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[[underlined]] To Mother, March 9, 1926: [[/underlined]] Last Sunday, Mr. Dutton preached on "Women in Modern Fiction," reviewing four new books, three by women, which were "The Hounds of Spring," "The Three Kingdoms," and "Jericho Sands," and he said they were all far above the average. He said, "I think it rather significant that although three of these books were written by women, in all of them, it's the men who are the virtuous characters. And I find I should much prefer to know the men than the women in these stories. You know, I've always wondered what becomes of the characters in a book after the thing ends and everyone usually goes off arm in arm, and all the difficulties are settled. In a recent review of my last book, the critic said he wondered which one of the four men finally did marry the girl. I've wondered the same thing myself. That subject of what does happen to the characters always interested me."

[[underlined]] To Mother, March 10, 1926: [[/underlined]] Clarence Darrow was awfully good, a regular character. He is terribly funny and I can imagine him making a regular monkey out of anybody he wished to. Speaking of monkeys, his talk was on evolution, and if anyone wasn't convinced when he finished, it was because, as he said, they didn't want to be convinced. Burns heard a woman in the street afterward, say, "Did he convince me? No, not in a million years I still believe my Bible." But nobody could convince her because she'd made up her mind she wouldn't be convinced. I went to the lecture with Burns and Ferella. Ferella commented that all the speakers he's heard in this country have made a point to keep the audience at least mildly amused, and he thinks "that is good" because it makes it easy for the listeners. In Europe, he says the speakers are very fiery and serious all the time, making it a nervous strain to listen to them very long. Darrow was perfectly killing, a great big man, drawling speech, standing with head hunched down between his shoulder, hands in pockets, white tie and dark-gray suit cut along lines similar to Mr. Jordan's. He started out on this wise: "I'm not an expert on evolution. You know, lawyers aren't supposed to know anything except the law, and most of them don't know much about that. But, of course, that doesn't prevent them from practicing it. There are many, many people who know much more about evolution that I -- many of them in Erie, no doubt -- but I hope they aren't here tonight. The only reason I ever give a speech is because I like to hear a good talk once in a while. I can never be sure of hearing a good talk unless I give it myself -- " and so on. He says all this in a drawly way, never cracking a smile. Once in a while he'd turn and look at the chairman after some such saying. And he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying every word he said, just chuckling to himself all the time, so it seemed. I'll tell you all about him when I get home. With the aid of my notes, I can tell you just about anything that he said.

Transcription Notes:
chnged it to if.