THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 HAWKINS-AMBLER,
 
 DIOGENES OF LONDON
 
 DIOGENES OF LONDON 
 
 AND OTHER FANTASIES 
 AND SKETCHES : BY 
 
 H. B. MARRIOTT-WATSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'THE WEB OF THE SPIDER' 
 ' LADY FAINT HEART/ ETC. 
 
 METHUEN AND CO. 
 
 18 BURY STREET, W.C. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 1893
 
 TO 
 
 WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY 
 
 THESE PAGES FROM THE 
 
 'NATIONAL OBSERVER' 
 
 ARE INSCRIBED IN ALL 
 
 ADMIRATION AND 
 
 AFFECTION
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 DIOGENES OF LONDON, .... I 
 
 THE STROKE OF ONE, . . . . .II 
 
 THE DEVIL OF THE MARSH, . . . .22 
 
 THE MAZE, . . . . . -3 
 
 THE HOUSE OF DISHONOUR, . . . .42 
 
 THE ART OF LOVE, . . . . 5 r 
 
 THE THING IN THE COPSE, . . . -59 
 
 PHYLLIS, . . . . . .66 
 
 THE BRAZEN CROSS, . . . . -76 
 
 THE SWORD OF THE KADI, . . . .86 
 
 DON QUIXOTE, . . . . -94 
 
 THE ADVICE OF ACHATES, . . . . IO4 
 
 DICK A-DYING, . . . . .115 
 
 THE NAIAD, ...... 126 
 
 MY LADY, ...... 138 
 
 THE MERRY COMPANY, . . . .143 
 
 OYEZ ! OYEZ ! ..... 148 
 
 THE DEAD IMMORTALS, . . . . 153
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 TO ANY GREYBEARD, . . . . -159 
 
 THE LOTOS SHORE, . . . . .164 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CARESS, . . .169 
 
 A COLLOQUY ON THE HEARTH, . . .174 
 
 HER PICTURE, . . . . l8o 
 
 THIS BODY OF DEATH, . . . . 1 86 
 
 A PLEA FOR INCONSTANCY, . . . .19! 
 
 THE SHADOW ON THE YEAR, . . . .196 
 
 NE^ERA'S HAIR, . . . . .201 
 
 1 THE VOICE OF STRANGE COMMAND,' . . . 2O6 
 
 CONCERNING A GRIMACE, . . . .211 
 
 OVER THE FIRE, ..... 217 
 ' THE ROSE OF THE MORNING,' . . . 222 
 
 THE FACILITY OF LIFE, .... 227
 
 DIOGENES OF LONDON 
 
 i O,' said he, swinging his heels upon 
 the gate and facing the distance 
 meditatively, * marriage matters 
 nothing. This side of lusty youth 
 love is an affair of arrangement 
 one down, t'other come on. There is no choice 
 practicable between women. Nonage, I grant 
 you, has delectable idols, but the currents of 
 life sweep us clean of "em, and when we are come 
 to discrete and uncomplaining years we submit 
 to the maturer laws of our destiny. Marriage,'' 
 said he sententiously, ' is of the remotest con- 
 sequence.' 
 
 ' I wonder, 1 said I, ' to find one of so nice a 
 judgment as yourself professing this ungracious 
 
 creed. You with your past of elegance ' 
 
 * Tis the past fathers the future, 1 he broke in : 
 ' I am grown sensible because of this very past. 
 Fop I have been, fop I may endure, but wisdom 
 comes to fops no less than to country squires.' 
 
 He gave me a pretty smile as from one upon a 
 superior pedestal ; and somehow he forbade me by 
 A
 
 2 DIOGENES OF LONDON 
 
 it to visit upon him my annoyance that giggling 
 fortune had made him my better. 
 
 ' This, 1 said I, ' is a new complexion on your 
 character, and I cannot conceive you in earnest. 
 Your nimble humours dance in my country eyes. 
 You have ever had the repute of a fastidious 
 affection, and this holiday whim consorts not with 
 your town performances. Put your meaning in 
 plain words and be done. 1 
 
 He shrugged his elegant shoulders, and balanced 
 his cane upon his toe. 
 
 i My country droll, 1 said he, ' it seems my repu- 
 tation sticks in your throat ; it should but prove 
 to you the insignificance of love. These preterite 
 passions would merely argue one of the sex to be 
 as another. Man was the true creation woman 
 but an afterthought : a serviceable afterthought, 
 I make no doubt, 1 he said, nodding ; * and her ser- 
 vice is greatest in this, that being an appanage 
 she is most economically interchangeable. That, 1 
 said he, looking round at me to clinch his argu- 
 ment, 'is the philosophy of the wise, and the 
 earlier you come to it, my rural squire, the better 
 for your comfort. 1 
 
 'Tis the most wonderful philosophy out of 
 your mouth, 1 1 cried. 
 
 He spun a crown in the air. 
 
 ' Heads or tails ! 1 he called ; ' this one or that ! 
 Of what consequence ? Pooh ! 1 he said. 
 
 ' This thing is not true, 1 said I soberly.
 
 DIOGENES OF LONDON 3 
 
 He smiled. ' Of what use were it to repeat 
 the proof ? ' he said. ' You may go take hap- 
 hazard from the women of the world, and each 
 will make you a mate. It is the question of an 
 hour or two, and, for my own part, to make any 
 business of the choice were unneedfully distress- 
 ing. This love is an elegant, fine-sounding trifle ; 
 but 'tis manufactured by the gross, 1 he said ; ' 'tis 
 manufactured by the gross,' and puffed away his 
 smoke most airily. 
 
 4 Now,' said I, smiling, ' I have you clearly. If 
 this be your theory, and you will not be at the 
 trouble of choice, it matters nothing whom you 
 wed.' 
 
 ' Nothing,' said he indifferently. ' For myself, 
 I would engage to marry any of the sex.' 
 
 ' I give you back your pooh,' said I. 
 
 ' I am in the mood to convince you,' he replied, 
 with negligence ; ' we will put it to the test. I 
 will woo the first comer in petticoats.' 
 
 ' You will be no such fool,' I answered. 
 
 Complacently a smile stole up his face. Yon- 
 der ! ' said he, waving his cane. 
 
 Looking down the valley I discerned a speck 
 come crawling up the lane. In a short time it 
 had drawn near enough for reeognition, and pre- 
 sently a halting dame of sixty hobbled by, her 
 nose sniffling the ground. He wavered on his seat. 
 
 ' At her age she should already be a wife,' said 
 he hesitatingly.
 
 4 DIOGENES OF LONDON 
 
 ' Or a widow,' said I, who had some knowledge 
 of her. I put my tongue in my cheek. ' Let us 
 consider her a wife, 1 I said. 
 
 He glanced at me distrustfully, and straight- 
 ened himself with an insensible motion. 
 
 ' But it shall be the next, I vow,' he said with 
 confidence. 
 
 There was no long interval when over the stile 
 before us from the shelving meadows below drew 
 villagewards a youthful figure in a gown of print. 
 
 ' She has a dainty action on the stile,' I observed 
 with a grin. 
 
 He made no answer, but, flinging from the gate, 
 went swaggering across the patch of green into 
 the lane. 
 
 ' Pray, reconsider,' I called to him. ' This is 
 the rashest venture on important issues.' 
 
 'Tis most immaterial,' he answered lightly. 
 He was a man set in the pink of fashion, and 
 employed his limbs with a delicate extravagance. 
 Stepping into the road, he whipped off his hat 
 and bowed as a true exquisite. The girl stared 
 and lingered, as she brushed the burrs from her 
 skirts. I knew her for the village beauty : one 
 spoiled of whims and vanities, but of a rare spirit 
 and possession. 
 
 * Madam,' said he, hat in hand. ' Have you 
 the time of day ? ' 
 
 'The sun is my clock, sir,' she said shortly. 
 ' Gentlefolk have wits as well as we.'
 
 DIOGENES OF LONDON 5 
 
 ' Nay, only in the singular, 1 he answered, ' and 
 certainly neither when you are by. 1 
 
 She flushed, lingering still with the comely 
 gentleman. 
 
 ' In this vale of tears we have an arduous 
 journey, 1 he said. ' It has been my fortune to 
 come so far solitary. May I have your company 
 henceforth ? ' 
 
 ' I am a poor hand at riddles, sir, 1 said she, 
 and whirled away bewildered. 
 
 Following, he caught her at the turning, and 
 faced her with a solemn countenance. 
 
 ' You wrong me, 1 he declared. ' I put no riddle, 
 but a weighty question, to your prettiness. 
 Madam, will you wed me, and prove with me to 
 the world and my obstinate squire that marriage 
 is of the slightest consequence ? 1 
 
 ' You are not sober, sir. Sirs, this is a sorry 
 joke, 1 said she. 
 
 ' My life, it is most serious, 1 he vowed. ' Doubt- 
 less you would have some information as to my 
 degree. "Tis a thought worthy of your provid- 
 ence, an exemplar to my sentimentalist behind. 
 These clothes, madam, are of the newest fashion, 
 of a quality becoming to a man of taste and 
 fortune ; and though I am of ordinary clay, I may 
 yet claim to be of fair accomplishments, of an 
 excellent temper, and of a most amusing acquaint- 
 ance. For my person I say nothing, as 'tis before 
 you at this moment in the correctest of bows, 1
 
 6 DIOGENES OF LONDON 
 
 wherewith he ducked most magnificently to the 
 earth. 
 
 Her gaze recurred to me wonderingly. 
 
 * You are a friend of the squire's ? ' she asked. 
 
 ' On my soul, madam, I am,' said he, waving at 
 me. ' But I protest when we are married you 
 will come to find him a most tedious companion. 
 Even now he gapes at us. 1 
 
 Her bosom heaved, and her eyes ran fire. 
 
 ' I will take your offer, sir, 1 she said. 
 
 He seized her hand. ' Sweetheart,' he cried, 
 ' we will sanctify the bargain,' and at this she 
 thrust two pretty lips at him. 
 
 ' Tis somewhat in the open,' he declared, ' but 
 only my decent blockhead witnesses. What ! 
 must you go ? Well, then, 'tis all sealed and 
 settled, and we shall meet anon.' 
 
 Slipping from his arm, she tripped down the 
 lane with face all flushed and sparkling . eyes, 
 fleeting round the corner precipitantly. 
 
 ' Go thy ways,' he cried, ' thou dainty bit of 
 rusticity. Faith, I have touched less delicate lips 
 and felt a grosser waist.' 
 
 Then he swaggered back to me across the green. 
 ' It is a pretty lass,' I said with a chuckle ; ' you 
 were most fortunate in your selection.' 
 
 He was humming a tune, and stopped suddenly: 
 * I call you to witness,' he said quickly, ' that I 
 took the chances.' 
 
 I puffed at my pipe, astounded to regard this
 
 DIOGENES OF LONDON. 7 
 
 finished piece of impudent humanity. ' This mad- 
 ness,' I said presently, ' is but of a midsummer 
 noon. It ends here, doubtless.' 
 
 ' Gad,' said he, swelling with the humour and 
 pleased with my serious wonder, ' it ends not here, 
 nor elsewhere than in the church. Marriage has 
 been unduly inflated. I have set out to prick 
 the bubble.' And, lighting his pipe, he fell to 
 smoking easily. 
 
 "Twas on the morrow that I took him most 
 gravely to task for his folly ; but by this he was 
 captive to his own fancy, and would hear no 
 remonstrance. 
 
 ' You put me in mind of my duty,' he said, ' I 
 had forgot the proper ceremonies of this love. 
 Faith, I must pay my respects to my sweetheart. 
 She will look for these usual courtesies.' 
 
 When he had returned he reverted to the topic 
 with the keenest amusement, protesting that she 
 was an elegant creature. 
 
 ' 'Fore Gad,' he said, ' she hath a wit as 
 ostentatious as her beauty, and a manner to 
 match.' 
 
 A little later I met him walking with her in 
 the long avenue, and to be sure his judgment had 
 not been at fault. I had noticed her but little 
 in my village wanderings, but it was true she was 
 rarely handsome : misplaced, one would say, 
 among such rural hinds. He gave me a grand 
 recognition and passed on, whispering in her ear ;
 
 8 DIOGENES OF LONDON 
 
 and, turning, I watched him swaggering into the 
 distance. 
 
 That night my lord of the neighbouring castle 
 came down from London a fellow of no preten- 
 sions to philosophy, a rude hot-blood of no par- 
 ticular distinction, but seised of many acres and a 
 bountiful rent-roll. Him the mad coxcomb must 
 fill with tales of his troth and rustic lady-love, both 
 laughing over the wine till my lord grew purple 
 between drinking and chuckling, and swore he 
 must inspect the charmer. And it was evident he 
 had carried out his intention ; for they came back 
 next day from a joint excursion, my lord roaring 
 with merriment, and vowing he was ravished by 
 the beauty. For my own part, I could not but 
 think it indifferent usage of the girl, and reflected 
 that my exquisite had in this departed from his 
 wonted taste. The joke promised at this point to 
 endure too clamantly and become the stock subject 
 of our converse ; but somehow it suddenly ceased, 
 and I heard no more of it. Nevertheless, I 
 missed him constantly from my walks, and saw 
 well enough that something was afoot, though he 
 kept a respectable silence about the girl. Once 
 or twice he dropped hints of her, taking pains to 
 say indifferently that she would grace his table 
 mightily, and take the fickle eye of London most 
 uncommonly. He had by this discarded his jest- 
 ing humour, and I began to think that he had 
 grown uncomfortable (as I had always predicted
 
 DIOGENES OF LONDON 9 
 
 for him) upon the nearer consideration of his 
 absurd behaviour. But, being determined to show 
 him little mercy for his folly, I suffered him to 
 suppose I looked upon his withdrawal as inevit- 
 able, knowing this to be the surest way to keep 
 him to his whimsical purpose. But presently I 
 found his condition to be other than I had im- 
 agined. 
 
 It dawned on me slowly through a variety of 
 observations. First, he was infrequently in my 
 company, deserting the house often at early morn- 
 ing, and making excuses for his irregular appear- 
 ances through the day. Then, too, he began to 
 wear the marks familiar in such cases : to smile 
 at space, to murmur to himself, to wander by the 
 garden brook, to take an affectionate interest in 
 flowers, and to shut himself up in his room with 
 an abundance of quills and paper. Each day, 
 whether fair or foul, he declared to be delightful ; 
 and whereas before he had often spoken of a 
 return to town, he now swore the country only 
 was inhabitable. But most of all was I astonished 
 and tickled by his bearing to my lord, which soon 
 was noticeable. At the outset merely contemptu- 
 ous, he came to use his name with so little re- 
 spect that his own list of vile terms was too meagre 
 for him, and he was fain to borrow from mine. 
 ' A thick-bellied popinjay,' ' a witless moonface, 1 
 ' a damned vessel for a damneder title : "* these are 
 poor instances of his abuse. And, indeed, he was
 
 10 DIOGENES OF LONDON 
 
 openly uncivil in his presence, and snarled on all 
 occasions against hereditary honours and fat 
 pockets. He grew so ill at ease and showed so 
 much distress that I, who upon learning his state 
 had been most sardonic in my demeanour to him, 
 at length forbore in fear of a rupture. And this 
 was the remarkable condition of things when one 
 morning near noon he burst suddenly upon my 
 privacy, his hair unkempt for the first time in my 
 knowledge, his face betraying a most lively and 
 ferocious anxiety. 
 
 ' By God, Squire,' he cried, ' she has gone to 
 church with your dastard of a lord."" 
 
 His fingers twitched, his eyes burned. I took 
 a pinch of snuff. 
 
 ' Marriage, 1 said I, ' my London exquisite, is of 
 the remotest consequence. 1
 
 THE STROKE OF ONE 
 
 O Derracott, sunk in his extreme 
 dejection, time had passed like a 
 bird on the wing, and he was 
 already within eyeshot of his house. 
 But now the passage of those foot- 
 steps in his wake roused in him a certain vague 
 wonder. He realised that they had seemed to 
 pursue him for some time down the solitary 
 streets ; and a little beyond his doorway he 
 halted in the darkness, and turning, awaited 
 curiously the approach of his follower. From his 
 post he saw a figure in the full glory of evening 
 dress pierce the darkness, move sharply into the 
 lamplight, and run briskly up the steps of his 
 own portico. Struck with an amazed alarm, he 
 watched the man insert a pass-key in the lock, 
 and, opening the door, vanish without a sound 
 into the region beyond. The door clicked behind 
 the invader, and Derracott was left staring at the 
 black fanlight. The street-lamp shone upon the 
 desolate area and the vacant wall, but still he 
 stood without a movement on the pavement ; 
 
 11
 
 12 THE STROKE OF ONE 
 
 until at length his startled heart stirred slowly, 
 and the blood flowed down the arteries once more. 
 With a quick breath of alarm he took a step 
 towards the portico, stopped suddenly, and gazed 
 up at the blind windows of the upper stories. 
 Then with a palsied hand he drew a cigarette 
 from his pocket, stuck it between his lips unlit, 
 and, crossing the way, put his elbow on the rails 
 of the square, and fell into the most tragic 
 reflections. 
 
