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Show DAYS OFF I almost doubted whether to call him back; the silence was so full of comfortable and friendly intercourse. "'Veil," said I, after a while, "you are an incorrigible moralist, but certainly a most unconventional one. The orthodox would never accept your philosophy. They would call you a hedonist, or something equally dreadful." "Let them," he said, placidly. "But tell me": I asked, "you and I have many pleasant and grateful memories, little pictures and stories, which seem like chapters in the history of this doubtful idea of yours: suppose that I should write some of them down, purely in a descriptive and narrative way, without committing myself to any opinion as to their morality; and suppose that a few of your opinions and prejudices, briefly expressed, were interspersed in the form of chapters to be skipped: would a book like that symbolize and illustrate the true inwardness of the day off? How would it do to make such a book?" "It would do," he answered, "provided you wanted to do it, and provided you did not try to 20 DAYS OFF prove anything, or convince anybody, or convey any profitable instruction." "But would any one read it?" I asked. "What do you think ? " "I think," said he, stretching his arms over his head as he rose and turned towards his den to plunge into a long evening's work, "I reckon, and calculate, and fancy, and guess that a few people, a very few, might browse through such a book in their days off." !<1 |