As Shakespeare or Milton, or whoever it was, said, "There is no place like home."
From this period of his life on, Mr. Mudison seems to devote much less of his time than formerly to writing down his experiences, impressions, and thoughts. His diary, if such it could be called, becomes more fragmentary than ever. Particularly is he silent regarding the summer at Wheatley Hills. There is one mention of his having purchased an incubator, and a few thoughts on the annual nuisance of moving from town to country. When he picks up his life-narrative again, he is back on Lexington Avenue, and beyond a hint that he is looking forward to breeding Irish terriers next year, there is no clew to the events of his rural life.
latest papers are rather disjointed. Mr. Mudison seems to have settled down to the placid existence of a well-to-do married man with no vocation. He has ceased either to act or to think. We do learn in one place, however, that Julius Hogginson Fairfield wed an actress, settled in Sioux City, and is writing two historical novels, yearly. We read in another place that Winthrop Jumpkin, 7th, has married the youngest Twitter girl, and become president of one of the Twitter railroads. There is a touch of romance in the disappearance of Cecil Hash, who in an evil moment fell in love with a poor beauty, married, and moved to Morristown, so is known no more in the world. Again, there is pathos in this note, almost lost in a page of argument with Gladys on the foreign-mission question: "I see by the morning paper that Horatio Gastly led the cotillon at Mrs. Twitter's small dance last night—a spirited cotillon—dancing with the beautiful Miss Constance Twitter." It calls to mind the poor rector, but our momentary sympathy for him disappears when we learn later that he has gone to a broader field, and is comfortably settled in the Garish chair of moral philosophy at Hale University. With these facts we have taken the grain from a considerable mass of chaff, so it is hardly worth while to continue working over Mr. Mudison's papers unless some upheaval occurs to shake him out of the groove down which he seems to be comfortably sliding to actual as well as social oblivion. Some day we shall see the flag of the Cholmondeley Club flying at half-mast; some day we shall miss the familiar figure, the dingy old man with a rusty silk hat, asleep in his window, the third window from the corner. Then perhaps we shall agree with him that, after all, it is just as well to be smart as it is to be famous.
By Nelson Lloyd
THE SOLDIER OF THE VALLEY
ILLUSTRATED BY A.B. FROST
12mo, $1.50
"A story full of artistic quality, a story of genuine feeling and quiet humor, pervaded by that repose which is so painfully lacking in current fiction, and written in a style the ease and charm of which tempts one, when he has finished the tale, to-read it for sheer pleasure in its form."—Hamilton W. Mabie.
"A wholly delightful book that leaves one full of pleasant thoughts and that everyone must feel the better for having read. The characters are full of genuine charm and humor. A book not only to read, but to keep."—London Literary World.