Page:Crawford - Love in idleness.djvu/81

 Augusta. "Nobody says 'I will not,' and all that."

"You ought to. It's dialect not to—and the absurd thing is that people who go in for writing books generally write out all the things you don't say, and write them in the wrong order. We say 'wouldn't you'—don't we? Well, doesn't that stand for 'would not you'? And yet they print 'would you not'—always. It's ridiculous. I read a criticism the other day on a man who had written a book and who wrote 'will not you' for 'won't you' and 'would not you' for 'wouldn't you' because he wanted to be accurate. You've no idea what horrid things the critic said of him—he simply stood on his hind legs and pawed the air! It's so silly! Either we should speak as we write, or write as we speak. I don't mean in philosophy— and things—the steam-engine and the descent of man, and all that—but in writing out conversations. But then, of course, nobody will agree with me—so I talk as I please."

"There's a great deal of truth in what you say, Miss Trehearne," observed Brinsley, assuming a