By the time she left Iowa, she was a movie fan—or as Harper's magazine described it in 1907, a “cinemaddict."

We live in an opulent blandness—overfed, overtended, overentertained, and overly preoccupied with ourselves. But men need aggressive physical lives. They need contest and conquest, strain and struggle.

Where did you lift your leg up last? 'Gainst what? ... Did Block bescumber Statutes white Suit, wi' the Parchment Lace there? And Broker's satin doublet? All will out.

I stood in despair contemplating my ten outstretched fingers, daubed and draped with embryo drop-cake, and looking for all the world like web-feet.