Don't you dare tell Jack about this, I should never hear the last of it.
Can you realize that I am three whole weeks from home! I do, every second of it. Sometimes when I stop to think what I am doing my heart almost bursts! But then I am so used to the heartache that I might be lonesome without it; who knows?
If I can only do what is expected of me, if I can only pick up the pieces of this smashed-up life of mine and patch them into a decent whole that you will not be ashamed of, then I will be content.
The first foreign word I have learned is "Alohaoe," I think it means "my dearest love to you." Anyhow I send it laden with the tenderest meaning. God bless and keep you all, and bring me back to you a wiser and a gladder woman.
[JAMES D. BRUNER]
James Dowden Bruner, editor of many masterpieces of French literature, as well as an original critic of that literature, was born near Leitchfield, Kentucky, May 19, 1864. He was graduated from Franklin College, Franklin, Indiana, in 1888, and then taught French and German at Franklin for two years. Professor Bruner studied a year in Paris and Florence and, on his return to this country, in 1893, he was elected professor of Romance languages in the University of Illinois. Johns Hopkins University conferred the degree of Ph. D. upon him, in 1894, his dissertation being The Phonology of the Pistojese Dialect (Baltimore, 1894, a brochure). From 1895 to 1899 Dr. Bruner was professor of Romance languages and literatures in the University of Chicago; from 1901 to 1909 he held a similar chair in the University of North Carolina; and since 1909 he has been president of Chowan College, Murfreesboro, North Carolina. Dr. Bruner has edited, with introductions and critical notes, Les Adventures du Dernier Abencerage, par Chateaubriand (New York, 1903); Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre, par Octave Feuillet (Boston, 1904); Hernani, par Victor Hugo (New York, 1906); and Le Cid, par Pierre Corneille (New York, 1908), his finest critical edition of any French classic hitherto. His Studies in Victor Hugo's Dramatic Characters (Boston, 1908), announced the advent of a new critic of the great Frenchman's plays. It is an excellent piece of work.
Bibliography. Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1910, v. xv); Who's Who in America (1912-1913).
THE FRENCH CLASSICAL DRAMA[42]
[From Le Cid, par Pierre Corneille (New York, 1908)]