 This then was to be his welcome from a jour- 
 ney so dismal, and in a mood so desperate. Had 
 he come upon the morrow, as he had anticipated, 
 this house had been smiling for him, his wife 
 bright with a false radiance, and all the consola- 
 tions of home eloquent of hope and comfort. 
 Sick at heart from his fruitless mission, he would 
 have entered upon this rest at the invitation of a 
 score of specious pleasures. But as it was, the 
 miscalculation of one day had sufficed to rob him 
 of this decent refuge ; and plunged upon debt 
 embittered with failure, there was now no longer, 
 as it seemed, love to forgive him, neither faith nor 
 courage to inspire and strengthen. And yet of 
 her at least he had been certain, though his 
 world else was rumbling in his ears. His gaze 
 besieged the house as though to tear the walls 
 asunder and peer into its shameful secrets. His 
 blood ran now at a charge, and his fingers qui- 
 vered upon his cigarette. He cast it from him,
 
 THE STROKE OF ONE 13 
 
 and walking precipitately across the road marched 
 up the steps with a thumping heart. As he closed 
 the door the dark silence of the hall dropped 
 like a cloak upon him, and insensibly subdued 
 his actions. His feet made no sound upon the 
 heavy carpet : in his own house he stole with the 
 air and cunning of a thief. Some faculty of 
 restraint had come to his trembling summons, 
 and his breath issued sedately, his pulse fluttered 
 in measured beats, his eyes and ears waited 
 in the silence and the darkness. At the top of 
 the first flight he stopped a moment before his 
 wife's drawing-room, rapped gently with his 
 knuckles, and opened the door slowly. 
 
 The room glowed in a soft red light, which 
 illuminated also two stricken faces in the back- 
 ground. The man had risen to his feet and 
 clutched the back of a high chair, his eyes set 
 hard upon the incomer. But it was upon the 
 woman that Derracotfs glance fell first. She kept 
 her seat, crouched in the hollow of a large arm- 
 chair, her face rigid to her lips, her chin twitching 
 to her short breaths, her eyes wild and staring. 
 Mortal terror never sat upon features so spectral ; 
 meaningless noises issued from her mouth. 
 Derracott, his cheeks blanched, his muscles strung 
 as upon wires, stepped into the room, and upon 
 this company. 
 
 ' I have surprised you, my dear, 1 he said quietly. 
 * Ah, Harland ! ' and he nodded to the man.
 
 14 THE STROKE OF ONE 
 
 The woman gave him no answer, but Harland 
 lifted his hand from the chair, sank into a seat, 
 and laughed with uneasy harshness. 
 
 ' Yes, 1 he returned, ' I 'm afraid Mrs. Derracott 
 
 is startled. She I'd no notion you were 
 
 away, and looked in a few minutes ago to see if 
 you 'd give me a game.' 
 
 'I saved a day and so I'm here,' explained 
 Derracott. He stood before the fire and warmed 
 his hands, his white face stooped to the blaze. 
 Strange little sounds drummed in his head, but 
 his fingers spread from his palms without a 
 shiver. The woman recovered herself with a 
 short indrawn gasp, rose and moved uncertainly 
 towards him. 
 
 * Why, Teddy,' said she tremulously, 'you have 
 given me a a start. But you've got your coat 
 on ' and she laid a hand upon his shoulder. 
 
 He turned about, but his eye avoided her. 
 
 ' Ah,' said he, ' I was going to ask you whether 
 you would allow me to disrobe in your boudoir.' 
 
 She laughed hysterically. 
 
 'Teddy ! of course !' she cried, and fetched up 
 in a spasm of silence. 
 
 He pulled off his overcoat deliberately, and 
 turned again to the fire without a glance at his 
 companions. He had to them the look of pre- 
 occupation, and indeed he was at the moment 
 abstracted from all definite thought. The sudden 
 rush of this spectacle, albeit in his fears, had
 
 THE STROKE OF ONE 15 
 
 choked the channels of his mind, and he fell back 
 tremblingly upon the obvious. He had the vague 
 desire to stand from this horrible crisis and wait 
 upon his drowsy will. His nerves strained and 
 tightened ; his whole body swelled with tension. 
 The silence struck a fear into the others, and 
 presently drove the man to speech. 
 
 ' You 're not very lively, old fellow.' he said with 
 elaborate cheerfulness. ' Had a bad journey ?* 
 
 Derracott turned at last ; his brain was moving. 
 
 ' No, 1 he replied after a pause, and with painful 
 deliberation. ' Pretty fair, but I am somewhat 
 tired. I had a long day yesterday.' 
 
 ' Poor Teddy ! ' said his wife caressingly, and 
 put out a frightened hand to him. 
 
 For the first time since that exchange of 
 glances upon his entrance Derracott's eyes rested 
 momentarily upon her face. An obscure and 
 furtive terror lingered there, and, as his gaze 
 dwelt steadily upon her, flashed swiftly into open 
 panic. Her head drooped slightly forward, 
 poised over against him as a bird before a ser- 
 pent ; his glance passed on, and touched the man. 
 Harland was fingering his moustache ; he pulled 
 out his watch. ' By Jove ! ' he exclaimed, * I'd 
 no notion it was so late. Mrs. Derracott, you 
 must forgive me. Well, old chap,' and he made 
 as though to rise, ' you're too tired, I suppose, 
 for this game, so I'll be off; I won't keep you 
 up.'
 
 16 THE STROKE OF ONE 
 
 Derracotfs muscles softened ; his body breathed 
 with warm life again. 
 
 ' Not yet,' he said. ' I '11 give you a game 
 before you go. Only my wife had better go to 
 bed. Come, Lucy ; it's beyond your hour.' 
 
 The woman, straightening herself in her chair, 
 regarded them both with frantic eyes; terror 
 had sat upon her visage since last her husband 
 had looked upon her. She rose with difficulty 
 and opened her mouth. Some cry hung unut- 
 tered on that tongue ; some prayer was contained 
 inarticulate behind those scarlet trembling lips. 
 She moved mechanically to Harland with an out- 
 stretched hand, stopped, sighed deeply, and left 
 the room without a word. Harland from the 
 edge of his seat watched his host with doubt ; 
 but the grey face of the latter, and his veiled 
 eyes spoke of nothing but great weariness. 
 
 * We will drink first," he said. 
 
 He filled two glasses from the decanter upon 
 the table. Harland's hand shook at his lips, but 
 he drained the glass and laughed. 
 
 ' Now for this game, my boy,' he said cheer- 
 fully. 
 
 Derracott, whose fingers were playing with his 
 brimming wine-glass, made no response, and 
 Harland examined him anxiously. 
 
 4 You 're very much down, old chap,' he said, 
 after a space of silence ; then he hesitated and 
 his eyes suddenly lightened. ' It's not money
 
 THE STROKE OF ONE 17 
 
 Derracott looked up so sharply that he winced 
 from the glance. 
 
 * Yes,' he answered slowly. ' I'm heavily 
 dipped.' 
 
 ' My dear chap ! ' cried Harland as with an 
 eager sympathy ; and then feeling shyly for his 
 words ; ' look here, Derracott,' said he, ' why not 
 let me give you a leg over ? Is it much ? ' 
 
 ' I don't mind your knowing," 1 said Derracott, 
 softly ; ' I owe you close on five thousand, and 
 there 's some twenty thousand elsewhere.' 
 
 ' Derracott,' sa -id Harland, leaning towards his 
 companion with insinuation, ' cross out that five, 
 and Til stand in for the twenty.' 
 
 The ashes of the fire collapsed in the silence 
 that ensued ; Derracott's face never moved ; he 
 turned the shank of the glass between his fingers. 
 
 ' That's a generous offer,' he said. 
 
 ' Generous be damned,' returned Harland, 
 gaily. ' It 's nothing to me, and we 're old pals 
 and ' 
 
 ' Twenty-five thousand, as the market goes, is, 
 I suppose, a generous price for honour,' broke in 
 Derracott with an air of meditation. 
 
 The vestiges of colour ran from Harland's 
 cheeks ; their eyes encountered across the table ; 
 no words passed, but in that mute question and 
 its vacant answer, as it were, the position of the 
 combatants was acknowledged and defined. With 
 a thin breath, almost of relief, Harland waited
 
 18 THE STROKE OF ONE 
 
 for the other whose eyes were still upon him. 
 Derracott squared his elbows on the table. 
 
 1 Yes,' said he, ' and now for this game. 1 Be- 
 neath the calm surface of his manner Derracott 
 was at the white heat of fury. Every emotion 
 in his nature had gone into the crucible of that 
 raging fire. Did his thought flicker upon that 
 wife he had loved so earnestly, the passion that 
 possessed him leapt in flame from his heart ; 
 were his embarrassments flashed instantly before 
 him, his fury mounted in crimson tongues. Pent 
 by his fierce jealousy, his mind converging full 
 upon this sudden horror, he sat with quiet eyes 
 and face of stone, stalking ever nearer to his 
 fluttered quarry. 
 
 ' You will smoke ? 1 he asked at length. Har- 
 land shook his head, and Derracott lit a cigarette 
 and blew the smoke thoughtfully through his 
 nostrils. 
 
 ' I think, 1 he resumed presently, ' that I ought 
 to make my own rules in this game. 1 His voice 
 rang with a note of unconcern, even of pleasantry. 
 Harland threw up his hands. 
 
 'I have nothing to say, 1 said he. Derracott 
 rose softly, took some note-paper from a writing- 
 table, and scribbled for some seconds upon it. 
 Then he took the cigarette from his lips and 
 handed the paper across the table. What Har- 
 land read was as follows : 
 
 ' /, Edward Derracott, being in the full posses-
 
 THE STROKE OF ONE 19 
 
 sion of my senses, have decided to put an end to 
 my life. It has become too much to bear. My 
 debts have involved me too deeply, and I am tired 
 of the struggle. I have no strength to go on. 
 May God help my wife ! Forgive me, Lucy : I 
 have tried, but there seems no way out but this. 
 Let others take warning by my Jute. The turf is 
 accursed. God help me? 
 
 Harland inquired of the writer with his eyes, 
 and the latter jerked his cigarette at the ink. 
 
 ' Let it have verisimilitude,'' he said, ' accord- 
 ing to your circumstances."" 
 
 Harland's jaw dropped suddenly ; he shrugged 
 his shoulders and took up the pen. When he 
 had finished he passed the paper to Derracott, 
 who nodded and rose. 
 
 ' Put it in your pocket,' said he. ' At this hour 
 the gardens will serve our purpose. 1 
 
 He drew a brace of pistols from a drawer, and 
 motioning to his companion descended the stairs. 
 The chill October moon shone frostily upon the 
 crisp grass of the square as the two made their 
 way in silence to a central bower of evergreens, 
 the pleasant haunt of children at their hide- 
 and-seek throughout the afternoons. 
 
 ' I think,' said Derracott, in his suave passion- 
 less voice, 'that here is the proper theatre for 
 our little comedy.' He handed a pistol to his 
 adversary. 'Twenty-five thousand!' he murmured. 
 ' There is no need of superfluous witnesses. We
 
 20 THE STROKE OF ONE 
 
 two can play our own hands. Twenty-five thou- 
 sand was a generous offer.' 
 
 His hand, with its weapon close-grasped hung 
 at his side. 
 
 ' If you are resolved to end this thing in this 
 way," 1 said Harland hoarsely, ' there's no help for 
 it. What are you going to do ? ' 
 
 ' According to my idea of the game,' said Der- 
 racott softly, ' we should have the option of firing 
 at twelve paces or approaching at the signal. You 
 may have observed it was on the stroke of one 
 when we left. Perhaps you will be good enough 
 to take the church bell as a word of command.' 
 
 Harland made no answer, but took his station 
 in the open ; Derracott put his back against a 
 leafless ash and waited. The moon struck full 
 upon his face ; his eyes moved restlessly ; his lips 
 whispered inaudibly. The faint sound of a 
 remote clock rose from a distance and vibrated 
 on the stillness. Harland steadied his arm before 
 him, but Derracott stirred not. A moment inter- 
 vened of dreadful silence to Harland a space of 
 hours ; and then a heavy bell boomed from the 
 clock tower of the church. A pistol cracked, and 
 a withered brancli snapped on the ash by Derra- 
 cott's head. He himself laughed gently and 
 marched slowly forward to the spot where stood 
 Harland waiting for his death. Smilingly he 
 regarded his victim. 
 
 * Twenty-five thousand pounds ! ' said he. ' It
 
 THE STROKE OF ONE 21 
 
 was a notable bid. But I think my solution was 
 the better. My good sir,' he said, ' the exigen- 
 cies of this game demand that I should be free of 
 all coroner's courts ; and my hand trembles. Sup- 
 pose I offer you the work yourself? You would 
 be more expeditious, I feel sure. Let us live up 
 to our papers/ 
 
 He held out the pistol; Harland, his face 
 sickly white, made a gesture of impatience, and 
 took it by the butt. For a second he looked into 
 Derracott's eyes. Each had a confession of 
 suicide in his pocket, and it needed but an instan- 
 taneous turn of the wrist, and this smiling devil 
 had exchanged fates with him. Harland wavered 
 for a breath of time ; and then, clapping the 
 barrel to his heart, pulled the trigger. 
 
 The body sank in a heap at Derracotfs feet. 
 He watched it huddle limply among the damp 
 and yellow leaves ; noted its open eyes and its 
 pallid moonlit face. A stain of blood rested on 
 the lips. He bent over the dead man : his pulse 
 throbbed riotously. 
 
 ' Twenty-five thousand, 1 he muttered in a thin 
 dry whisper, 'a generous offer for my honour. 1 
 He laughed. ' He might have told me before he 
 went how much he gave for hers.' 
 
 He ceased, stared at the stiffening face with a 
 gasp, drew himself up gradually, and then with a 
 short cry of horror flung himself upon the muddy 
 turf, his mouth gaping at the dead.
 
 THE DEVIL OF THE MARSH 
 
 iT was nigh upon dusk when I drew 
 close to the Great Marsh, and 
 already the white vapours were 
 about, riding across the sunken 
 levels like ghosts in a churchyard. 
 Though I had set forth in a mood of wild 
 delight, I had sobered in the lonely ride across 
 the moor and was now uneasily alert. As 
 my horse jerked down the grassy slope that 
 fell away to the jaws of the swamp I could 
 see thin streams of mist rise slowly, hover like 
 wraiths above the long rushes, and then, turning 
 gradually more material, go blowing heavily away 
 across the flat. The appearance of the place at this 
 desolate hour, so remote from human society and 
 so darkly significant of evil presences, struck me 
 with a certain wonder that she should have 
 chosen this spot for our meeting. She was a 
 familiar of the moors, where I had invariably 
 encountered her; but it was like her arrogant 
 caprice to test my devotion by some such dreary 
 assignation. The wide and horrid prospect
 
 THE DEVIL OF THE MARSH 23 
 
 depressed me beyond reason, but the fact of her 
 neighbourhood drew me on, and my spirits 
 mounted at the thought that at last she was to 
 put me in possession of herself. Tethering my 
 horse upon the verge of the swamp, I soon dis- 
 covered the path that crossed it, and entering 
 struck out boldly for the heart. The track could 
 have been little used, for the reeds, which stood 
 high above the level of my eyes upon either side, 
 straggled everywhere across in low arches, through 
 which I dodged, and broke my way with some in- 
 convenience and much impatience. A full half- 
 hour I was solitary in that wilderness, and when at 
 last a sound other than my own footsteps broke 
 the silence the dusk had fallen. 
 
 I was moving very slowly at the time, with a 
 mind half disposed to turn from the melancholy 
 expedition, which it seemed to me now must 
 surely be a cruel jest she had played upon me. 
 While some such reluctance held me, I was sud- 
 denly arrested by a hoarse croaking which broke 
 out upon my left, sounding somewhere from the 
 reeds in the black mire. A little further it came 
 again from close at hand, and when I had passed 
 on a few more steps in wonder and perplexity I 
 heard it for the third time. I stopped and 
 listened, but the marsh was as a grave, and so 
 taking the noise for the signal of some raucous 
 frog, I resumed my way. But in a little the croak- 
 ing was repeated, and coming quickly to a stand
 
 24 THE DEVIL OF THE MARSH 
 
 I pushed the reeds aside and peered into the dark- 
 ness. I could see nothing, but at the immediate 
 moment of my pause I thought I detected the 
 sound of some body trailing through the rushes. 
 My distaste for the adventure grew with this 
 suspicion, and had it not been for my delirious 
 infatuation I had assuredly turned back and 
 ridden home. The ghastly sound pursued me at 
 intervals along the track, until at last, irritated 
 beyond endurence by the sense of this persistent 
 and invisible company, I broke into a sort of run. 
 This, it seemed, the creature (whatever it was) 
 could not achieve, for I heard no more of it, and 
 continued my way in peace. My patli at length ran 
 out from among the reeds upon the smooth flat 
 of which she had spoken, and here my heart quick- 
 ened, and the gloom of the dreadful place lifted. 
 The flat lay in the very centre of the marsh, and 
 here and there in it a gaunt bush or withered tree 
 rose like a spectre against the white mists. At 
 the further end I fancied some kind of building 
 loomed up ; but the fog which had been gather- 
 ing ever since my entrance upon the passage sailed 
 down upon me at that moment and the prospect 
 went out with suddenness. As I stood waiting for 
 the cloud to pass, a voice cried to me out of its 
 centre, and I saw her next second with bands of 
 mist swirling about her body, come rushing to me 
 from the darkness. She put her long arms about 
 me, and, drawing her close, I looked into her
 
 THE DEVIL OF THE MARSH 25 
 
 deep eyes. Far down in them, it seemed to me, 
 I could discern a mystic laughter dancing in the 
 wells of light, and I had that ecstatic sense of 
 nearness to some spirit of fire which was wont to 
 possess me at her contact. 
 
 ' At last," 1 she said, ' at last, my beloved ! ' I 
 caressed her. 
 
 * Why,' said I, tingling at the nerves, ' why 
 have you put this dolorous journey between us ? 
 And what mad freak is your presence in this 
 swamp ? ' She uttered her silver laugh, and 
 nestled to me again. 
 
