Hi, Ardith Hinton!
I read your message from 24.07.2018 15:26

 ak>>  This quote was taken from the humorous story "A lecture on
 ak>>  walking" (Last leaves, 1945), written by Stephen Leacock.

 AH>           The thought occurs to me, BTW, that the title "LAST
LEAVES" is
 AH> a pun. This collection was published the year after Leacock's death...
 AH> and in English the word "leaf" can be used to mean a
single page of a
 AH> book.  If I stop there, the pun is recognizable as such.  But I'd also
 AH> like to add that metaphorically we say we're "taking a leaf from
 AH> [So-and-So's] book" when we are doing just as another person would have
 AH> done or we've adopted an idea from them.

Maybe LAST LEAVES was a collection of the last Leacock's stories published
by somebody? Although he could feel that it were his last leaves.

 AH>           By the same token I am reminded of a short story by "O.
 AH> Henry"... AKA William Sidney Porter... published in 1907 &
entitled "The
 AH> Last Leaf".  During later years it was IIRC part of the high school
 AH> English curriculum here in BC, from which I would guess it was known to
 AH> many of Leacock's readers.  The theme is similar in that the hero has
 AH> reached the end of his life... maybe.  I won't go into detail if you
 AH> haven't read the story, but I think you'd enjoy it.  :-)

O. Henri is very well known writer in Russia, and of course I read his
"The Last Leaf". A touching story, indeed.

Bye, Ardith!
Alexander Koryagin
ENGLISH_TUTOR 2018

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