The Register

Name: The Register
Author: William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

Pages: about 35
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 39 min at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 22 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

Transcribed from “The Sleeping Car and Other Farces” 1911 Houghton Mifflin Company edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
SCENE: In an upper chamber of a boarding-house in Melanchthon Place, Boston, a mature, plain young lady, with every appearance of establishing herself in the room for the first time, moves about, bestowing little touches of decoration here and there, and talking with another young lady, whose voice comes through the open doorway of an inner room.
Miss Ethel Reed, from within: “What in the world are you doing, Nettie?”
Miss Henrietta Spaulding: “Oh, sticking up a household god or two. What are you doing?”
Miss Reed, tragically: “Still! How soon did you expect me to stop? I am here on the sofa, where I flung myself two hours ago, and I don’t think I shall ever get up. There is no reason why I ever should.”
Miss Reed: “But I tell you it is! I ought to know when my own heart is broken, I should hope. What makes you think it isn’t?”
Miss Reed: “But this is a real case. You ought to feel my forehead. It’s as hot!”
Miss Spaulding: “You ought to get up and help me put this room to rights, and then you would feel better.”
Miss Reed: “No; I should feel worse. The idea of household gods makes me sick. Sylvan deities are what I want; the great god Pan among the cat-tails and arrow-heads in the ‘ma’sh’ at Ponkwasset; the dryads of the birch woods—there are no oaks; the nymphs that haunt the heights and hollows of the dear old mountain; the”—
Miss Reed: “That’s because you keep fussing about so. Why don’t you be quiet, if you want to hear?” She lifts her voice to its highest pitch, with a pause for distinctness between the words: “I’m heart-broken for—Ponkwasset. The dryads—of the—birch woods. The nymphs—and the great—god—Pan—in the reeds—by the river. And all—that—sort of—thing!”

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The Register

From the opening

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