 ' I am the creature of this place, 1 she answered. 
 'This is my home. I had sworn you should 
 behold me in my native sin ere you ravished me 
 away/ 
 
 4 Come, then," said I ; ' I have seen ; let there 
 be an end of this. I know you, what you are. 
 This marsh chokes up my heart. God forbid you 
 should spend more of your days here. Come.' 
 
 ' You are in haste,' she cried. ' There is yet 
 much to learn. Look, my friend,' she said, ' you 
 who know me, what I am. This is my prison, 
 and I have inherited its properties. Have you 
 no fear ? ' 
 
 For answer I pulled her to me, and her warm 
 lips drove out the horrid humours of the night ; 
 but the swift passage of a flickering mockery over 
 her eyes struck me back as a flash of lightning, 
 and I grew chill again.
 
 26 THE DEVIL OF THE MARSH 
 
 ' I have the marsh in my blood,' she whispered ; 
 ' the marsh and the fog of it. Think ere you 
 vow to me, for I am the cloud in a starry night/ 
 
 A lithe and lovely creature, palpable of warm 
 flesh, she lifted her magic face to mine and be- 
 sought me plaintively with these words. The 
 dews of the nightfall hung on her lashes, and seemed 
 to plead with me for her forlorn and solitary plight. 
 
 ' Behold P I cried, ' witch or devil of the marsh, 
 you shall come with me ! I have known you on the 
 moors, a roving apparition of beauty ; nothing 
 more I know, nothing more I ask. I care not 
 what this dismal haunt means; nor what these 
 strange and mystic eyes. You have powers and 
 senses above me ; your sphere and habits are as 
 mysterious and incomprehensible as your beauty. 
 But that,"* I said, ' is mine, and the world that is 
 mine shall be yours also. 1 
 
 She moved her head nearer to me with an 
 antic gesture, and her gleaming eyes glanced up 
 at me with a sudden flash, the similitude (great 
 heavens !) of a hooded snake. Starting, I fell 
 away, but at that moment she turned her face 
 and set it fast towards the fog that came rolling 
 in thick volumes over the flat. Noiselessly the 
 great cloud crept down upon us, and all dazed 
 and troubled I watched her watching it in silence. 
 It was as if she awaited some omen of horror, and 
 I too trembled in the fear of its coming. 
 
 Then suddenly out of the night issued the
 
 THE DEVIL OF THE MARSH 27 
 
 hoarse and hideous croaking I had heard upon 
 my passage. I reached out my arm to take her 
 hand, but in an instant the mists broke over us, 
 and I was groping in the vacancy. Something like 
 panic took hold of me, and, beating through the 
 blind obscurity, I rushed over the flat calling 
 upon her. In a little the swirl went by, and I 
 perceived her upon the margin of the swamp, her 
 arm raised as in imperious command. I ran to 
 her, but stopped, amazed and shaken by a fearful 
 sight. Low by the dripping reeds crouched a 
 small squat thing, in the likeness of a monstrous 
 frog, coughing and choking in its throat. As I 
 stared, the creature rose upon its legs and dis- 
 closed a horrid human resemblance. Its face was 
 white and thin, with long black hair ; its body 
 gnarled and twisted as with the ague of a thousand 
 years. Shaking, it whined in a breathless voice, 
 pointing a skeleton finger at the woman by my 
 side. 
 
 ' Your eyes were my guide,' it quavered. ' Do 
 you think that after all these years I have no 
 knowledge of your eyes ? Lo, is there aught of 
 evil in you I am not instructed in ? This is the 
 Hell you designed for me, and now you would 
 leave me to a greater.' 
 
 The wretch paused, and panting leaned upon a 
 bush, while she stood silent, mocking him with 
 with her eyes, and soothing my terror with her 
 soft touch.
 
 28 THE DEVIL OF THE MARSH 
 
 ' Hear ! ' he cried, turning to me, ' hear the tale 
 of this woman that you may know her as she is. 
 She is the Presence of the marshes. Woman or 
 Devil I know not, but only that the accursed 
 marsh has crept into her soul and she herself is 
 become its Evil Spirit ; she herself, that lives and 
 grows young and beautiful by it, has its full power 
 to blight and chill and slay. I, who was once as you 
 are, have this knowledge. What bones lie deep 
 in this black swamp who can say but she ? She 
 has drained of health, she has drained of mind and 
 of soul ; what is between her and her desire that 
 she should not drain also of life ? She has made 
 me a devil in her Hell, and now she would leave 
 me to my solitary pain, and go search for another 
 victim. But she shall not ! ' he screamed through 
 his chattering teeth ; ' she shall not ! My Hell is 
 also hers ! She shall not ! ' 
 
 Her smiling untroubled eyes left his face and 
 turned to me ; she put out her arms, swaying 
 towards me, and so fervid and so great a light 
 glowed in her face that, as one distraught of 
 superhuman means, I took her into my embrace. 
 And then the madness seized me. 
 
 4 Woman or devil, 1 I said, ' I will go with you ! 
 Of what account this pitiful past? Blight me 
 even as that wretch, so be only you are with me. 1 
 
 She laughed, and, disengaging herself, leaned, 
 half-clinging to me, towards the coughing creature 
 by the mire.
 
 THE DEVIL OF THE MARSH. 29 
 
 ' Come,' 1 I cried, catching her by the waist. 
 Come! ' She laughed again a silver-ringing laugh. 
 She moved with me slowlv across the flat to where 
 
 
 
 the track started for the portals of the marsh. 
 She laughed and clung to me. 
 
 But at the edge of the track I was startled by 
 a shrill, hoarse screaming ; and behold, from my 
 very feet, that loathsome creature rose up and 
 wound his long black arms about her, shrieking 
 and crying in his pain. Stooping I pushed him 
 from her skirts, and with one sweep of my arm 
 drew her across the pathway; as her face passed 
 mine her eyes were wide and smiling. Then of a 
 sudden the still mist enveloped us once more; but 
 ere it descended I had a glimpse of that contorted 
 figure trembling on the margin, the white face 
 drawn and full of desolate pain. At the sight 
 an icy shiver ran through me. And then 
 through the yellow gloom the shadow of her 
 darted past me to the further side. I heard 
 the hoarse cough, the dim noise of a struggle, a 
 swishing sound, a thin cry, and then the sucking of 
 the slime over something in the rushes. I leapt for- 
 ward; and once again the fog thinned, and I beheld 
 her, woman or devil, standing upon the verge, and 
 peering with smiling eyes into the foul and sickly 
 bog. With a sharp cry wrung from my nerveless 
 soul, I turned and fled down the narrow way from 
 that accursed spot; and as I ran the thickening fog 
 closed round me, and I heard far off and lessening 
 still the silver sound of her mocking laughter.
 
 THE MAZE 
 
 |E waited till she had passed between 
 the narrow walls of the maze, and 
 then turned to each other. 
 
 'We will start on fair terms,'' 
 aid I. 
 
 ' Assuredly,' he answered gaily ; ' but I am 
 damnably lame of one foot. Well, if it may not 
 be thus 1 and he tapped his sword with an 
 irritating smile of bravado ' any way will serve.' 
 1 You pay a poor compliment to her decision,' 
 I replied with a sneer. ' You may resolve your- 
 self that she has already made her choice.' 
 ' So I understand,' said he with a grin. 
 
 * Your leg' said I: 'she has the eyes of a hawk/ 
 ' And your wits ' said he : ' she has fathomed 
 
 them at the outset.' 
 
 * If you would be insolent, sir ' I cried. 
 
 ' Gad ! ' he interrupted me, ' you 've a pretty 
 temper, and a most uncommon desire of her. 
 'Tis true, I've an elegant passion myself; but 
 faith, would you spit yourself in your folly ? ' and 
 he half-drew his weapon from the scabbard. 
 
 30
 
 THE MAZE 31 
 
 ' This quarrel will keep, 1 I replied angrily, ' un- 
 less you would reduce me to your own halting 
 gait ere we set forth. 1 
 
 ''Sdeath, 1 said he, purpling, 'you London 
 popinjay, I'll have you to know, my visitation is 
 for my own jests only.' 
 
 ' I think,"* said I coolly, * that this were better 
 at the back-end of our adventure. Let us patch 
 a bargain, my fire-eater. 1 
 
 ' It is well said, 1 he answered quickly : ' on the 
 sign we start ' 
 
 ' And separate, 1 said I. 
 
 ' Faith, if you take one road, I '11 another ; and 
 that 's flat. I 've no fancy for your company. 1 
 
 ' Excellent ! " I replied ; ' and he that shall arrive 
 first at the central arbour 1 
 
 ' Shall ravish a kiss of her, by my body, 1 quoth 
 he. 
 
 ' And, 1 I added, * be taken for her lover. 1 
 
 A voice broke softly on our talk, and wheeling 
 we saw a kerchief tossing in the air. 
 
 ' That is our signal, 1 said I. 
 
 But he was already gone, and in a twinkling I 
 was after him. I caught him at the first turning 
 in the maze, whence two tracks started abruptly 
 in opposite directions. Without a pause he 
 whisked into the left. ' Her skirts, 1 thought I, 
 'flashed round this corner as she went, 1 and 
 chuckling made off by the right. The privet 
 hedges rose high, so that he disappeared from my
 
 32 THE MAZE 
 
 view immediately ; but, keeping the central ash 
 in my eye, I ran on. The maze twisted marvel- 
 lously, ran in astounding little circuits, and dodged 
 hither and thither in an utterly preposterous 
 fashion. I had no judgment by which to go, 
 save my own vague discretion ; and though at 
 first I took my resolutions on the run, and with 
 the easy confidence of novelty, soon finding my- 
 self no nearer to the arbour, but somewhat hot 
 and breathless with my speed I began to choose 
 more leisurely, and with an air of observation. 
 Where each way branched I paused and meditated; 
 reckoned up the chances ; cast a few calculations 
 in my mind ; and drew what inference seemed 
 likeliest. In the distance I could hear my rival 
 tramping along, but it was not until I had been 
 some ten minutes at my task that he came into 
 my neighbourhood. He was separated from me 
 by several fences, but, to my chagrin, was upon 
 the inner side and evidently nearer to our common 
 goal. I had regained some breath, and, happen- 
 ing at the moment upon what struck me as an 
 admirable clew, I was spurred, at once by his 
 seeming good fortune and my new hopes, into a 
 quicker pace. Presently, rounding an arm of the 
 hedge, I plumped into a stranger whose presence 
 in the place I had not looked for. He was an 
 old man, with large infantine eyes and a beard of 
 venerable white, and he was ambling along with 
 a paltry, nervous gait, resembling that of a
 
 THE MAZE 33 
 
 perturbed child. So much embarrassed was I at 
 the delay of this accident that I had forgot my 
 manners, and with an expression of impatience 
 was making off, when he clutched me by the coat. 
 
 * I pray you,' said lie in a piping voice, * I pray 
 you, kindly direct me to the issues of this lament- 
 able prison. 1 
 
 ' At your age," said I, ' you should know better 
 than to be at this ridiculous game ;' and, thrust- 
 ing him aside, I pushed on at a hot speed. 
 
 But I had no better luck from my latest 
 inspiration, and was becoming annoyed by the 
 persistent rebuffs of fortune. Indeed, I seemed 
 ever to be choosing the particular path which 
 ended in a great blank wall of privet ; and the 
 greater part of my time was expended in with- 
 drawing from the absurd predicaments I had 
 created for myself. Of my rival I had now no 
 news, but was assured that his incompetence was 
 equal to mine by the mere fact of his silence ; 
 for though I had no doubts that he would be 
 swearing loudly enough were he within hearing, 
 it was as certain that he would inform me of his 
 success by some braggart noise, did he penetrate 
 into the interior before me. While losing heart 
 after this fashion, it was my luck to fall across 
 the belated ancient once more. He was biting 
 his finger-nails reflectively, and wore a very dis- 
 tressful appearance. On hearing my approach he 
 whipped round and brightened visibly.
 
 34 THE MAZE. 
 
 ' Sir, 1 said he, with a manner of pleading 
 diffidence that sat ill on his years, * I perceive you 
 to be well acquainted with this delightful puzzle. 
 In my young days I had the same knowledge and 
 took the same delight. But I have grown staider 
 and (God help me !) somewhat stiff of joint. My 
 wit misguides me ; and having the misfortune to 
 have wandered in here after a meritorious butter- 
 fly, I should be deeply honoured by your conde- 
 scension in putting me upon my way to the exit. 1 
 
 He spoke very formally, and with an urbanity 
 that would have been pitiful had I been less 
 moved by my own troubles. It was plain he was 
 exceedingly anxious to be gone. 
 
 ' Let us strike a bargain," said I. ' You have 
 come from within ; I am from without. You 
 shall direct me to the arbour, and I in return will 
 send you to the gates of this infernal place.' 
 
 ' With pleasure, 1 said he eagerly. * If you will 
 bear henceforth to the right you will come shortly 
 to the centre. 1 
 
 I had not the remotest desire to mislead him, 
 but he might certainly as well pursue my random 
 directions as his own ; and I could do no less than 
 make him some return for his information : so I 
 answered promptly enough. 
 
 ' And you, 1 said I, ' if you will keep to the left, 
 will come out upon the lawn. 1 
 
 I was itching to be off on the new experiment, 
 and, ere he could thank me, was gone. I had
 
 THE MAZE 35 
 
 proceeded but a little further, when by some sorry 
 trick of Fate's I stumbled on my fellow drawn up 
 in an opening of the privet, and looking hot and 
 discomfited. I had no mind that he should stick 
 at my heels ; and so, lest he should observe the 
 triumph in my eyes, I stopped, and dissembled 
 my features into a proper grimace of despair. 
 
 'You have been no nearer than this?' I 
 asked. He mopped himself and ejaculated an 
 oath. 
 
 *The thing has no end, neither beginning,' 
 he said. 
 
 ' We are in the same case,' I answered ; ' but,' 
 said I cheerfully, 'we must push on, we must 
 push on. Hope is our portion, my friend, in all 
 desperate emprises.' 
 
 ' Pish ! ' said he. ' I 've no stomach for this 
 eternal hedge of privet. Give me a plain field, 
 and I see my way. These walls are fit only for 
 your puling citizen.' 
 
 ' True,' said I. ' They have an air of mono- 
 tony; but one may suffer much in so amiable a 
 cause. You withdraw, then ? ' I asked him. 
 
 ' Faith, not I,' he returned ; ' not without your 
 company ; ' and eyed me obdurately. ' But,' says 
 he, ' one way is as good as another. Right or 
 left ? ' and he spun a guinea in the air. 
 
 'If you will adventure your chances upon such 
 
 a hazard ' I said, and shrugged my shoulders. 
 
 ' For myself, I prefer the guidance of my own
 
 36 THE MAZE 
 
 shrewd wit and observation. I wish you a 
 pleasant journey.' 
 
 I left him spinning his coins with a red and 
 sweating brow, and made off with all speed. 
 
 In a very little I perceived I was approaching 
 to the centre, and my heart beat high with 
 exultation ; which grew well-nigh ecstatic when 
 I came into a circle that left me divided by but 
 a single hedge from the arbour and my divinity. 
 And then fell the suddenest blow to my gay 
 expectations. For the path ran half-way round 
 the central opening and there ended in a wall. 
 Mortified beyond the faculty of speech, I stared 
 at this miserable impediment to my prospects, 
 incensed with the old dotard who had so cheated 
 me. At this moment a voice called me softly by 
 name, and through the interstices of the privet I 
 could just espy the sweet face of my lady the 
 object of all this arduous adventure. I assumed 
 my best grace and bowed to the privet. 
 
 ' Madam," I said, ' there is still a barrier be- 
 tween us. But I vow I am rewarded for this 
 tedium of solitary wandering by the mere glimpse 
 of your face which I catch between leaf and leaf 
 of these bushes." 1 
 
 * You are vastly complimentary, 1 said she, and 
 laughed. 
 
 'My dear, 1 I replied, 'at least I am more 
 privileged than my rival, who is now, one must
 
 THE MAZE 37 
 
 suppose, tossing away his chances somewhere on 
 the outskirts of this merry maze.' 
 
 ' 'Tis no fault of mine,' said she demurely. 
 
 ' He is lame of a leg,' I rejoined. 
 
 ' Oh ! ' said she. 
 
 It was not my desire to enlist her heart on his 
 behalf, but only to discover to her the cruel em- 
 barrassments of our common condition. There- 
 fore I said no more of him, but turned to myself. 
 'And I,' I continued, 'am out of breath and 
 spent with much running. I have put on the 
 speed of a racer, and have covered many leagues 
 since we last met.' 
 
 ' I am very sorry,' says she softly. 
 
 From her voice I imagined she showed some 
 signs of relenting, and so fetched up at my sub- 
 ject. ' Between this walk and your own sweet 
 person,' ' I said, ' are many leagues more. How 
 many and how arduous the Devil alone knows 
 that built this horrid circus.' 
 
 I thought she sighed. 
 
 ' Thus,' said I, ' 'twixt you and me are many 
 weary hours of effort, and I am in a plaguey con- 
 dition of famine. Exhaustion has done its worst 
 upon me. Dearest, I shall have no hope of 
 reaching you.' 
 
 I could espy a flush of colour in her cheek ; 
 she sighed and plucked at the privet. 
 
 ' I beseech you, therefore,' I went on, ' to re-
 
 38 THE MAZE 
 
 consider your edict. I have done much, I have 
 fared far, I have fought well. Sweetheart, there 
 is now but one wall between us. By all the 
 love 1 
 
 'If you desire,' she broke in suddenly, 'the 
 secret of the maze, on my soul you shall not 
 have it.' 
 
