The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: and myself are to the ordinary weaknesses of mankind; if any further
proof were <198> needed, it is furnished by the fact that we both,
in defiance of tradition, scorn this celebration of birthday rites.
Years ago, when first I knew her, and long before we were either
of us married, I sent her a little brass candlestick on her birthday;
and when mine followed a few months later, she sent me a note-book. No
notes were written in it, and on her next birthday I presented it to her;
she thanked me profusely in the customary manner, and when my turn came
I received the brass candlestick. Since then we alternately enjoy
the possession of each of these articles, and the present question is
comfortably settled once and for all, at a minimum of trouble and expense.
 Elizabeth and her German Garden |