A Comedy in Letters
BY
JAMES LANE ALLEN
AUTHOR OF
"THE KENTUCKY CARDINAL,"
"THE KENTUCKY WARBLER," ETC.
There is nothing so ill-bred as audible
laughter.... I am sure that since I have
had the full use of my reason nobody has
ever heard me laugh.
—Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son.
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
To
THE SPIRIT OF COMEDY
INCOMPARABLE ALLY
OF VICTORY
LIST OF CHARACTERS
EDWARD BLACKTHORNE . . . Famous elderly English novelist
BEVERLEY SANDS . . . Rising young American novelist
BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE . . . Practical lawyer, friend of Beverley Sands
GEORGE MARIGOLD . . . Fashionable physician
CLAUDE MULLEN . . . Fashionable nerve-specialist, friend of George Marigold
RUFUS KENT . . . Long-winded president of a club
NOAH CHAMBERLAIN . . . Very learned, very absent-minded professor
PHILLIPS AND FAULDS . . . Florists
BURNS AND BRUCE . . . Florists
JUDD AND JUDD . . . Florists
ANDY PETERS . . . Florist
HODGE . . . Stupid gardener of Edward Blackthorne
TILLY SNOWDEN . . . Dangerous sweetheart of Beverley Sands
POLLY BOLES . . . Dangerous sweetheart of Benjamin Doolittle, friend of Tilly Snowden
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN . . . Very devoted, very proud sensitive daughter of Noah Chamberlain
ANNE RAEBURN . . . Protective secretary of Edward Blackthorne
CONTENTS
EDWARD BLACKTHORNE TO BEVERLEY SANDS
King Alfred's Wood,
Warwickshire, England,
May 1, 1910.
MY DEAR MR. SANDS:
I have just read to the end of your latestnovel and under the outdoor influence of thatKentucky story have sat here at my windowswith my eyes on the English landscape of thefirst of May: on as much of the landscape, atleast, as lies within the grey, ivy-tumbled,rose-besprinkled wall of a companionable oldWarwickshire garden.
You may or you may not know that I, too,am a novelist. The fact, however negligibleotherwise, may help to disarm you of somevery natural hostility at the approach of thisletter from a stranger; for you probably agreewith me that the writing of novels—not, ofcourse, the mere odious manufacture ofnovels—results in the making of friendly, brotherlymen across the barriers of nations, and thatwe may often do as fellow-craftsmen what wecould do less well or not do at all asfellow-creatures.
I shall not loiter at the threshold of thisletter to fatigue your ear with particularsregardin