 She took me aback with her abrupt resolution, 
 ensuing upon a mood of apparent tenderness. I 
 rose to a fury. 
 
 ' Then, 1 said I passionately, ' on my soul I will 
 hack through this accursed privet. 1 
 
 I drew my sword out of its sheath ; and she, 
 her eyes blazing with indignation, put her face 
 to the crevices and fixed me with an imperious 
 look. 
 
 ' Shame on you ! ' she said. 4 You would win 
 by fraud and force what you cannot by an in- 
 dustrious intelligence. Be patient ere you be 
 bold. 1 
 
 What I should have answered I know not ; at 
 the moment I was like to have disdained her 
 rebuke, and set upon the hedge. But just then 
 I heard a piping voice, and the troubled face of 
 the old dotard peeped through the chinks at me 
 from beside her. 
 
 ' In God's name, 1 I cried, ' how got you there ? 1 
 
 ''Twasyour direction, 1 he mumbled reproach- 
 fully. ' By keeping to my left I am come back 
 at your instance to a place from which I had
 
 THE MAZE 39 
 
 already thanked God for deliverance. Sir, you 
 have not played me fair. 1 
 
 ' Well,' said I, grinning, ' and you have tricked 
 me also, you misguiding prophet ! ' 
 
 The situation tickled me even through my 
 anger. I put up my sword and laughed. 
 
 ' Farewell,' I said, ' old totterer ! Gad, I envy 
 you your place and proximity.' 
 
 With that I turned and fled, for I had now 
 the key of the riddle in my hands. To retrace 
 my steps to the spot on which I had encountered 
 the old man, and thence to follow my own casual 
 directions, was now my clear course, and one that 
 promised an immediate reward. It was with a 
 light heart I pursued my way, reverting upon my 
 old tracks. But, alas ! it was to little purpose. 
 The place had vanished, and I was no nearer 
 finding it after an intolerable deal of travelling. 
 
 Thus occupied, and thus filled with a rare 
 spleen, I happened upon my limping companion 
 in this hopeless quest. We stopped as by a 
 common thought on the verge of two paths. 
 
 ' You are heated, it seems,' said he, panting. 
 
 * And you,' I retorted, ' have the sweat of a 
 labourer. 1 
 
 ' Granted, 1 said he, and paused. ' This is a 
 devil of a business,' he added, with a grimace. 
 
 I was very tired and dusty, and inordinately 
 savage ; I could have whipped out my sword and 
 attacked him.
 
 40 THE MAZE 
 
 * I have tossed for hours, 1 said he, ' and it has 
 brought me no nearer not within scent of 
 her. 1 
 
 ' I have seen her through the hedge,' said I ; 
 and have had a mighty pleasant talk with 
 her.' 
 
 He seemed to consider, and then laid his hand 
 on his sword. 
 
 ' There was something we were to discuss, 1 says 
 he. ' This is a convenient place. 1 
 
 'To be sure,' I answered. 'An admirable 
 thought ! ' 
 
 We bared our weapons. 
 
 ' Stay,' said he suddenly, scrutinising the 
 ground. ' Do you recognise the spot P 1 he asked. 
 He walked off to the furthermost limit of the 
 curve, and presently came limping back. 
 
 1 We set out both with an exemplary passion 
 for this lovely creature,' says he, looking at me 
 very comically. 
 
 ' Well ? 1 said I, seeing he was to proceed. 
 
 { A girl,' he went on, 'who has enclosed herself 
 within the Devil knows how many walls is in 
 some sort sacrosanct. Her virginity demands 
 respect,' says he. 
 
 'Well?' said I. 
 
 ' And one that exacts as much sweat and 
 worry of a lover as may be got out of the most 
 desperate battle is in some sort a vixen, 1 says 
 he.
 
 THE MAZE 41 
 
 ' True, 1 said I. 
 
 ' Then, 1 says he, ' what say you ? There is an 
 elegant and most refreshing brew at mine host's 
 in the village ; and faith, the exit, as you will 
 perceive, lies below us. 1 He jerked his thumb 
 down the circle. 
 
 1 Agreed, 1 said I suddenly ; and, slamming 
 down our swords into their scabbards, we linked 
 our arms and marched abreast out of the maze 
 upon the greensward.
 
 THE HOUSE OF DISHONOUR 
 
 | HE wind was a roaring tenant of the 
 desolate chambers, and scurried 
 through the house, filling the long 
 bleak corridors with the sound of 
 its furious passage. Out and aloft 
 it screamed most melancholy in the pines, and 
 flew round the corners and gables in claps of 
 passion. The white night seemed in the pos- 
 session of a thousand evil powers that mocked 
 my solitary watch by her bedside. Anon her 
 soul would flicker to her eyes ; the lips would 
 tremble ; the lids would rise, and the slow un- 
 meaning gaze rest for an instant upon me. And 
 then again the lashes would fall, and life, im- 
 potent and weary, would droop and vanish from 
 the beautiful clay. At that hour I felt no terror 
 for my grievous sin ; as we had loved so also had 
 we lived and the record of those few poor months 
 was sacred to me. No distant thought of my 
 wife came to me oversea ; I had put her from my 
 mind long since with the great sin that was my 
 happiness. In that hour but one hope held me, 
 
 42
 
 THE HOUSE OF DISHONOUR 43 
 
 but one fear. Without, the long drive ran up- 
 wards through the ragged woods towards the hills, 
 and by that avenue must come the aid I looked 
 for against this Death that shrieked about the 
 house and wandered whining through the empty 
 rooms. My glances strayed between that silent 
 couch and the bare, shining road, my heart beat- 
 ing with fear as though it were I, not she, that 
 drew nearer to the end. And, in truth, not she 
 but I was wrestling with this spectre. In my 
 thoughts I heard him crying in the night ; I 
 watched him on his rounds ; between him and the 
 the dying, I the living stood defiant of my love 
 I braved him there alone that night within the 
 darkness. And, swollen to a monstrous horror, 
 Fear kept me company, and all past delight, all 
 future evil, laughed me to derision in its presence. 
 Apart sat the one servant left me who had not 
 fled that pest, a faithful guardian at the door, 
 immediate to the slightest call, should any call 
 sound here save that of Death above the noises 
 of the night. 
 
 I could not catcli her breathing ; she opened 
 her eyes in a smile, and the white teeth shone 
 spectral in the twilight of the room. I bent to 
 her shuddering there was some whisper on those 
 wavering lips, but the wind was gibbering like a 
 devil at the windows. 
 
 ' To steal the last whisper, 1 I cried, ' that were 
 worthy of God ! ' and hid my face upon the couch.
 
 44 THE HOUSE OF DISHONOUR 
 
 It was at this instant there fell a sudden hush, 
 and through the distant doorway he entered 
 swiftly with the sharp clank of spurred feet. 
 Turning, I beheld him white and furious against 
 the light. 
 
 ' You have a cunning turn for escape, 1 said he, 
 ( but it will not serve you long. Put a hound to 
 the scent, and in the end he will lick his chops 
 in blood.' 
 
 ' Hush ! ' I cried ; but swifter than my 
 
 swift voice he flung between me and my words. 
 
 ' Coward ! ' he said, his jaw fixing upon the cry, 
 and, raising a heavy hand, came in a stride upon 
 me. I took him by the wrist, and besought him 
 with my eyes. 
 
 ' Hush , said I, and the voice choked in my 
 
 throat so that I could but point a shivering finger 
 to the couch and my white lily drawing unto 
 death. 
 
 ' What is this ? ' said he. and stared upon me. 
 
 4 The Plague," I muttered ; but my words were 
 low, and I seemed to speak to myself. 
 
 His white face was so close to mine that I could 
 mark each line time had turned upon his cheeks, 
 and I thought that his black eyes grew blacker, 
 and a slow smile wrinkled about the moving lips. 
 He said no word, but, walking to the bed, peered 
 down upon his sister where she lay. I seemed to 
 see her fading in and out of consciousness, as it 
 were, with her heaving bosom, and her eyes
 
 THE HOUSE OF DISHONOUR 45 
 
 I thought met his with that plaintive look of 
 suffering that had tortured me through the long 
 day. If this were so I know not surely, for at 
 that moment the gravel rang with a clatter of 
 hoofs, and, at the sound, I sprang towards the 
 door. Then there broke in my old and faithful 
 servant, and the wind flapped down upon us from 
 the sky. I heard his voice calling through the 
 noise, his thin hands gesticulating in the air ; and 
 at his words I stood struck dumb and cold. 
 
 'No help P he cried, 'no help I 1 Nothing will avail 
 now. The plague has taken the very servant on 
 his errand, 1 he moaned; 'the plague! the plague! 1 
 
 And, looking through the long windows, I 
 could espy in the white night a great horse steam- 
 ing from the nostrils, and a limp figure sprawling 
 from the stirrup, stark and motionless. 
 
 I think I was now quit of my senses, for I 
 turned and took the brother by the coat. ' Man," 
 I said, 'ride as from Hell. Ride for this physician 
 beyond the hills, and God will be with you upon 
 this errand of pity. Ride ! ' I cried. He shook 
 me off and laughed. 
 
 ' Sir," 1 said he, ' you have mistaken. I am no 
 serf or bondman of yours, but the mere brother 
 of this pitiful creature who is like to redeem some- 
 what of our honour within this night.' 
 
 At these monstrous words I fell back, staring 
 at his white and smiling face. 
 
 4 Why, 1 said he lightly, ' you will perceive the
 
 46 THE HOUSE OF DISHONOUR 
 
 situation. These six months I have been minded 
 to dissolve this pretty compact ; and but that 
 you hid yourself so deftly these hands had surely 
 done it. But now the task is taken from them ; 
 she will herself dissolve it forthwith I doubt not. 
 It is a sure way out of a mighty unpleasant case." 1 
 
 He stood twiddling his thumbs and smiling 
 at me. 
 
 ' This is an ill time for a jest, 1 I cried, finding 
 voice at last. * Ride, ride ! for the devil is behind 
 you.' 
 
 ' I regret, 1 said he, ' to find you at a loss for 
 reason. You have no eye for logic at this 
 moment, but it is obvious that your vision will 
 be clearer by-and-by. You have a pleasant 
 home, 11 said he, glancing through the window, 
 ' but a trifle noisy on a windy night, and lonely 
 in the time of plagues. 1 
 
 ' God who made you," 1 said I hoarsely, 'judge 
 you for this ! ' 
 
 4 1 am the brother of this thing,' said he, jerk- 
 ing his finger at the couch, ' that soon shall be a 
 corpse. With that she will have passed beyond 
 the dishonour of our honourable house. And yet,' 
 he continued, as though at a sudden thought, 
 * though she be no wife of yours, I have hopes 
 you will conduct her obsequies in the decorous 
 fashion of your race. It is said you toll the 
 death-bell in these hours of dissolution. Though 
 the plague have rid you of your domestics, I
 
 THE HOUSE OF DISHONOUR 47 
 
 perceive a serviceable veteran here whom, doubt- 
 less, you will instruct in this proper ceremony. 1 
 
 He paused as though for an answer, but I, 
 speechless with horror and a growing madness, 
 crouched back against the wall. 
 
 ' You are uncivil in your silence,' he resumed. 
 ' No doubt it were distasteful in your eyes to 
 treat your mistress as your wife. And yet you 
 will pardon me if, out of respect for what is still 
 the dying body of my kinswoman, I take upon 
 myself to order this ceremony upon your be- 
 half. 1 
 
 He had scarce ceased ere I had flung upon him; 
 but at that very second the life surged in my love 
 once more, and with an inarticulate cry she raised 
 her head. I threw him away and fell upon my 
 knees beside her. Her breath went soft upon my 
 cheek ; her bosom palpitated and was still. 
 Springing from the room, I rushed out of the 
 house and leapt upon the panting horse before 
 the door. Loosened by my leap, the plague- 
 stricken, dusty body slipped from the stirrup and 
 rolled full into the moonlight upon the gravel. 
 I dashed my hands at the reins, spurred at the 
 reeking beast, and faced the night bareheaded, 
 clattering for the cliffs. The horse, overworn 
 with the hard riding of her dead master and 
 smitten, maybe, with something of the panic of 
 that fearful countryside, shivered and trembled 
 on her way. The fire was gone from her palsied
 
 48 THE HOUSE OF DISHONOUR 
 
 limbs ; her life was spent ; her fore-legs splayed and 
 staggered on the hard chalk ; and stumbling from 
 point to point we rolled together through the 
 night. The winds now flew from all quarters 
 upon us, and stung my sight so keenly that the 
 lids fell with the quick pain. Out of the sea 
 below they seemed to rise up and take the beast 
 below her belly, lifting her from her traitor feet. 
 From the front they sprang at her, chill and 
 gusty, choking the hot breath back into her gap- 
 ing throat. While ever from the black hills they 
 dashed upon us both as though to swirl us in 
 their company over the sheer cliffs, where the 
 white sea ran shouting upon the walls below. 
 
 In this helpless fashion I had gone but a mile or 
 so, and was come to where the mountain closes 
 on the sea and leaves but a ribbon of pathway, 
 when I was aware of a rider thundering in my 
 rear. So great was his speed that I had but 
 turned uneasily in my saddle when he swept by 
 me ; his pallid face gleamed for an instant in a 
 set and cruel stare, and then he was past the 
 corner in the distant gloom. 
 
 ' Ride ! ride ! ' I called ; and my weak steed, 
 struggling with the wind, followed behind him 
 into the narrow pass. The great circle of the 
 moon hung upon the sheer heights, and the silver 
 streak of footway ran white along the cliff- verge. 
 I had imagined him a penitent, assured that some 
 grievous exhibition of his sister's plight had at
 
 THE HOUSE OF DISHONOUR 49 
 
 last made a call upon his humanity ; and that he 
 was thus tardily upon mine own errand. But as 
 I entered upon the passage I perceived him stand- 
 ing there in the moonlight, his face turned full 
 upon me, his horse at hand oblique across the 
 pathway. As I rode up he raised an arm and 
 checked me. 
 
 ' Upon second thoughts,' he said, ' I cannot 
 perceive that the performance of her manifest 
 duty acquits me of mine own. You will dis- 
 mount.' 
 
 I gazed at him in stupefaction across the 
 vapour from my horse's nostrils. 
 
 ' Come, you are dull, you are dull,' he went on 
 impatiently. ' You must know the consideration 
 proper to her blood. Be done with your wonder 
 and dismount. I have given the matter careful 
 thought, and believe me it is the one thing 
 possible.' 
 
 It was then for the first time I took his mean- 
 ing, and the full significance of his hideous pur- 
 pose flashed upon me. Passion choked my voice. 
 
 * Out of my way ! ' I whispered hoarsely. 
 
 4 Descend,' he said ; ' or shall I break this 
 creature under you. You make an uncommon 
 fuss.' He took a pistol from his belt. ' Into the 
 care of this,' said he, ' I have put my honour. 
 Come.' 
 
 I ground my teeth and clenched my hand 
 above my head. 
 
 D
 
 50 THE HOUSE OF DISHONOUR 
 
 6 Out of my way, devil ! ' I cried, pushing the 
 horse's nose upon him. 
 
 He put it aside. 
 
 ' Nay,' said he easily, ' you may perhaps ride on 
 hereafter if you have the occasion left you. By 
 my soul, we must settle on this spot, if I should 
 pull you from the saddle. Your mistress shall 
 find a fitting burial, I promise you, in the tail of 
 the morrow. Dismount, my craven ! ' 
 
 The madness rushed upon me in a flood, and I 
 bent low upon my horse's neck. 
 
 ' Out of my way ! ' I repeated. 
 
 He laughed. I struck my heels deep in the 
 flanks, and with a start the beast leapt forward 
 upon the white face in the path. His horse 
 behind him swerved and pulled, backing upon the 
 cliff. The winds dropped from the heights in a 
 gust. Spurring, I drove at him. I saw the fore- 
 feet of my horse poised in the air a moment, and 
 then with a plunge she flung herself free upon the 
 empty path ; while with a sharp neigh of terror 
 that other creature rolled in a tangle with the 
 white, set face, slipped o'er the verge, and fell 
 from peak to peak down the great precipice 
 below. 
 
 And at that instant the shrill wind came cry- 
 ing round the pillars of the hills, and I could hear 
 far off and desolately still the sound of a dull 
 bell booming through the night.
 
 THE ART OF LOVE 
 
 took me by a button of my coat, 
 and pulled me round till his serious 
 eyes were upon the level of my 
 own. It was pretty clear he was 
 disposed to convert me from my 
 waggery ; and though I had little enough stomach 
 to play the confessor, there was something in his 
 gravity that reduced me to attention. 
 
 ' You are a man of much knowledge," he said 
 very soberly. ' I am but a tyro. Yet I would 
 consider passion to be a common faculty of the 
 race, identical at all times and in all conditions, 
 nothing bettered by your superior wisdom, 
 nothing cheapened by my scanty years. It is 
 not upon the passion I would consult you ; I 
 would have your advice upon its conduct, which 
 is a matter of experience.' 
 
 * Will you hear nothing against your scheme ? ' 
 I asked. 
 
 ' I have no scheme, 1 said he ; * I have only a 
 desire. It is you that shall devise me a scheme. 
 
 51
 
 52 THE ART OF LOVE 
 
 As to the desire let us be silent ; you and your 
 knowledge have no concern with it. 1 
 
 He was so single-minded in this silly fancy of 
 his, and fronted me with so courteous a dignity, 
 that I could not refrain a smile ; he might have 
 been issuing the ultimatum of a nation, and not 
 the trumpery protest of love at five-and-twenty. 
 
