Azalea Adair and I had conversation, a little of which will be repeated
to you. She was a product of the old South, gently nurtured in the
sheltered life. Her learning was not broad, but was deep and of splendid
originality in its somewhat narrow scope. She had been educated at
home, and her knowledge of the world was derived from inference and
by inspiration. Of such is the precious, small group of essayists
made. While she talked to me I kept brushing my fingers, trying,
unconsciously, to rid them guiltily of the absent dust from the
half-calf backs of Lamb, Chaucer, Hazlitt, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne
and Hood. She was exquisite, she was a valuable discovery. Nearly
everybody nowadays knows too much--oh, so much too much--of real life.
I could perceive clearly that Azalea Adair was very poor. A house and a
dress she had, not much else, I fancied. So, divided between my duty to
the magazine and my loyalty to the poets and essayists who fought Thomas
in the valley of the Cumberland, I listened to her voice, which was like
a harpsichord's, and found that I could not speak of contracts. In the
presence of the nine Muses and the three Graces one hesitated to lower
the topic to two cents.
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