now and then, the dazing effects of trying to confront all the problems of the universe and adapt his architectural endeavors to his interpretation of them; and he knew well the bewildering difficulties of the process of adjusting professional theories to the sterile conditions which workaday practice often presented.  But this crowding of his mental canvas was all in the line of his life purpose.  The days were too short, and sometimes left him perplexed and harassed by their rush; yet he was still pursuing the tenor of his way.  The interest of marriage was not, therefore, in his case a fresh burden on a soul already laden with a variety of side pursuits.  He was neither socially nor philanthropically active; he was not a club man, nor an athletic enthusiast; he was on no committees; he voted on election days, but he did not take an active part in politics.  For Selma’s sake all this must be changed; and he was glad to acknowledge that he owed it to himself as well as to her to widen his sympathies.

As a first step in reform he began to leave his office daily at five instead of six, and, on Saturdays, as soon after two as possible.  For a few months these brands of time snatched from the furnace of his professional ardor were devoted to the shopping relative to house-furnishing.  When that was over, to walking with Selma; sometimes as a sheer round of exercise in company, sometimes to visit a print-shop, exhibition of pictures, book-store, or other attraction of the hour.  But the evening was for him the ideal portion of the day; when, after dinner was done, they made themselves comfortable in the new library, their living room, and it became his privilege to read aloud to her or to compare ideas with her regarding books and pictures and what was going on in the world.  It had been a dream of Littleton’s that some day he would re-read consecutively the British poets, and as soon as the furniture was all in place and the questions of choice of rugs and chairs and pictures had been settled by purchase, he proposed it as a definite occupation whenever they had nothing else in view.  It delighted him that Selma received this suggestion with enthusiasm.  Accordingly, they devoted their spare evenings to the undertaking, reading aloud in turn.  Littleton’s enunciation was clear and intelligent, and as a happy lover he was in a mood to fit poetic thoughts to his own experience, and to utter them ardently.  While he read, Selma knew that she was ever the heroine of his imagination, which was agreeable, and she recognized besides that his performance in itself was aesthetically attractive.  Yet in spite of the personal tribute, Selma preferred the evenings when she herself was the elocutionist.  She enjoyed the sound of her own voice, and she enjoyed the emotions which her utterance of the rhythmic stanzas set coursing through her brain.  It was obvious to her that Wilbur was captivated by her reading, and she delighted in giving herself up to the spirit of the text with the reservations appropriate to an enlightened but virtuous soul.  For instance, in the case of Shelley, she gloried in his soaring, but did not let herself forget that fire-worship was not practical; in the case of Byron, though she yielded her senses to the spell of his passionate imagery, she reflected approvingly that she was a married woman.