 ' Why, 1 said I, ' you put a heavy responsibility 
 upon me. You ask me to give the whip to a 
 beggar's horse. The devil is an intolerable 
 fortune for so promising a lad. 1 
 
 The determination slackened on his face, and 
 his .eyes, relenting, took on a cast of fear lest I 
 should take part against him. 
 
 ' But you have seen her, 1 he said quickly. 
 ' You admit her beauty. I shall meet no devil, 
 I vow. She has grace and charm and loveliness 
 and fascination. What further excellence would 
 you have in her ? 1 
 
 I was in no mood to discuss his lady, but was 
 thus driven to make good my case by an objec- 
 tion. 
 
 ' These things are all one, 1 1 said. ' Listen to 
 the voice of a lover ! We have said she comes of 
 an inferior class. She is pretty ; but she inspects 
 the world from a very different corner. I doubt 
 if your views overlap in any particular. 1 
 
 ' It is nothing against her, 1 he cried ; ' mine 
 shall go nearer hers ' (I shrugged my shoulders) 
 ' or hers shall touch mine. Give me a start, 1
 
 THE ART OF LOVE 53 
 
 he said, ' and tell me of your abundant experience 
 how she may be won. 1 
 
 * She will have none of you ?' I asked. 
 
 ' She is so indifferent that she will barely 
 recognise my presence, 1 said he. 
 
 I laughed. ' Put on your spurs ; put on your 
 spurs, 1 I said. ' You shall gallop if you will, 
 though you should blaspheme for it later. 1 
 
 'You have always been my friend, 1 he said, 
 and snapped eagerly : ' how shall I start ? Fit 
 me with the boots, and you shall hear of me no 
 more. 1 
 
 'What sort of girl is this? 1 I asked with a 
 chuckle. 
 
 It was a ridiculous question, I own, and started 
 him upon a glib panegyric, which I interrupted 
 with a gesture. 
 
 ' And there is more to follow, 1 he said, eyeing 
 me with a certain shame and a little reproach. 
 
 ' God forbid ! 1 I answered. ' We have already 
 here the raw matter for a dozen angels. We do 
 not desire to people Paradise, but to fashion one 
 ninny of a woman for sober contemplation. With 
 all this appreciation has she never a look for 
 you ? ' 
 
 ' Never a thought, 1 he returned promptly, ' and 
 but idle looks. 1 
 
 ' Your wealth ? 1 I asked. 
 
 ' She is innocence itself,' he said, ' and my 
 money weighs with her nothing. Besides, she
 
 54 THE ART OF LOVE 
 
 has a passion for the romantic, and would con- 
 temn it. 1 
 
 ' A convenient passion,' I said, musing : ' the 
 cleanest weapon in the world against a maid. If 
 you should rescue her P 1 
 
 He threw up his hands. ' Where is the pos- 
 sibility ? 1 he demanded. ' Fires or bulls, rivers 
 or thieves, runaway horses or libertines I have 
 prayed for them daily; but life is flat and un- 
 adventurous ; and London is a citv of damnable 
 good order. 1 
 
 ' Disorder may be contrived, 1 I suggested. 
 
 ' The trick is stale. I have purchased a man 
 in his cups for the office, 1 he declared bitterly ; 
 ' I gave him a crown and the weight of my fist. 
 It was a vain adventure. 1 
 
 ' It did not move her ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' She turned to me very prettily with her 
 thanks,' he said. ' O yes, I have her gratitude. 
 But her gratitude ! 1 He elevated his brows. 
 4 She thinks I have an admirable muscle ; but so 
 have a dozen in her acquaintance. 1 
 
 ' You would not balk at a lie ? ' I asked. 
 
 4 1 would take any fence on the road to her, 1 
 he replied with ardour. ' If you have hope 
 He gazed at me inquiringly. 
 
 ' Why not, 1 said I, ' design a situation of the 
 sentimental ? Would she yield to low lights or 
 the warm juxtaposition of a carriage. These are 
 occasions potent against a woman^s independence.
 
 THE ART OF LOVE 55 
 
 Her affections are not obdurate, nor is her will ; 
 they need but the proper circumstance to melt. 
 Women have no power of withdrawal. Take 
 ""em to the brink, and they go over with giddy 
 heads. The brain swims, and they topple to 
 their fate. Man flows in a current, woman in 
 eddies. Her heart is a jewel within the reach 
 of any cutpurse apt enough with his sentences. 
 My dear sir, 1 1 said, ' this is the sexual distinc- 
 tion. For a man's head is approached through 
 his heart ; but a woman^s heart is exposed by the 
 swimming of her brain. If you will make a study 
 of her tastes you shall contrive a surrender within 
 the month.' 
 
 ' Give me the secret, 1 he said earnestly. 
 
 ' You forget, 1 said I, ' I have no knowledge of 
 her quality. 1 
 
 ' And I, 1 he sighed, ' am a dunce at such 
 riddles. You shall make her acquaintance, 1 he 
 said quickly. 
 
 ' Rather, 1 said I, smiling, ' you shall explain 
 her to me. She is a woman and therefore can 
 admire. In what pose can you swagger at your 
 best? 1 
 
 ' I have cut all my figures, 1 he said moodily. 
 
 ' You are a man of letters, 1 I said : ' will this 
 serve ? 1 
 
 He shook his head. ' I propped myself upon 
 the lie and it broke. She has no regard for 
 letters. 1
 
 56 THE ART OF LOVE 
 
 * You paint ? ' I queried. 
 
 ' The pretence were useless,' he returned dole- 
 fully. ' Her art is upon the hoardings/ 
 
 ' It would seem, my young lover, 1 I said, ' that 
 vour affection is gross enough to sneer. But 
 suppose yourself an orator upon a tub, or a 
 budding politician. 1 
 
 4 The premier and my lord the duke she has 
 heard of them, 1 he replied bitterly. 
 
 1 Come now, you fight bluejacket or red, 1 said 
 I. ' You can entertain her with fine tales of 
 blood. 1 
 
 He swore a little. ' She inquired upon the 
 point on our earliest acquaintance, and I had the 
 folly to be honest. 1 
 
 ' 'Twas unfortunate, 1 I answered ; ' but there 
 are finer coats than upon a soldier. Come, the 
 truth. You are the heir of a great family, 
 awaiting your title. 1 
 
 ' 'Twill serve me as little as my money, 1 said 
 he. ' She is an excellent girl, 1 he cried, with an 
 access of rapture. ' Egad, neither wealth nor 
 position touches her. 1 
 
 ' We must take commoner weapons against 
 her, 1 1 said. ' It is idle to menace a savage with 
 fire-arms. Letters and art, politics and culture 
 she meets them with a stare. Do you not see in 
 what terms you are condemning the little jade ? 1 
 
 ' I love her, 1 he vowed sullenly. 
 
 ' Well, well, 1 said I ; fc and so shall she love
 
 THE ART OF LOVE 57 
 
 you. Take heart, young wiseacre, and give ear. 
 For this, I make no doubt, is a maiden with the 
 faculty of worship ; and that she will not take 
 virtue to her heart is plain enough. None of her 
 sex has fallen in love with a virtue : which, more- 
 over, will always prove too modest and reticent 
 for advertisement. Nay, you must caper at 
 something to catch her eye and humour ; and if 
 art and its fellows be too high for her, you must 
 descend upon a lower stage. And there's the 
 word, 1 said I : ' the stage ! You must rant and 
 roar it in the gay plumage of a melting melo- 
 drama. Ravish away her ear and her eye, and 
 you 11 have the heart bowling after to catch ' em 
 up.' 
 
 ' The playhouse, 1 said he sadly, ' is denied her 
 by her parents, and I should stalk there till the 
 crack of doom.' 
 
 ' The stage,' I answered, ' is not the sole cyno- 
 sure of the day. The senses of these women go 
 down in homage to the spectacle in the streets. 
 Clap your hands, yell, pull wry faces, gibber and 
 jest, make the street ring with you ; strike 
 through eye or ear, through some sense, through 
 a main avenue, to fame ; be foremost in a public 
 gaze ; tickle with primary colours ; bedazzle with 
 flaming hues ; rehearse heroic gestures and pose 
 illustrious in a people's face fill the moment or 
 the hour, somehow, somewhere, sometime ; and 
 your goddess will kneel to you in tears. Go
 
 58 THE ART OF LOVE 
 
 forth and grin about the city like a dog. That,' 
 said I, c is how she shall be conquered." 1 
 
 He had heard me out with manifest impatience, 
 and now addressed me with some heat. 
 
 ' Your experience of the sex, sir, 1 said he, 
 ' would seem to have been sufficiently damnable. 
 I condole with you, 1 and, turning upon his heel, 
 made off. 
 
 I saw nothing more of him for weeks, and it 
 was not until the recent exhibition in the city 
 that I witnessed the end of this farce. Some 
 merry cousins from the country were bent upon 
 the Show, and I was fain, out of good-nature, to 
 accompany them. As the procession passed I 
 espied with some surprise the girl of our dis- 
 course leaning from an opposite window, her 
 pretty face flushed and smiling, her eyes betray- 
 ing the liveliest enthusiasm. I could not but 
 reflect upon the justice of my young friend's 
 commendation, and, following her gaze, my own 
 lighted upon the man himself in a most un- 
 expected quarter. He was seated upon the fore- 
 most car in the procession, the topmost figure in 
 a portentous group, swathed in rainbow colours 
 and great whirling garments ; and he was fitted 
 with a crown. He was meant, I understand, for 
 some representation of Victory, and his face 
 beamed with the pride of conquest. 
 
 He had the grace to offer me his thanks upon 
 his wedding-day.
 
 THE THING IN THE COPSE 
 
 MELANCHOLY silence held the 
 nether wastes as I came down upon 
 the back of the village. I had no 
 thought of horror or remorse ; no 
 revulsion turned me from the 
 sober contemplation of that still, stiff figure in 
 the copse, its eyes open upon the dusk unmean- 
 ingly. It was true the thing bobbed in and out of 
 my mind persistently, as though that fell moment 
 of fury had stamped an indelible picture on my 
 brain ; but its motions had come to be well-nigh 
 mechanical, and it was only at intervals I was 
 aware that it was dancing there. Flitting as 
 a speck in the eyesight, it was no distress to me ; 
 I had no care lest it should come a permanent 
 visual sensation. Of the dread itself I recked 
 nothing ; there was no relic of hatred in me for 
 the strewn and helpless body, nor any fear of its 
 particular vengeance. I had put from her for 
 ever (it seemed to me) the material object of her 
 shame and madness ; and though my soul now 
 should keep the earth until the crack of doom, 
 
 59
 
 60 THE THING IN THE COPSE 
 
 it should have the solace of her desolate company. 
 In vain, after all, had she turned from me ; the 
 empty world gaped for her now as it had done for 
 me since that terrible hour two nights gone. The 
 horrid glee of this reflection ran through my 
 veins, but no malignity for the dead or for the 
 living had part in my peculiar joy. Indeed, now 
 he had withdrawn from the possibility of her 
 touch, and there was no longer the mocking 
 picture of her delicate caress, I seemed to myself 
 clean rid of animosity against him ; and that last 
 thought of admiration which had flashed so 
 strangely upon me at the supreme moment of his 
 fall recurred to my newly dispassionate mind. I 
 would not deny him a fine courage and a rude air 
 of distinction ; he had made no craven struggle 
 in his end, but dropped softly in the long ferns 
 without a word, gone to his shameful account 
 unwincingly. 
 
 The steep thin track, banked and over-arched 
 with the gloom of deep thickets, widened upon a 
 sudden in a place of heaving yews. The winds 
 brushing round a corner in the downs swept past 
 me upon the deep valley, raising a dismal singing 
 in the pines. Against the low lights of heaven 
 the still, black body with its open eyes tossed and 
 swayed, and low noises were growing in the long 
 corn, when from the darkness of the lower reaches 
 she fluttered into my sight. She came as a white 
 shadow of skirts out of the heart of the rustling
 
 THE THING IN THE COPSE 61 
 
 thicket, but I knew her on the instant in that 
 blackness, as I have ever known her by her mere 
 proximity. I was acquainted with her errand, 
 too ; for he had thrust a gibe at my frenzy ; and 
 where he had waited for the tryst, there had he 
 perished. Standing in the centre of the way, I 
 watched her draw near ; she came with a start 
 and a slight cry; shrank into the shadows; moved 
 as to pass me swiftly ; then, pausing, she raised 
 one arm across her face and bowed her head upon 
 her moving bosom. I could not discern her 
 features ; but the lithe grace of her familiar body 
 leapt into possession of my soul. The black 
 Thing dangled in my eyes upon the trees I took 
 a step to her and saw her face, the face that had 
 touched mine so often, aghast with fear and 
 shame. Could sorrow turn that laughing face to 
 this pallid spectre of loveliness ? I had not seen 
 her since that hour when I had all but thrown 
 her from the Hall into the windy night. 
 
 ' You ! ' said I tensely. ' You ! ' 
 
 She put out her hands, as it were in a gesture 
 of despair, still bowed and mute. I looked upon 
 her in the falling dusk as mute as she, and the 
 memory- of her invisible beauty made a chasm in 
 my thoughts. 
 
 * It is no use to speak of pardon, 1 she whispered 
 at last, the dear, tremulous whisper that had been 
 wont to murmur at my ears ; ' I have come too 
 low for pardon. It is only pity that I ask/
 
 62 THE THING IN THE COPSE 
 
 * Pity ! ' I echoed, blinking at the black Thing 
 that tossed about her head. 
 
 'There were some excuses for me had I the 
 shamelessness to name them. I was mistaken in 
 myself. My mother I had seen little of you, 
 save that you were great and noble. A giiTs 
 fancy a girl's blunder and my mother 
 
 ' Twelve months married,' I murmured ; ' but 
 twelve months/ 
 
 ' I fought for you against myself and him,'' she 
 said. ' God knows I fought but in a little ' 
 
 ' Twelve months,' I murmured ; 4 but twelve 
 months. 1 
 
 ' I was too weak for my own passions. God 
 knows, who made us, why such passions are 
 poured into weak vessels.' 
 
 ' Some for dishonour,' I said : ' some for dis- 
 honour.' 
 
 * You were too high for me. I never knew you. 
 You had stern moods. I could not reach them. 
 Love turned to fear of you. I was afraid, and 
 betrayed you in my fear. Yours was not the 
 heart of a lover.' 
 
 'Your breath was the spirit of my body,' I 
 murmured. ' Your trembling heart was my life. 
 Fire ran in my veins at the touch of your soft 
 fingers. Your eyes mirrored my heaven. Soul 
 and body, body and soul, you stood between me 
 and the night.' My voice sank smothered 
 between my lips, and I knew I muttered to
 
 THE THING IN THE COPSE 63 
 
 myself. It seemed as if I watched her pale, pitiful 
 face and slight body from a great distance. Her 
 soft tones ran murmurously on ; but now the 
 trees buzzed in my ears, and the air, thick with 
 flitting Things, shut out the sight of her. The 
 narrow way fled reeling from my vision into the 
 deep valley below. 
 
 ' I ask no pardon, 1 I heard her cry, * but one 
 thing only.' 
 
 She lifted her head, and her white face fronted 
 mine with a wild entreaty. 
 
 4 1 have dishonoured you and yours, 1 she said. 
 * I have no hope or future in this world. There 
 is one thing only left me. Give me that, 1 she 
 said, raising her clasped hands to me. ' Give me 
 that, you who are so strong and merciful. 1 
 
 ' Is it pity ? 1 I asked, staring at her beseeching 
 eyes. 
 
 ' Yes, pity, 1 she implored. ' Give me pity and 
 all that flows from pity. Stand to me now in 
 the place of God, who has forsaken me, and give 
 me this one thing. They said you were taken 
 with the fury of devils ; they said you were relent- 
 less, mad with hate and the desire of vengeance. 
 But you are not. They have spoken false of you, 1 
 she cried. ' You are calm and still. You look 
 down upon this thing and despise it you are so 
 far above it but you have no grudge against it. 
 You will deal nobly by it. There are no petty 
 passions in your nature. They told me you were
 
 64 THE THING IN THE COPSE 
 
 sworn to withhold from me freedom, to keep me in 
 the dust. But you will not refuse this thing. I 
 have put away from life all that is best and wisest, 
 all that is most gracious and worthiest ; I have 
 thrown immortality to the winds. I am ship- 
 wrecked of all save this one thing the piteous 
 pleasure of a wretched crawling worm. Give 
 me this out of your nobility. I pray to 
 you as to God, come not between us : give me 
 my freedom, and let me take up my miserable life 
 with him." 1 
 
 * You put me in God's place,' I said. 
 
 * Yes, yes, 1 she said eagerly, ' in God's place. 
 You shall dispense mercy. You shall pity. I 
 want no pardon. I am in the mire before you ; 
 let me live my lowly life. I have but one passion, 
 but one thought, but one desire, but one hope, 
 and that is in him. Do not keep me in chains. 
 Set me free that I may go to my bonds with him 
 and keep my paltry happiness secure. See, I 
 tell you this, because you are my God. You are 
 not upon my world ; you breathe a loftier air. 
 You have never loved me, a creature of such 
 vain clay. Nothing could re-unite us two ; you 
 have no need of a dog at your heels to kick. Let 
 me go out of your life. You have no need of me. 
 Even had you loved me, you would not, you dare 
 not, have me back.' 
 
