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It chanced that they were alone. Lord Camperdown was down in the Midlands for a day's hunting, and Helene had ensured their seclusion from any one who might drop in by a whispered word to the hall porter as they passed into the house. It seemed to her that she had never found Mr. Sabin more entertaining, had never more appreciated his rare gift of effortless and anecdotal conversation.
The conversation at this point became what is sometimes styled general, but was interrupted now and then, as one and another of the men dropped into the anecdotal tone, and thus secured undivided attention for a longer or shorter space according to his powers in story-telling.
One dramatist may steal a horse-laugh by a tawdry vulgarity, while another may not look over an ankle. It is the same with literature. We look askance at "The Kreutzer Sonata," but tolerate the vulgar anecdotal indecencies of the sporting journal. The artist's eye may not see life steadily, and see it whole; but it is licensed to wink and ogle at will from behind its blinker.
'We ought to have sworn the gentlemen to silence. 'M. de St. Ombre is a tomb until he writes his Memoirs. I hold Sir Meeson under lock. But a spiced incident, a notorious couple, an anecdotal witness to the scene, could you expect Mr. Rose Mackrell to contain it? The sacredest of oaths, my dear!
It was impossible for Sharlee to be rude to anybody under her own roof, but it is equally impossible to describe her manner to Mr. Miller as exactly cordial. He himself was a cordial man, mustached and anecdotal, who assumed rather more confidence than he actually felt. Beverley Byrd, who did not always hunt in pairs, had taken an unwonted dislike to him at sight.
There was a layout of anecdotal gifts, from the molar tooth of the South Sea prince set in a South Sea pearl to a blue-enameled snuff-box incrusted with the rearing-lion coat-of-arms of a very royal house. At eighteen came the purchase of a king's Stradivarius for a king's ransom, and acclaimed by Sunday supplements to repose of nights in an ivory cradle.
Finally, all the remaining books relate to that class of anecdotal and didactic literature which spread so wide among Arabic writers through Pahlavi and originating from Indian authors. That our assumption is highly probable is confirmed by the mention among these books of the book of the philosopher and his experiences with the slave girl Kaytar.
He had been made Prince and Duke of Guastalla when that duchy was given to his wife, 30th Marsh 1806. He separated from his wife after a few years. Indeed Pauline was impossible as a wife if half of the stories about her are true. My correspondence relative to what passed in the south of France and of Europe presented to me, if I may so express myself, merely an anecdotal interest.
Think of our poor British dramatist compelled to write for a public that likes anecdotal plays, demands happy-ever-after endings and is easily shocked. Really his position is pitiful.
If you send to an editor an anecdotal history of the British Association only a a few days before the meeting itself, you thereby assume that the editor is depending for his topical articles on chance contributions received at the last moment. Which is patently absurd.
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