: The Man Who Lived in a Shoe by Forman Henry James - Fiction

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THE MAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE

BY

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1922

Published September, 1922 Reprinted September, 1922 Reprinted October, 1922

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO MY WIFE

Are there any women today, I wonder, like the girl wife of Jacopone da Todi, who are found in the midst of worldly brilliance wearing the hair shirt of piety and devotion over their spotless hearts?

I doubt it.

It is no wonder that Jacopone, that "smart" thirteenth-century Italian lawyer, became a great saint when he made that discovery, after his beautiful young wife's accidental death. It would make a saint of anybody.

I am quite sure Gertrude is not like that. But then Gertrude is not my wife--as yet. Nor am I Jacopone. I am nothing more, I fear, than a contented voluptuary of a bookworm. Like King James, I feel that were it my fate to be a captive, I should wish to be shut up in a great library consuming my days among my fellow-prisoners, the blessed books.

To distil the reading of a lifetime into a little wisdom for my poor wits, that has been all my aim and my ambition, if by any name so dynamic as ambition I may call it. An old young man is what I have been called, and Gertrude seems propelled by some potent urge to change me--God knows why.

I have just been talking with--I mean listening to--Gertrude.

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