Volney

1901 · rif. Alibris.0031345 — washington: M walter dunne 1901. intro by joel benton & biographical notes. Hard cover. Good. No dust jacket. micquet. 415 p. . Excerpt: .LETTERS TO ANONYMA Paris Thursday. --Everything about you is mysterious; and the causes inducing in others a certain line of conduct impel you always to opposite action. I am becoming accustomed to your ways and nothing any longer surprises me. Spare me I beg of you; do not put to too harsh a test the unfortunate habit I have contracted of finding good in all that you do. I was perhaps a little too frank in my last letter in speaking of my character. An old diplomatist a shrewd man of the world has often advised me "Never say any ill of yourself; your dear friends will say quite enough." Do not however take literally my self-depreciation; believe rather that my chief virtue is modesty which I carry to excess and I tremble lest it injure me in your estimation. I may at another time when inspired supply you with an exact catalogue of my qualities; for the list will be long and being to-day slightly indisposed I dare not project myself into this progression of the infinite." You cannot guess where I was on Saturday evening and in what engaged at midnight. I was on the platform of one of the towers of Notre Dame drinking orangeade and eating ices in the society of four friends and a magnificent moon with the accompaniment of a great owl flapping his wings. Paris at this hour and by moonlight is a superb spectacle resembling a city of the "Thousand and One Nights " the inhabitants of which have been enchanted during their sleep; but Parisians usually go to bed at midnight and are most stupid in so doing. Our party was a curious one four nations being represented each of us with a different way of thinking; but the bore of it was that some of us inspired by the moon and the owl thought it necessary to assume a poetic tone. M walter dunne hardcover