 She gasped her wild sentences in my ears, a 
 figure of forlorn entreaty ; and her face of beauty,
 
 THE THING IN THE COPSE 65 
 
 shining into mine, drove the black flecks from 
 my sight, so that I beheld her suddenly the one 
 being my of constant thoughts and prayers this 
 twelvemonth. 
 
 ' As God is my witness,' I cried to Heaven, ' I 
 would take you out of Hell, though your soul 
 were in black ashes.' 
 
 Her outstretched hands dropped a little ; her 
 wide eyes lowered ; and she shrank and shuddered 
 from me in her fear. And by her drifted that 
 Thing in the waving ferns. She fell upon her 
 knees in the rough pathway and clasped my hand. 
 
 ' You are my God,' she whispered. ' Give me 
 this man.' 
 
 I shook her from me, and turned down the 
 slope toward the black thicket. 
 
 ' Vengeance,' said I, ' belongeth unto God.' I 
 laughed. ' Go,' said I, ' I will give you this man.' 
 
 I could see her eyes gleam for a moment, as 
 with a vivid joy ; she made as though to follow 
 me, but I moved to the very portals of the dark 
 yews, and in a little she turned and went up the 
 track. Pausing on the threshold of my down- 
 ward way, I watched her white skirts creeping 
 into the gloom ; and then I too turned and 
 climbed down upon the village, leaving her to 
 mount upwards to the downs, where lay that 
 dread Thing waiting for her in the copse.
 
 PHYLLIS 
 
 HE daisies danced towards her on 
 their slender stems, and the grasses 
 were twining in her golden hair, as 
 she lay in the open meadow nodding 
 at the sun ; and I, with all my fears 
 upon my face and a mad impulse in my heart, 
 stole to her gently from the wicket. She stirred 
 a little as I stayed beside her, stooping softly 
 lower, and the small shadows of the sky fled in 
 snatches across her sleeping face. At that 
 moment, though her tremulous eyes are ever 
 the light of my dim pathway, I dreaded lest they 
 should open upon me and my shameful errand. 
 So still she lay, dreaming like moonlight upon 
 the fragrant bank, that I could have thought it 
 but the eidolon of my love, so quietly recumbent. 
 It seemed to me now as though Death, mistaken 
 in his rounds, had come to the call of Sleep, and 
 sat close, watching even as I. The cricket chir- 
 ruped in the high summer noon, and bending 
 nearer still I heard the long field rustling in a 
 single wave, drowning her softer breath. Then, 
 
 66
 
 PHYLLIS 67 
 
 as my lips dropped lower, came a still hush ; the 
 colour quickened in her cheeks to the race of my 
 own desperate blood, and lifting her lashes she 
 looked up at me. 
 
 I fell back in abasement with no words ready 
 to my use, and starting she drew her lissom body 
 to its full stature, gazing with surprise upon me 
 at her feet. 
 
 'What did this mean? 1 she asked, her face 
 suffusing swiftly with a delicate red. 
 
 ' The sun, 1 I stammered, ' was too hot upon 
 your face ; and a spider 1 
 
 She swept from me with a gesture. 'I 
 thought, 1 she said, 'at least you were a gentle- 
 man. 1 
 
 ' It has always been my intention to be such, 1 
 I murmured in reply. 
 
 ' You have put off the experiment too long, 1 
 said she with much disdain. 
 
 'Do. you not think, 1 said I, rising, 'that in 
 some circumstances gentility were Quixotic? 1 
 
 ' There is nothing more ultimate than honour, 1 
 she answered indignantly. ' It is an element in 
 itself, and while our sex leans on yours you have 
 plain duties. 1 
 
 ' I have thought of honour, 1 said I, ' but I find 
 it a mere straw against you. We have plain 
 duties, 1 I said ; ' what rights have we ? 1 
 
 ' You have, 1 she said, flashing at me, ' at least 
 the right to your own company, as I to mine. 1
 
 68 PHYLLIS 
 
 She turned and made from me with the appear- 
 ance of great dignity across the meadow slowly. 
 I saw her moving for the wood in the full sun- 
 light, her white skirts tossing over the grasses, 
 her head erect and wonderful. At rest or in life 
 she was my final law, not honour. Leaping from 
 the bank I sped swiftly upon her. At my 
 approach she paused and thrust her chin a trifle 
 from me. 
 
 4 1 see, sir, 1 she said, with a quiver of her ex- 
 quisite nostrils, ' that you will take no instruc- 
 tion upon the point of honour. 1 
 
 * You forget, 1 said I, stilling my heart to be 
 cool, and now timorous in her presence. 'There 
 is but one passage from this field. 1 
 
 ' Perhaps, then, you will proceed, sir, 1 she re- 
 plied, flinging her hand towards the wood. 
 c Nay, 1 said I boldly, ' I were better behind. 1 
 ' At a distance, 1 she cried quickly. 
 ' At some distance, 1 I assented. 
 She bowed and went forward, and her fine 
 grace caught away my breath, so that I stood 
 gazing till she vanished through the wicket ; 
 then waking to find the heaven dark I rushed 
 after her. The wood, obscurer at the outset, 
 grew lighter as I advanced, and presently I saw 
 her at a bend in the path picking her way over 
 fallen branches. Hastening, I left so much space 
 between us as suffered her to pass but rarely from 
 my sight, and when an angle hid her I made
 
 PHYLLIS 69 
 
 upon her a few steps. Thus drawing through 
 the brake we came out upon a clear, straight 
 reach, down which I saw her flitting from the vista. 
 And now the horrible remoteness of this passage 
 was grown a dire torture to me, and with no 
 thought but the one I bore down upon her 
 speedily. Turning, she confronted me in an 
 angry blaze, and my heart trembled at her 
 warring eyes. The lips curled as they parted in 
 scorn of me, but waveringly I broke in ere she 
 spoke. 
 
 ' I would have passed you, 1 I stuttered, ' being 
 under the press of an engagement I had forgotten. 
 But your hair at the distance ' 
 
 She put her hand to her golden locks, and 
 flushed at the touch. 
 
 ' I thank you, 1 she said with some confusion. 
 ' The grass has set it in disorder." 1 
 
 At her embarrassment I was emboldened. 
 
 ' It would have shortly fallen in a shower,' I 
 explained with calmness. 
 
 ' I am obliged to your courtesy, 1 she answered 
 with her flush. ' It is not pleasant to pass for a 
 spectacle. 1 
 
 ' I take some credit for my self-denial, 1 said I, 
 ' for with that streaming gold before me this 
 journey had been something more tolerable. 1 
 
 ' You are very good, 1 she murmured, and moved 
 on, leaving me to gaze after her with wistful eyes. 
 
 There was no great stretch between us now,
 
 70 PHYLLIS 
 
 and as I walked the rustle of her gown fell like 
 music on my ears. And yet I was but commonly 
 happy. When in the cold distance, it had 
 seemed life had no fairer prospect than to be a 
 little nearer ; but now, grown familiar with the 
 neighbourhood, I desired another advance, chafing 
 at so frugal a pleasure. At length my ardent 
 discontent provoked me past bearing. I glanced 
 at the blue sky, the feathered elms, and the long 
 bracken. 
 
 ' The year is mending," 1 said I. ' Nature is iu 
 perfection/ 
 
 She made no immediate answer to my words, 
 but in a second half-turned her face upon the 
 level of her shoulders, making no pause. 
 
 'You should not have spoken,' she said. 
 
 I craved her pardon. ' The sense of com- 
 panionship, 1 said I, ' was so strong upon me that 
 I had forgot your presence was but of the body. 1 
 
 She said nothing at the time, but in a little 
 looked back upon me as at a sudden thought. 
 
 ' If this be so, you were better gone, 1 she said. 
 ' There is also your pressing engagement/ 
 
 The echo of my own rash words struck me with 
 confusion, and I had no tongue to reply ; but 
 soon she halted upon the path, and, stepping to 
 the side, motioned me on with a pretty gesture. 
 
 ' You had then better pass, 1 said she gravely. 
 
 I stood for a moment close to her, and her 
 eyes slow, quiet, and serious met mine with
 
 PHYLLIS 71 
 
 that intimate expression so dear to me. My 
 soul fused in the fire. ' I cannot pass,' I cried in 
 my fever. ' The devil keep engagements ! ' 
 
 ' You speak in strong terms,' she answered, her 
 lashes falling for an instant over her eyes. ' It 
 is surely pitiful to see a grown man of this mind. 
 What keeps you back ? ' 
 
 ' I had rather dwindle in your regard, 1 I said, 
 ' than bulk beyond the horizon of your thoughts. 
 For the rest," 1 I cried, ' I have no reasons. As 
 well ask a grape for thorns as one that loves you 
 for reasons." 1 
 
 'If you will not pass,' said she, 'at least 
 suffer me to do so, 1 and pushing by me she 
 resumed her way. 
 
 Though I had protested my desire of her com- 
 pany so bravely, eftsoon it came to be mere pain ; 
 her economy of her presence fretted on my 
 nerves so dangerously that I was in despair lest 
 I should be incited to some fresh folly. To 
 see her was insufficient ; I had the thought to 
 reach and touch her, and her continual grace was 
 beyond endurance. So when we were come to a 
 fork in the track sloping to the stream below, I 
 paused, on an impulse to end the hopeless fellow- 
 ship. 
 
 ' There is a short cut to the village, 1 said I ; 
 ' it will serve you best. I will rid you of myself/ 
 
 1 1 know it, 1 she answered, stopping also to look 
 at me quickly ; ' I had determined upon it. 1
 
 72 PHYLLIS 
 
 I lifted my hat, and, swinging away, was going 
 down the path, when I heard her voice. 
 
 ' But 'tis a pity,' she said, ' to put you to this 
 trouble. Why choose the longer ? There is your 
 engagement. I have no monopoly of this path- 
 way. 1 
 
 ' The silence was too great for me,' I answered. 
 ' We were easier apart.' 
 
 ' You managed fairly, 1 she said gently. ' Do 
 not thrust unkindness upon me.' 
 
 ' I should perceive it to be only mercy,' said I ; 
 and, retracing my steps, followed her down into 
 the narrow gorge. 
 
 A freshet ran swiftly through the bottom, and 
 where the path fell from the steeps upon it, split- 
 ting upon an eyot of bracken, raced on each side 
 about the white stones of a crossing. As she 
 saw it she gave a little start, and glanced back 
 at me. 
 
 ' I did not remember,' she said in a troubled 
 voice. ' There is no foot-rail here.' 
 
 ' There are stepping-stones,' said I, ' to the islet 
 and from the islet.' 
 
 She surveyed the crossing with a little alarm, 
 and then, putting her foot to the verge, made as 
 though to step upon the nearest stone. The 
 spaces stretched wide between them. 
 
 ' It shakes,' said she aghast. 
 
 ' Pray let me be your aid,' said I. 
 
 4 'Tis a man's work, and not a woman's,' she
 
 PHYLLIS 73 
 
 said with some show of anger. ' The world is 
 planned upon this principle of dependence. 1 
 
 I leapt across the first space, and turning put 
 out my hand to her. 
 
 ' You must let me have your hand,' said I. 
 
 ' It is unnecessary, 1 she answered. * You have 
 but to try the stages. 1 
 
 ' Your skirts ! ' said I ; ' you must jump ! ' 
 
 'You may have my hand, 1 said she, and I 
 pulled her safely to the stone. 
 
 But at that exquisite touch I was beside 
 myself, and crossed to the next landing in a 
 dream, my eyes upon her face, unconscious of 
 the bubbles breaking in the eddies. And I 
 saw, moreover, to my shame and to my glory, 
 the golden hair loosening on the dainty head, 
 menacing a sudden fall ; while she all unawares 
 stepped to me elegantly across the intervening 
 straits. My mind was a mad whirlpool, my pulse 
 beat as the fleet wings of a dove ; and when she 
 stood upon the eyot I flung myself at her feet in 
 the bracken. 
 
 ' Phyllis, 1 I cried, 'be with me always as upon 
 this passage. The world is planned upon this 
 principle of dependence, Phyllis." 
 
 She started and turned pale and red. 
 
 ' You have presumed too foolishly," she said 
 coldly ; ' I had thought you were come to your- 
 self. You cannot conceive how ridiculous is this 
 position, 1 she said.
 
 74 JPHYLLIS 
 
 ' Then," said I, at the white heat of feeling, 
 ' you shall find some other partner for the journey 
 hence ; ' and, throwing myself upon the bracken, 
 I folded my arms. 
 
 ' You make a jest of my misfortunes,' she said 
 icily. ' To choose this time were like you. I 
 thank you for your past assistance. 1 And inclin- 
 ing her head she stepped to the further side of 
 the eyot. 
 
 * Where are you going ? ' I asked. 
 ' I will wade, 1 she answered curtly. 
 I laughed. 
 
 She hesitated, looking from the stony bed to 
 her own sweet feet peeping from her gown. 
 
 ' Some one will come this way,' she murmured. 
 
 ' Once in a day,' said I, smiling. 
 
 She turned on me indignantly, and her eyes 
 were daggers. 
 
 ' You have no honour,' she said fiercely ; ' I 
 should have kept the wood between us.' 
 
 * It is true,' said I : ' you are my honour.' 
 
 * You have no honour,' she repeated with 
 passion, and stamping her foot, brought down 
 the golden hair in masses about her face. Rising, 
 I fronted her swiftly, with a glowing heart, as 
 she stood confused and flushing at the accident. 
 
 ' Without you,' said I, murmuring low, ' I 
 have no honour, Phyllis. I am desperate for 
 lack of you ; my brain is become an ingenious 
 cheat for you ; I am a rogue, a rascal, in your
 
 PHYLLIS 75 
 
 presence. I know no deed I would not dare for 
 you. I would give my soul as I have given my 
 heart and life for you." 1 
 
 My fervid eyes, drooping before her, beheld 
 but her dazzling gown swaying in the breath of 
 the valley. 
 
 ' You were better, then, without me, 1 she made 
 answer lowly. 
 
 ' That were the end, 1 1 whispered. 
 
 The bracken, springing from my weight, 
 fidgeted in the silence till she spoke. 
 
 ' You have surprised me most unfairly, 1 she 
 said softly ; ' I was nearly come to tears. 1 
 
 ' I could have asked nothing dearer than your 
 tears, 1 said I ; 'I had felt you were nearer to 
 me so. 1 
 
 ' What is it that you wish P 1 she asked, below 
 her breath. 
 
 I looked up, and found her gazing softly up 
 the valley. Her bosom came and went from me ; 
 her lips were of quivering scarlet ; her dishevelled 
 hair sparkled in the sunlight. 
 
 ' I would take, 1 said I, ' what I would have 
 stolen this noon. I would touch your lips, my 
 sweet. 1 
 
 ' You may touch my lips, 1 she whispered.
 
 THE BRAZEN CROSS 
 
 LAUGHED at her vivacious display 
 of fear, and went a space further into 
 the wood. I called to her, but she 
 stood irresponsive on the white 
 road. I retraced my way to the 
 verge of the open, and took hold of her hand. 
 
 ' Come,' I said, ' this superstition is ridiculous. 
 You have gone this path many a time ; it is the 
 shortest track to the village. 1 
 
 'It is Christmas Eve, 1 she returned with a 
 nervous shiver. 
 
 * What of that ? ' I answered lightly. ' A wood 
 is all one at Christmas or midsummer. 
 
 She shook her head, but I could see she was 
 plainly yielding to my persuasion. 
 
 ' It was an ancient place of burial, 1 she said, 
 ' where are still the disfigured bones of those that 
 lived before Christ. 1 
 
 * Every foot of green earth covers some decay, 1 
 I said. ' Come ; the white road takes a tedious 
 circuit into the valley. 1 
 
 'They say, 1 she went on, and a thin tremble 
 
 76
 
 THE BRAZEN CROSS 77 
 
 ran in her voice ' they say that evil spirits take 
 possession of this place on this night. They 
 must vanish with the midnight bells for a twelve- 
 month ; on Christmas Eve alone are they abroad. 
 
 ' I see,' I answered, laughing ; ' it is their pro- 
 test against a Saviour. But come ; for the wind 
 is rising, and a gale is growing on the moor. 1 
 
 Her eyes shifted fearfully as she regarded me, 
 and her skirts were fluttering in the fern. As 
 she stood thus silent, there entered into my heart 
 that fierce desire of her which had so long been 
 beating about my soul. I snatched her hand, 
 and, bending to her, held that wondering gaze 
 with mine. A still peace stole into her face ; the 
 warm blood trembled in her fingers ; I knew her 
 for my captive, as she knew me for hers. We 
 were thus for some short seconds, and then a sigh, 
 as it were the distant voice of some encaged 
 spirit, escaped her lips ; and my own mind fol- 
 lowed the course of her thoughts. I loosened my 
 grasp of her hand, but ere it fell from me a thrill 
 started through her body, and the fingers closed 
 upon mine with a little convulsive catch. In an 
 instant an ecstasy had taken me, and she was 
 swaying in my arms, passive and unafraid. The 
 supreme delight of that moment touches me even 
 now to the very quick of my being. I strained 
 her to me, my voice murmuring words of endear- 
 ment. She withdrew herself from me, watching 
 my eyes with a troubled gaze.
 
 78 THE BRAZEN CROSS 
 
 ' You will marry in this New Year," 1 she said 
 earnestly. ' It is laid upon you. What would 
 she think ? You have your honour. You have 
 been mad, and you have infected me with mad- 
 ness. It is the evil spirits of this field ; ' and she 
 shuddered. 
 
