Category: Humour
It is the inclination of the average reader to skip prefaces. For this I do not in the least blame him. Skipping the preface is one of my favorite literary pursuits. To catch me napping a preface must creep up quietly and take me, as it were, unawares.
When the house was up as far as the second floor and the first mortgage, talk rose touching on the furnishings. To me it seemed there would be ample time a decade or so thence t...
4. CHAPTER II. THE START OF A DREAMFor years it was the dream of our life--I should say our lives, since my wife shared this vision with me--to own an abandoned farm. The idea first came to us through reading art...
8. CHAPTER VI. TWO MORE YEARS ELAPSEAs the reader will have no trouble in recalling, we broke ground for our house. That, however, was after we had altered the design so often that the first lot of plans and speci...
5. CHAPTER III. THREE YEARS ELAPSEI WOUND up the last preceding chapter of this chronicle with the statement that we had definitely given up all hope of owning an abandoned farm. After an interval of three years...
11. CHAPTER IX. US LANDED PROPRIETORSTo the best of my ability I have been quoting Lady Maude verbatim; but if unintentionally I have permitted any erroneous quotations to creep into her remarks they will be correc...
7. CHAPTER V. IN WHICH WE BORE FOE WATERWe joined the Despair Association finally by reason of our water problem. However, that was to come into our lives later. Through the springtime we had more water than we could...
10. CHAPTER VIII, THE ADVENTURE OF LADY MAUDEI have dealt at length with our adventures at Fifth Avenue auction houses when we were amassing the furnishings for our Italian rooms and our Italian hallway. But I forgot to ma...
6. CHAPTER IV. HAPPY DAYS FOR MAJOR GLOOMSoon after we moved to the country we became eligible to join the Westchester County Despair Association, on account of an artesian well--or, to be exact, on account of three ar...
2. Chapter II, coming immediately after this one, was written first of all;written as an independent contribution to American letters. At the time of writing it I had no thought that out of it, subsequently, would grow material for additional and suppl...
1. CHAPTER I. WHICH REALLY IS A PREFACE IN DISGUISEIt is the inclination of the average reader to skip prefaces. For this I do not in the least blame him. Skipping the preface is one of my favorite literary pursuits. To catch me...
3. volume I desire that the volume may sell, which means royalties, whichmeans cash in hand. The man who labors for art's sake alone nearly always labors for art's sake alone; at least usually he appears to get very little else out of his toil while...