You are always longing for some chance to do original work, to get away from your editing, but you've let the time slip by without really trying to do anything; I don't call those little studies of yours in the magazine anything; and now you won't take the chance that's almost forcing itself upon you.

You could write an original book of the nicest kind; mix up travel and fiction; get some love in." "Oh, that's the stalest kind of thing!" "Well, but you could see it from a perfectly new point of view.

You could look at it as a sort of dispassionate witness, and treat it humorously--of course it is ridiculous--and do something entirely fresh." "It wouldn't work.

It would be carrying water on both shoulders.

The fiction would kill the travel, the travel would kill the fiction; the love and the humor wouldn't mingle any more than oil and vinegar." "Well, and what is better than a salad ?" "But this would be all salad-dressing, and nothing to put it on." She was silent, and he yielded to another fancy.