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Milne, A. A. (Alan Alexander), 1882-1956

"If I May"

I should like to hear from the purchaser, and to know
that he is giving my books as kind a home as I gave them, treating
them as reverently, exercising them as gently. He can never be a
mathematician, or anything else, unless he has them on his shelves,
but let him not force his attentions upon them. Left to themselves
they will exert their own influence.

I shall wonder sometimes what he is going to be, this young fellow who
is now reading the books on which I was brought up. Spurred on by the
differential equations, will he decide to be a lawyer, or will the
dynamics of a particle help him to realize his ambition of painting?
Well, whatever he becomes, I wish him luck. And when he sells the
books again, may he get a better price than I did.


A Haunted House

We have been trying to hide it from each other, but the truth must now
come out. Our house is haunted.

Well, of course, anybody's house might be haunted. Anybody might have
a headless ghost walking about the battlements or the bath-room at
midnight, and if it were no more than that, I should not trouble you
with the details.


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