 ' I will be no slave to a preposterous notion of 
 honour,' 1 I cried. 'Is a man bound from his 
 childhood ? What our fathers have declared to 
 us shall we take that upon the mere statement ? 
 I have lived as a fool ' 
 
 ' But you shall die as a man of honour," she 
 broke in upon my fervour. 
 
 ' Rather, 1 said I, ' as a man of taste. 1 I took 
 her into my arms again, and her reluctant body 
 yielded to my strenuous passion. 
 
 ' Remember, 1 she murmured. ' Ah, remember. 1 
 
 1 There is nothing irreparable, 1 I answered. 
 ' All will wear a gay face in a week. She cares 
 nothing for me ; and I, even at this hour, have 
 seen the folly of obedience. Your love has turned 
 the stream of my life from a smooth and narrow 
 channel. That is all. Better the contentment 
 of two hearts than of a very giddy vanity. 1 
 
 She made no sign, but it seemed to me that 
 she surrendered herself to my pleading. 
 
 ' We will take the track through the wood ? 1 
 I said, caressing her. 
 
 ' Yes, 1 she whispered faintly. 
 
 The grey clouds were flying in troops over the
 
 THE BRAZEN CROSS 79 
 
 moon, and the wind clapped boisterously about 
 our ears as we passed into the shelter of the pines. 
 Over the moor, which stretched solitary to the 
 black hills, it scudded and romped towards the 
 back parts of the valley ; and as I turned upon 
 the very threshold of the wood it seemed as 
 though the plain was in the possession of many 
 roystering tenants so much of stir and motion 
 was visible among the bracken and the gorse. 
 On the outset of the forest the straight columns 
 of the firs were creaking, but the inner recesses 
 lay hushed and dark, secluded in a shelving 
 bottom. I think that the noises of the fierce 
 wind, which blew with an icy breath, had restored 
 to her a sense of security; for though we might 
 not now be heard without shouting, she clung 
 restfully to my arm, and the short snatches of 
 light that blinked through the flying clouds re- 
 vealed a soft and happy smile moving on her 
 face. As for myself, I had now my world, and 
 was become its veritable captain. The wood 
 roared in our ears ; we slipped from the embrace 
 of the gale, and dropped down into the silent 
 close which had been the ancient sepulchre of 
 ancient peoples. And here a great change befell. 
 In the quiet of that place I could hear the wind 
 howling on the moor, and the sound of our foot- 
 steps struck harshly on the stillness. I had scant 
 room but for the one burning thought ; yet for 
 a moment the strangeness of this unspeakable
 
 80 THE BRAZEN CROSS 
 
 stillness flashed through my mind, and I perceived 
 with an ignoble joy that her old fears were recur- 
 ring to her. She will press closer to me, I thought; 
 and was filled with an extravagant delight of her 
 touch. Suddenly, and when we were about the 
 heart of the thicket, little noises got up among 
 the dead leaves, and a thin whistling in the 
 skeleton branches. She clutched me in a quick 
 terror, and I soothed her gently. 
 
 ' It is nothing, my love, 1 I said ; * the wind has 
 broken into the valley.' 
 
 ' It is the graves, 1 she gasped. ' The spirits are 
 come out. 1 
 
 She turned her face aslant towards the growing 
 noises, which appeared to creep along the ground; 
 the dead leaves hissed and slithered. Her body 
 bent across me, and her arms went round my 
 neck ; but she held her eyes towards that crawl- 
 ing noise. 
 
 ' Sweetheart, 1 1 said, ' be brave. 1 
 
 But on that instant a rushing fury filled the air, 
 and a great wind tore through the trees ; vacancy 
 shrieked and moaned at us ; and the gabble of a 
 thousand voices mocked us in the branches. In 
 my sight was nothing save the stirless wood and 
 the empty sky ; in my ears were outrageous 
 sounds innumerable. At the first outset of 
 these strange presences she gave a low cry and 
 tightened upon me ; and then a flash swept over 
 my eyes, and in that second her arms were ript
 
 THE BRAZEN CROSS 81 
 
 from my neck, and with a long wail of fear she 
 fled down the deep paths and vanished with the 
 noises into the wood. 
 
 When I returned to the full possession of 
 my wits I drew myself together and sped after her. 
 The way she had taken led over a heavy slope, 
 down which I was plunged into an infernal black- 
 ness where the underwood rose thick and sheer 
 upon all sides. Informed with a pricking dread 
 I called to her at the top of my voice, and clam- 
 ours awoke in the gully ; but I could see no sign 
 of her, and the copse was now as empty and as 
 silent as a churchyard under the moon. In this 
 desperate mood I ran along the track, crying to 
 the night without response, and presently burst 
 out upon the meadows that lay at the back of the 
 village. Here, too, all was silent, though the 
 wrack was racing in the sky, and the frosty lights 
 twinkled in the distant cottages. I had stood 
 irresolute and fearful for some minutes, the subject 
 of a rising horror, when there was a sudden crackle 
 of branches, and I saw her fleeting upon me out 
 of the dense brushwood. The apparition was so 
 abrupt that I momentarily started aback, but, as 
 quickly recovering, rushed to meet her with a 
 thrill of gladness. She made a weird figure in her 
 flight ; her hair streaming at her back, her dress 
 disordered on her bosom, her hands clenching in 
 the air. She would have swung by me in her 
 panic, had I not arrested her with my arm. She 
 F
 
 82 THE BRAZEN CROSS 
 
 stayed, panting and wide-orbed, gazing at me 
 with a distraught look, as it were of exultation. 
 
 ' Sweetheart, 1 I said, ' you have been very 
 foolish to allow this terror," and made to take her 
 in my arms. 
 
 She broke into laughter, murmurous and sweet, 
 staring at me still from between her unblinking 
 lids. The thought that came to me then was 
 fraught with unspeakable horror, and I watched 
 her in awe. The eyes shone spectrally on mine ; 
 the lips parted, as it seemed, in a mocking smile ; 
 and the dishevelled hair was curving and heav- 
 ing in ragged waves on her head. Her face was 
 the face of a maenad aflame. ' My heart,' I said, 
 all agitation, * be mine, be mine again. In the 
 name of God, 1 I cried, ' close those eyes and 
 come to me ! Remember, we have been in love's 
 land this night.' 
 
 * I remember,' she answered, and her voice rang 
 shrilly in the air, ' that this night we have been 
 with the dead.' 
 
 She threw herself back, and laughed, and I saw 
 the tresses jigging on her head, screwing and 
 whirling like the snakes in the head of a Medusa. 
 Her laughter shook her, and, breaking from me 
 she danced over the meadows into the night. 
 And then I knew that the vulgar superstition of 
 this place was true, and that the devils of the 
 immemorial graveyard had crept into her hair 
 and were gnawing at her brain.
 
 THE BRAZEN CROSS 8.3 
 
 That Christmas Day was a time of doubt and 
 agony to me. I had no word of her whom I 
 loved, and from her who was to be my wife came 
 many weary messages. Impatiently between the 
 thought of both I stood in the balance, unable 
 to resolve my mind. My course had seemed 
 plain before plain and troublesome ; to dis- 
 engage myself from an arduous contract was 
 clearer wisdom than to go shuffling through an 
 unlovely marriage. 
 
 But now I could be sure of nothing, for she 
 that had divorced me from my duty was in the 
 possession of an Evil so gross as to withhold her 
 humanity from her. And as the week wore on 
 towards the New Year I was in no better case. 
 Everywhere I heard of the visitation that had 
 fallen upon her family, and all the countryside had 
 pity on her. All day, I heard, she would keep 
 the house, singing (they whispered) profane and 
 hideous catches, the anxious care of her parents ; 
 but at nights, when the stars were full, she was 
 abroad, riotous and mad, in the copses. The 
 thought was too grievous for me, and I haunted 
 the park at moonrise to get some more certain 
 knowledge of her. On these excursions I saw her 
 once, and the sight was pitiful and abhorrent. It 
 was not that her awful tenants had robbed her of 
 her beauty ; that was unchanged nay, rather 
 raised to an unnatural glory by her madness. 
 But to see her flying wildly through the trees,
 
 84 THE BRAZEN CROSS 
 
 her large and mocking eyes sparkling under the 
 stars, and the devils jigging in her hair, took me 
 with such a sense of horror that I fled, ashamed 
 and sick. She dangled an arm to me as she 
 flashed past, tossing up her face and screaming at 
 the sky. Thereafter I had no hope of her, but, 
 schooling myself to the straight lines of duty, 
 began with a poor heart to prepare against my 
 wedding. 
 
 It was on the first day of the New Year that I 
 was finally to resign from my dearest hope and 
 open a fresh and uninspiring life with my cold 
 bride. The thing had got thus far, and must 
 reach the end. It was a bright, white morning 
 (for the snow had fallen betimes) when I entered 
 the little church, dumb to the fate arranged for 
 me. As the service proceeded, the pitiable pre- 
 tence, both of her and of myself, grew well-nigh 
 intolerable, and I think never marriage has been 
 imposed upon such indifferent auditors. But 
 within a little of the end, and while we were yet 
 upon the precincts of the altar, there came a 
 sharp sound from the lower part of the church, 
 and turning swiftly I perceived her coming up 
 the aisle. She moved slowly, as though each 
 step were made against an invisible resistance ; 
 her hair was twisting and coiling on her bare 
 head ; her wintry eyes were fastened upon me. I 
 gave a short cry, but she took no notice, merely 
 gazing from her wild and struggling eyes as she
 
 THE BRAZEN CROSS 85 
 
 dragged herself towards the chancel. The church 
 rose in a mutter of fear. I made a step to her. 
 But at the chancel rails, and where the great 
 Brazen Cross uplifts itself below the oriel 
 windows, she fell suddenly to her knees. I 
 watched her face. The devils jigged in her hair ; 
 it stirred gently, and then flowed soft and rich 
 about her neck ; a shudder rushed through her ; 
 she hid her face in her hands. And when she 
 raised it again, and her eyes sought mine, they 
 were filled with a quiet smile of love, dewy with 
 tears, and desolate with a sad and hopeless pain.
 
 THE SWORD OF THE KADI 
 
 'AIDEE stole into her garden of 
 roses and clung closely to me. 
 There was a zephyr whispering in 
 the myrtles, and the fragrance of a 
 fine perfume on the gentle air ; and 
 I could not but think of it as the emanation of 
 her divine presence. In her lissom body life ebbed 
 and flowed in magnificent reversions as she pressed 
 against my heart, and her lips quivered as I 
 kissed her. She held me with her deep brown 
 eyes, her head raised to regard me steadfastly. 
 
 ' The Kadi has heard your call, my soul, 1 she 
 whispered. ' He will send for you on the 
 morrow. 1 
 
 ' Is it well ? ' I asked. ' What did he demand 
 of me ? ' 
 
 ' You are a Giaour,' said she ; ' yet I love you ; 
 heart of mine, I love you,' she said passionately. 
 'What justice will the Kadi give when you meet 
 upon the morrow ? What justice ? ' 
 
 I bent to her slowly. ' My love,' said I, * the 
 Kadi shall not come between us twain. Though
 
 THE SWORD OF THE KADI 87 
 
 he put mountains betwixt I will climb them ; 
 though there be seas I will swim them ; through 
 fire and sword I will pass unscathed to thee.' 
 
 ' He will put you to some trial, 1 she murmured. 
 4 Pray God it be not too hard. He will put you 
 to some trial/ 
 
 I stooped, for I could barely catch her sweet, 
 low voice ; and the fragrance passed through my 
 senses into my blood. 
 
 4 1 have sworn,' said I in that garden, ' he shall 
 come not between you, my beloved, and me. 
 Though his tests be fashioned in hell, I will shame 
 the Devil by my strength. I will be God in this 
 matter, and override the fiends themselves. Kadis 
 and all, they are impotent against the Giaour's 
 love. See, my Desire ! To-morrow he shall give 
 justice to the world, and thee to me. 1 
 
 I could see her mouth drawn at the verges, and 
 her olive cheeks pale in the soft moonlight. The 
 wind rushed out of the cypress grove and whistled 
 by us ; she strained her face against mine, whis- 
 pering in my ears. 
 
 4 The Kadi is old, the Kadi is wise. Though 
 Allah himself should descend, He will avail no- 
 thing against the Kadi. There is the cunning of 
 years in this man. He has an evil eye ; his face 
 is dark, as are his thoughts. He has pleasure in 
 the death of man ; his desire is in the breaking of 
 hearts. Hell is his jest; Paradise is his scoff; 
 God is his scorn. 1
 
 88 THE SWORD OF THE KADI 
 
 'Star of my night," I said to her, 'let his 
 crafty wiles be infinite as the sands, I will be 
 the sea to submerge them ; let his purposes be of 
 the most desperate research, I will contend with 
 them. Have no fear for the morrow ; have only 
 joy in this night, my love. 1 
 
 She drew from me a pace, her large eyes beneath 
 a film of tears. 
 
 'I have loved you, my beloved, 1 she said 
 brokenly ; ' O my beloved, I have loved you. 
 When you are come before the Kadi, think upon 
 me. Have me in your thoughts, my heart, as you 
 are ever in mine. And it shall haply befall that 
 from before my image the enchantment of this 
 devil shall flee." 1 
 
 And vowing to her Prophet I would so hold 
 her dear face in my mind, I watched her flit 
 through the roses. 
 
 In the morning the Kadi called me into his 
 presence about the hour of noon. He lay upon 
 his couch, white-bearded, pulling at his long pipe, 
 and I entered before him with his slaves. 
 
 ' My son,' said he, ' you have put upon me a 
 heavy charge. Were there not women as fair in 
 your own land, that you would rob us of the pearl 
 we cherish ? Yet it is my place to deal j ustice 
 with an even hand. May Allah guide me ! ' 
 
 ' This woman, 1 said I boldly, ' is dearer to me 
 than any pearl. Say if she shall not go whither 
 she is held in most precious esteem ? '
 
 THE SWORD OF THE KADI 89 
 
 ' The Giaour," said the Kadi, ' has no rights in 
 this world of ours. We give to him of our regard 
 for justice nothing more. It is the Kadi's part 
 to hold the scales and judge between the good 
 and the evil.'' 
 
 ' My lord," 1 I cried, ' place me among the good, 
 for I would have this maid. Let nothing come 
 between me and her, between the Faithful and 
 the Giaour/ 
 
 The Kadi bowed his head. * -I have heard you,' 
 he said ; ' and I desire right and justice. Among 
 the Faithful Allah decides. You shall pass some 
 test for this girl. 1 
 
 At his words I, suddenly recalling the anguished 
 whisper of Haidee, shivered for one moment where 
 I stood ; but on the next instant, recalling also 
 her sweet, low voice and dearest features, looked 
 him in the eyes and bowed after his own fashion. 
 
 ' I will do this thing,' said I. 
 
 The Kadi clapped his hands, and from the 
 precincts of an inner room behind the silken hang- 
 ings issued a slave, and put a table to the couch. 
 
 ' What is love without faith and without dis- 
 cretion ? ' said the Kadi. ' Nay, what also is it 
 without an imminent risk ? We purchase what 
 we value most at the peril of our lives,' said he. 
 
 ' My life,' said I, ' is in the purchase of my 
 love.' 
 
 'It is well,' he answered; 'Allah shall decide,' 
 and, signing to his slave, bade him begone. ' He
 
 90 THE SWORD OF THE KADI 
 
 that hath wisdom, 1 said the Kadi, ' and constancy 
 and courage, is meet for any bride, be she of the 
 Faithful or the Giaour. We have a game played 
 upon this table with six colours. It is for the 
 player to bring his colour through the moves into 
 the crowning square. There shall be given .you 
 six maidens bound each with a different colour. 
 The Giaour is crafty of the head. Choose you 
 the maiden, and if so be before the sun sets o'er 
 the Western Gate her colour shall stand upon the 
 crowning square, she shall depart with you, my 
 son. But if so be at sunset you have failed, upon 
 the Western Gate your head shall hang ere the 
 darkness be fallen. Allah shall decide, not human 
 frailty/ 
 
 Astounded at this strange pact, I turned upon 
 the table, whereon were many lines and colours ; 
 and as I gazed, reflecting upon my curious trial, 
 the hangings were swept apart and there entered 
 six fair women. Though her veil had fallen 
 across her face, I knew her by her gait and by 
 her trembling. Haidee slipped past me, a 
 scarlet band burning upon her sweet and delicate 
 arm. 
 
 ' Life is a game from the beginning, 1 said the 
 Kadi. ' We are employed upon the puzzle many 
 years, and the sooner the end the simpler the 
 solution. The dead are fortunate. Choose you 
 the colour, my son. And forasmuch as the Kadi 
 holds the balance in his hands, keep counsel with
 
 THE SWORD OF THE KADI 91 
 
 yourself. But in the end you must tell me your 
 choice. They are all fair women, not one alone, 
 my son ; yet you may depart if you have now the 
 mind. 
 
 But looking at Haidee in the centre of her 
 fellows, her face paling as she opened her dewy 
 eyes upon me with affright, I turned to him and 
 said : 
 
 ' My lord, I will do this thing.' 
 
 She had prayed me to keep her picture in rpy 
 thoughts ; but now her dear presence filled my 
 soul. The Kadi turned to his pipe again, while 
 I, with my eyes upon the scarlet about her arm, 
 fell to my work with a heart of fire. 
 
