me?”

REAL CONVERSATIONS.—III.
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN FRANK R. STOCKTON AND EDITH M. THOMAS.

Recorded by Miss Thomas.

Nature provides no lovelier mise-en-scène for a story, a poem or, a “conversation” than is to be found in the sylvan and pastoral world that looks out upon the gradual crescendo of the Blue Ridge mountains in northern New Jersey.

Tall beeches, hickories, chestnuts, and maples, too, rise on all sides to clothe fertile slope or wilder acclivity. Those who have never experimentally proved what riches the landscape-loving eye counts for its own in this portion of the State may still hold to the calumnious tradition that all Jersey is flat and unprofitable to the searcher for the beautiful in pictorial nature. There is no hilltop of this gracious country that does not rise to salute some yet more sightly hill; no sunny hollow or winding dell that does not seem the key to some Happy Valley beyond, where a Rasselas might be content to abide forever; no woodland glade that would not satisfy Leigh Hunt’s description,

MISS EDITH M. THOMAS.

Yet it would hardly be judicious for a poet to live here, lest he should be diverted altogether from thoughts of work, and, like the bees in Florida, lend himself to present enjoyment, without forecast of the morrow.

“Give me health and a day,” says Emerson, “and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.” While we venture no such reduction of royal heads, we are rich in the sense of privilege and of immunity from all the troubled voices of the world, given such a scene, such a fair September morning.

The Holt, the wooded hill on which stands Mr. Stockton’s home, rises on three sides—gently, leisurely; nothing abrupt, but as befits the site for an ideal homestead. Even were no houses made with hands erected in this place, the noble grove, comprising the whole congress of good trees and true, that yield fuel and timber for man’s use, would enclose and tapestry around a sort of spacious woodland chamber for the abode of contemplation and comfort. In truth, close beside the ample piazza, a group of stately pines, joined in brotherly love, securely roof over a little parlor where the gentle shower would scarce admonish a loiterer in a rustic seat.

Down this easy slope the trees descend to make a green, dream-lighted dell, through which we see the winding course of a wood-path, where the pilgrim of a day may saunter. So sauntering, or tarrying, the pilgrim proceeds leisurely along; at last, a little climb and a deft turn of the path deliver us into a sweetly secluded nook christened “Studio Bluff.”

And now to return to the sheltering eaves of the “Holt” and repair to the study. Yonder is the great desk, as full, it may be, of hives and honey as were the pockets of the Bee Man of Orn!

There is the bookcase, containing, among its volumes of reference and service, sundry eccentricities of literature: “Mr. Salmon,” for instance, with his exhaustive “Geographical and Historical Grammar,” sandwiching between its useful rules and tables tidbits of valuable information, including such subjects as “Cleopatra’s Asp;” adding also “a few paradoxes,” otherwise childish riddles, wherewith the simple olden time was wont to amuse itself. Here, on the walls hangs the sampler of one of the ladies Stockton, long since skilled with the “fine needle and nice thread.” Close beside this notable needlework hangs a parchment, the will of one of the forefathers of the house, who held it no “baseness to write fair,” if this scarcely faded engrossing bespeaks the writer’s creed in penmanship. Here, a grim, gaunt candlestick does picket duty all by itself: it is a bayonet taken from the last battlefield of the South—a bayonet inverted, the point thrust into a standard, the stock serving as socket for the candle. In this rapid survey of the room, the lines of old Turberville attract the eye, where they appear inscribed over the mantel:

On the mantel reposes a wickedly crooked dirk, sheathed and quiescent now. It is the weapon that slew the redoubted Po Money, a Dacoit chief, of whom the missionary who consigned it to the present owner naïvely observes, on his card of presentation, “Since he would never repent, it seemed best that he should be out of the world.”

By this window are flowers, a few; by choice a vase for each; for here the individuality of a flower is prized, and the crowded and discomfited loveliness of flowers in the mass is not tolerated. So a day-lily, or an early dahlia, may have its place, by itself, in undisputed queendom. A branch of vari-colored “foliage plant” completes the decorative floral company. But who is this—coming as in dyed garments from Bozrah—that reposes among these pied leaves, beneath their “protective coloring”? A cramped prisoner but a few hours before, in the world, but not of it. The bright creature rests in the sunny window until its wings gain strength to lift and bear it away.

Guest. And so you will give me the fancy of packing the butterfly back into his case?

Host. Yes, I give up all claim upon it. It is yours to have and to hold—only see that the poor fellow isn’t hurt in packing him up.

Guest. That deserves caution. This is the second lucky suggestion that has come in my way to-day. Both are too good to be lost. The muse learns thrift and treasures up all suggestions.

Host. How does your muse ordinarily get her suggestions?

Guest. Oh, in all sorts of ways; from reading, from some one’s mere chance expression; sometimes from the particular insistence of some object in nature to be seen or heard; as though it had been waiting for its historian to come along. Usually, with the object is associated some slight touch of pathos. Dreams, too, offer suggestions. These suggestions, of course, are fantastic. They often have a touch of absurdity which the muse wisely omits, generally taking them for their allegorical face value. I dreamed once of seeing a rich cluster of purple blossoms, heavy with dew. The name, I learned was “honey-trope,” and so I transplanted the flower, root and branch, into a small garden plot of verses. I would think some of your whimsical situations and characters might come in this way.

Host. No, I don’t remember deriving suggestions from actual dreams; but I owe a great many to