write me real love letters, or something fatal may happen to me.
Do you wish me to stop writing pretty things to you, now that you have stopped writing them to me? Because, if that is the case, I—I can’t do it! So you see, I plan to keep on pestering you day after day, and you may say, oh, well, as long as it makes him happy, let him continue. The Frenchwoman’s philosophy is that woman’s greatest happiness is in making man happy. She may not really care for him, but she will pretend to, if it makes his heart glad. That is pretty good philosophy. Since you are soon to be in fair France, you should consider the French point of view!
As for your Aunt’s quotation, “Men are April when they woo, December when they wed,” why, that is easily explained. It means that fires burn more hotly in the cold month and more steadily than in flowery April.
Peppi and I had all yesterday evening together, and a very pleasant time of it, too. I went over to his studio and found him. He made a delightful picture, frowzy-haired but handsome in his bright blue blouse, with his pallet in his hand, and his pet white goose following him about, lifting her yellow beak to be fed, and spreading her snowy wings. He explained he had purchased her for her feathery plumage to help him in a picture he was painting of an angel. We dined at the Cambrinus in the garden with colored lights where it was cool and pretty. And then afterwards I took him to the circus. We meet there almost every night. It is an epidemic here.