But, you may remind me, I went so far as to keep a parrot “once, long ago.” I plead guilty, yet, Mark Twain to the contrary, a parrot is no index to character. _John Silver_ kept one, but nobody ever compared him to a maiden lady.
So, dear George, when you meet some gentle spinster with a flavor of “Cranford” about her, give her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she likes nothing better than to swagger in imagination through the streets of old Paris in company with the immortal three, brandishing a sheaf of rapiers taken from the cardinal’s guard.
--And between you and me, George, I never saw a “typical woman.”
Your affectionate aunt, _Anne Coddington_.
_From a Lady who Suffers from Skepticism to a Friend who is Healthily Credulous_
No, Eleanor, I have not read “The Three Golden Apples.” I have not even read the reviews. But I _have_ read the publishers’ notice, because they were good enough to send it to me. They say the book is the literary masterpiece of our day, that it stands unrivaled in tensity of situation, that it is an epoch-making narrative, and a masterly contribution to the problems that confront the thinking world. Upon which I find myself murmuring with _Sancho Panza_, “Nothing else, mine honest friend?” Why not say simply and plainly that it is the greatest novel ever written, and that Clarence Coventry (have you ever met him, Eleanor? He is a charming man) is the greatest novelist ever born? Why, when people are soaring in the pure and limitless realms of fancy, should they stop short, as if they were impeded by facts?
Now even if I did not know Clarence--who writes quite as well as his neighbors--I should be chilled into apathy by the publishers’ red-hot enthusiasm. The phrase “epoch-making” is calculated to chill any reader who has encountered it before and who remembers what it usually means. And though I am well aware that epochs are not made or marred by even a readable novel, I don’t like being told pure nonsense, and I don’t like being hounded by advertisements. Why, Eleanor, since I have been running over to New York every few weeks to see Amy and the children, and staring out of the car-windows at ninety weary miles of continuous advertising, I am cured forever of touching pills or pickles.