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118

LEITERS FROM ABROAD

and clean with its river of limpid water and the sky unpolluted by the belching of smoke. The big towns, like New York and London, are vulgar because of their pretentious hugeness and perpetual bustle. In the streets here, motor cars are few and crowds are leisurely. It is a town that seems to have been created in the atmosphere of vacation. And yet it is not sluggish, or somnolent. Life here flows like its own bright river, humming a song and breaking into merry peals of laughter.

I fervently hope that you will not run away before I reach home, My mind is so full of plans, which it mast discuss with you or else it will burst. The kernel of a plan is for carrying it out, but the most delicious part of it is the pulp, which is merely for discussion, I must have you for this game of agrecing and disagreeing, putting down figures on paper and then flinging them into the waste paper basket.

GENEVA, May 6, 1921.

To-day is my birth-day. But I do not feel it; for in reality, it is a day which is not for me, but for those who love me. And away from you, this day is merely a date in the calendar. I wish I had a little time to myself to-day, but this has not been possible. The day has been crowded with visitors and the talk has been incessant, some part of which hap unfortunately lapsed into politics, giving rise