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metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

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"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it." Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell,” said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on." The magi, as you know, were wise men wise men

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- who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.1

1 Used with the kind permission of, and by special arrangement with, the publishers, Doubleday, Page and Company.

PART II

IMPRESSIVENESS

CHAPTER V

IMPRESSIVENESS IN SPEECH

Eloquence is in the soul, not in the tongue.

Marmontel: Discourse on Eloquence.

19. Emotion an essential factor in literature

Under the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

THESE lines are meant to give something more than businesslike instructions for burial. In them is a message of good cheer from one who welcomed life and whatever it brought with courage and gladness. Yet the stanza may be read without a hint of its virile heroism and joy. Obviously such reading would be inadequate and superficial. The ideas themselves are impotent and ineffective unless they strike deeper than the mind and stir the spirit with hopefulness and fervor. The letter without the spirit is dead.

Literature, the kind that people enjoy and like to hear read, is a record of the deeds of men and the way they think and feel about life and the world. "In all art," said Stevenson, "it is first of all the author's attitude that is narrated, though in that attitude there is implied a whole experience and theory of life." Now, however clearly we / may think the author's thoughts, we do not get what he has to give until we understand his attitude of mind and have entered into his experiences and made them ours. A man may know by heart the ten commandments, but unless they are working principles of his life and influence his

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