 ****** 
 
 From the high noon the sun declined upon the 
 city gate, but my task was unfulfilled. One by 
 one in the order of their moves had I placed 
 those pieces in their squares, placed and replaced, 
 moved and removed, adjusted, readjusted, schemed, 
 manoeuvred, calculated, and contrived but in 
 the end it was all one : no nearer came the scarlet 
 to my haven of desire. My brain whirled and 
 was weary ; the colours ran in my eyes ; each but 
 the one that blazed in my vision came within 
 reach of my goal, but I thrust them back 
 unashamed and reckless. And as the sun fell 
 lower the Kadi lifted his eyes from the board and 
 beckoned, and the room filled with slaves ; and 
 behind them was one taller than the habit of
 
 92 THE SWORD OF THE KADI 
 
 their stature, bearing a great sword. Raising my 
 face from the darkening room I glanced through 
 the archway and beheld the dome of the Western 
 Gate, as scarlet in the sunset as the ribbon upon 
 the naked arm of my beloved. 
 
 ' There is yet one half-hour, my son," 1 said the 
 Kadi. 
 
 The faces of the maidens wore a marvelling 
 look, but all was silent in that room. Dazed with 
 the play and my long solicitude, I let my gaze go 
 round them. Foremost of them all was one, tall, 
 most fair with flowing locks, with a great deli- 
 cateness of air, bound round with a blue band 
 that did her infinite service. And it seemed to 
 me, as I gazed at her, that there lurked in her 
 blue eyes a melting humour to seduce the soul of 
 man from the straight way of honour. So out of 
 keeping was it with that time that involuntarily 
 I swept round and found Haidee's great eyes of 
 brown fastened upon me utterly. Her bosom 
 quickened with her breathing, and beneath the 
 soft orbs of those great eyes I could see the soul 
 couchant, chained only by a woman's fear. 
 With a cry I fell into my work again. 
 
 The Kadi took the long pipe from his mouth and 
 stroked his beard. The pieces straggled upon my 
 board, and on the margin of the crowning square 
 gleamed the blue ; behind showed the scarlet 
 infinitely removed. I looked up, and once more 
 the blue eyes gazed into my face ; they were soft
 
 THE SWORD OF THE KADI 93 
 
 and roguish as the twinkling sea, but the eyes of 
 Haidee were as the gazelle. I turned upon my 
 love, backward, alas ! in the cold distance ; but a 
 little stood betwixt me and doom. I felt the 
 slaves draw nearer from behind ; the Kadi stroked 
 his beard. Haidee's lustrous eyes leapt out upon 
 me in fear and passionate love, as she leaned to 
 me nearer from her place ; but the mist was in 
 mine, and the blue eyes smiled at me through 
 the haze, the white arm gleamed in the falling 
 sunlight. Haidee was in the dusk. 
 
 A sudden stir rose in the room ; the Kadi 
 moved slightly ; and I was aware of the great 
 sword turned to the red of blood above me. My 
 flesh crept upon my body in the silence. I put my 
 fingers to the blue piece upon the board and 
 thrust it forward : I saw Haidee's soul burst its 
 bonds and leap forth ; the sunlight faded swiftly ; 
 I reached out my hand and laid it upon a warm, 
 palpitating bosom. 
 
 ' O Kadi, 1 I cried, throbbing, ' the blue was 
 my choice. 1 
 
 The Kadi smiled.
 
 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 LEFT the ship at the nearest port 
 and went direct to London with my 
 mind full of her. It was odd that 
 throughout my long absence I had 
 thought of her but little (the life 
 had been crowded with distractions), and yet as I 
 drew home her face came nearest from the past, 
 remitting the vivid impressions of my voyage 
 into an obscure background. It was her eyes I 
 watched in the blue waves ; her frown clouded 
 the skies ; her smile danced in the ripples. To 
 love her was no shame, I thought, though to 
 proclaim that love had been dishonour. The 
 touch of that land that contained her gracious 
 body thrilled me as no fervour for my country 
 had been able ; to stand upon English soil was to 
 be within the precincts of her worship. The 
 folly blazed in my blood ; I could no more with- 
 hold myself than my thoughts ; hot-foot I drew 
 into the town, with my unruly fever in my eyes. 
 I meant no harm ; I had even an inner joy of 
 self-sacrifice ; to see her was to put me to a new
 
 DON QUIXOTE 95 
 
 martyrdom, and yet I had pleasure in my torture. 
 The Day of Judgment could not have stayed me 
 from her. She had slipped out of my hands long 
 since, but I was mad enough to take delight, as 
 it were, in a dream of visiting her face anew ; I 
 should see once more the lines of intimate grace 
 I carried in my soul, and, masking my memory, 
 go strutting upon my stilts into a wonderful 
 vainglory. She had never been nearer me than 
 now, remote as she was by three wild years of 
 wandering. 
 
 She stood with one foot upon the fender as I 
 entered, her forehead bent upon an open hand, 
 and, as it seemed to me, her face had been worn 
 with tears. But at my approach, starting from 
 her abstraction, she took a step or two to meet 
 me, held out her hand, and gave me her gayest 
 welcome. 
 
 * You ! ' she said : ' you ! Heaven grant us 
 these surprises ! I had thought you in Japan, in 
 Patagonia, in Manicaland/ A little trembling 
 laugh broke from her. ' What brings you here ? 
 Is it peace, or is it war? 1 And she turned 
 swiftly to the fire again. 
 
 She had, I thought, run through a dozen 
 moods in the greeting ; and, acquainted as I was 
 with her fickle habit of mind, the transition 
 puzzled me. She was white to the verge of her 
 red lips. 
 
 ' I am straight from the ship,' I told her. ' I
 
 96 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 came out of a desire well, we have been old 
 
 friends, and three years is a long track in a man's 
 life.' 
 
 I laughed myself; but it was a laugh betwixt 
 pleasure in her presence and fear of my own 
 actions. At the moment I felt I was best at a 
 distance. 
 
 ' You have not called at your club ? 1 said she 
 slowly. 
 
 ' No,' said I, in wonder at her tone. 
 
 She smiled, and dropped into a chair with her 
 individual grace. With her eyes she bade me 
 sit, and leaning to me stared gaily in my face. 
 
 ' No," 1 said she, ' three years is it ? have left 
 no mark on you. You were always handsome, 1 
 she said roguishly. 
 
 'And you, 1 I answered, catching her airy 
 manner ' you are as God made you : not a shade 
 less lovely. 1 
 
 She put her head back with her old gesture ; 
 her eyes danced. 
 
 ' You would have done much for me once, 1 she 
 said archly. 
 
 ' Not once, 1 said I simply. 
 
 Her eyes dropped ; her face shadowed ; she 
 rose and moved slowly to the window by which 
 the street was roaring. Something in her gait 
 struck me as most desolate. She stood drumming 
 her fingers on the pane, and watching the traffic 
 without attention. I too rose and followed her.
 
 DON QUIXOTE 97 
 
 * I had forgotten, 1 I said : * I should have asked 
 you. I have been out of touch with life. I have 
 heard nothing. 1 She turned upon me eyes of sud- 
 den terror. ' Your husband is living ?' I asked. 
 
 She passed her hand over her brow. ' O yes, 1 
 said she ; ' he is living. 1 
 
 Her misery went through me like a knife; I 
 was within reach of her golden hair, upon which 
 the sunlight rested. Had I met her gaze I think 
 I should have taken her in my arms ; as it was, I 
 could not keep my passion out of my voice. 
 
 'But yourself, 1 I murmured, 'yourself, dear: 
 you are happy ? There is nothing to regret ? 1 
 
 She sighed and tossed her head. ' O no, 1 said 
 she with a show of petulance ; ' what should there 
 be, my dear stranger ? 1 She walked back to her 
 seat with an indifferent air. ' Come, 1 she went 
 on more pleasantly, when we were seated again, 
 'tell me of your doings. The world has not 
 stood still for you, I suppose. 1 
 
 My tongue was clumsy enough in her com- 
 pany, but I traversed with her my adventures^ in 
 rude places. She heard me, smiling with her 
 eyes, put in a question to exhibit me her interest, 
 laughed with me at my dragoman's extrava- 
 gances, stared in distressful sympathy with my 
 dangers; and presently, as though with a slow 
 ebbing of her curiosity, drew off into a silent 
 reticence from which my greatest sensations 
 might not disturb her. She sat back in her
 
 98 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 lounge, regarding me with tacit, restless eyes, 
 as if my voice were merely the chatter of a 
 phantom ; and ever and anon would start, and, 
 clutching at the arms of her chair, glance to the 
 window with a scared face. The comedy, if such 
 it was, had no attraction for me. My narrative 
 lost heart, my tongue halted ; she came out of 
 herself and looked at me piteously. I was unable 
 to refrain my pardon ; I smiled, and dipping into 
 my pocket drew forth a string of pearls and 
 dangled them before her. She brightened at the 
 sight, and catching them in her hands appraised 
 their beauty. 
 
 ' Of your own fishing ? ' she asked prettily. 
 
 I nodded. ' They fit with your white neck,' I 
 said. 
 
 Her glance fell shyly upon me; she threw 
 them round her throat, rose, and, turning to the 
 mirror over the mantel, laughed and looked at me. 
 
 'Once,' said she, smiling, 'these would have 
 been for me/ 
 
 ' Not once,' I murmured a second time that 
 day. I strove to move my eyes from her, fearful 
 what they might reveal ; but, meeting hers, I saw 
 therein a strange look that set the pulses beating 
 in my body. Her cheeks were drawn as with 
 pain, but her full orbs seemed to yearn towards 
 me. My voice trembled. 
 
 ' They are yours,' I said ; ' I have loved you, as 
 you know, for years.'
 
 DON QUIXOTE 99 
 
 Suddenly she sprang to me, and put her arms 
 about me. 
 
 'Take me away, 1 she cried, 'take me away. 
 Let me go with you. Take me away ! ' and her 
 weeping face was lifted to mine in a passion of 
 entreaty. 
 
 The thing passed in a flash. I had scarce 
 realised her arms were round me (so staggered 
 was I by her movement) when she was gone from 
 me, and leaned against the fireplace sobbing. I 
 leapt to her; she stepped aside and burst into 
 laughter. 
 
 ' I was born for the stage,' she said. ' My dear 
 traveller, was it not wonderful ? What did you 
 think ? Don't speak of proprieties,"" she cried, 
 waving her hand fantastically, and showing her 
 white teeth in her laughter : ' I know they were 
 round your neck. But it is art it is art ; ' and 
 her merriment rang through the room. She 
 finished with a little gasp that left her red mouth 
 open. 
 
 I had not recovered from my wonder, and my 
 heart ached with bitterness. I took my hat and 
 moved towards the door. 
 
 ' I am sorry,' I said, and my voice was low 
 ' I am sorry not to have played up to you 
 more worthily. I have the misfortune to feel 
 and not to simulate. On the stage I had been 
 useless save in loving you.' I paused Hear the 
 door. ' Forgive my sincerity,' I said.
 
 100 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 ' Are you going ? ' she asked indifferently. My 
 answer was to turn the handle ; for my limbs 
 were trembling with the stress of that interview. 
 Suddenly she was beside me, her back against 
 the door. 
 
 'You shall not go, 1 she panted. ' I will not 
 have you go. Stay ! Stay ! ' she pleaded earnestly. 
 ' You do not understand. I will tell you I will 
 tell you, 1 she gasped. ' You think me mad. You 
 shall know this afternoon. 1 
 
 I could not doubt the reality of her emotion. 
 I turned and went back ; and for a time neither 
 of us spoke. 
 
 'You think me mad, 1 she repeated presently, 
 as though the silence were too much for her. ' I 
 could not bear you to leave me; 1 and, with a 
 little hysterical laugh, ' yours is not the only neck 
 I have clasped, 1 she said. 
 
 Utterly bewildered at the remarkable turn in 
 our intercourse, I went mechanically to the 
 window without reply. In an instant the street 
 filled with howling news-boys. There was a 
 sharp cry ; I felt a hand on my shoulder, and, 
 turning, found her white face near me. 
 
 ' Come to the fire, 1 she whispered hoarsely. 
 ' Don't stay here. Come to the fire. 1 
 
 I was so lost in my amazement that I could do 
 nothing but obey her, and was on the point of 
 moving, when as quickly she stopped me. 
 
 'No, no, 1 she said. 'I have no right. You
 
 DON QUIXOTE 101 
 
 shall know. The window, 1 she cried ; ' the news- 
 boys ! It is all come at last, 1 and buried her face 
 in her hands. 
 
 I looked out into the street. The tide ran full 
 along the roadway ; cabs rattled and carts rolled ; 
 a flowing stream of passengers went by. A boy 
 flashed into sight, and paused, trailing a news- 
 bill. There was a deathly quiet in the room ,- 
 then suddenly I turned, stricken with a sickly 
 dread. Her eyes were upon me as the eyes of 
 a hunted creature ; she crouched in her chair ; a 
 sob broke from her. 
 
 'I said you should know," 1 she whispered, so 
 lowly that I could barely hear her. 
 
 4 It is you ? ' I asked, and scarce knew my own 
 voice. The dishonour of this fair woman so 
 publicly proclaimed touched me to the quick. 
 She made no answer. The frail body seemed to 
 shrink, looked wan and pitiful ; the white bosom 
 rose and fell in a tumult ; the eyes were wide 
 and wild upon me. 'What is this you have 
 done? 1 I cried. 
 
 ' Had it been for you ' she whispered. 
 
 ' My God ! ' I said. Her words choked back 
 my scorn and indignation. Had it been for me 
 she had sinned, I had forgiven her for her great 
 temptation. 
 
 ' I was so lonely ,' she whispered. ' He left me 
 to myself, used me unkindly. One must have 
 distractions. You too had forsaken me, and
 
 102 DON QUIXOTE 
 
 were half the world away. The Devil tempted 
 me, not love. 1 
 
 I held my peace. 
 
 ' My God ! ' she cried, ' I have had no love but 
 for you.' 
 
 ' This man ? ' I said. 
 
 ' I hate him," 1 she flashed forth ; 'oh, I hate 
 him. 1 
 
 At that moment the door opened. I know not 
 what instinct proclaimed to me his identity, and 
 at this point of time I can hardly recall the exact 
 sequence of the next events. But in that instant 
 I knew him. Her face, with its craven fear and 
 hatred, shrank from him. He made towards her, 
 not noticing my presence. With her eyes she 
 repulsed him, but he only grinned. 
 
 ' The Devil take these lawyers, 1 said he. ' My 
 dear, we have crossed the Rubicon, as you may 
 know from the streets. Let us make as comfort- 
 able a bargain as possible. 1 
 
 Her eyes burned ; her voice rebelled in her 
 throat ; she leaned away spasmodically. A 
 thousand times had those lustrous eyes, that 
 graceful form, that dainty head, risen into my 
 mind and dwelt in my dreams. And now she 
 lay there pitiful and shrunken, her lovely face 
 aghast with the horror of this approach, mutely 
 calling for protection, so humble, so hopeless, and 
 so lovely still. Something rose within me and 
 surged into my throat; my brain went round
 
 DON QUIXOTE 103 
 
 in a whirl and settled. I strode out of my 
 corner into the light. 
 
 ' Sir, 1 said I, ' whatever is your business with 
 this lady, it shall be with me, who am her future 
 husband."
 
 THE ADVICE OF ACHATES 
 
 HERE had never been the slightest 
 question as to their relations. I had 
 indeed fallen at one time into the 
 common folly of the lover, and nursed 
 a bitter jealousy of him, but after the 
 passage of this madness the merest observation 
 had been sufficient to re-assure me. It is true he 
 was unmarried, and had many qualities that take 
 a woman, but I believe he was really quite in- 
 different to the sex save as the source of some 
 amusing friends. He was very sober and good- 
 natured, and had a lazy regard for every one that 
 came within his acquaintance. The two had 
 grown up in the same countryside, and were on 
 terms of unusual intimacy. She considered him 
 a man of the world, which he was beyond 
 question, and assumed him as a person of pro- 
 found knowledge, which as certainly he was not. 
 These opinions, with those early associations, 
 were the credentials upon which she assigned him 
 the position of her guide and counsellor. He 
 was no doubt an excellent fellow, sufficiently 
 
 104
 
 THE ADVICE OF ACHATES 105 
 
 wise; but from the moment of my infatuation 
 I viewed his easy access to her with much chagrin 
 and envy. So close a proximity was denied me, 
 though I made the most desperate efforts to 
 obtain her confidence. It seemed that I was 
 never to persuade her of her affection for me. In 
 the privacy of my own thoughts I had long 
 since resolved upon the state of her heart. Many 
 signs pointed at her condition ; for one thing 
 she had come to betray a blushing embarrass- 
 ment if we met of a sudden, and though she 
 was able to recover pretty quickly, after the 
 manner of women, yet her eyes would still hold 
 their trouble for some little time, as though her 
 nature were but slowly settling from its dis- 
 turbance. Indeed she was herself most uncertain 
 of her mind, and sometimes I thought I had 
 detected in her little airs of conduct a fear of 
 her own bewilderment. She was new to the 
 sensations, and avoided considering them with an 
 instinct something between awe and shame. I 
 think if she had found the courage to confront 
 herself boldly she would have confessed to an 
 attachment for me, would at least have realised 
 in what current she was drifting, even if she did 
 not acknowledge it openly. But hitherto her 
 heart had been absolutely virginal, and to find 
 it suddenly active with strange feelings was to 
 throw her into a confusion she could not under- 
 stand. Her soul was so private and so dainty
 
 106 THE ADVICE OF ACHATES 
 
 that the presence therein of a new and foreign 
 interest set her quivering with maidenly alarm ; 
 she fled from the thought and memory of it, 
 but there it was, still awaiting her on her re- 
 turn, a veiled and silent mystery she would not 
 examine. It was this doubt drove her back 
 upon her established companion, not for advice 
 indeed, but as a familiar landmark with which 
 she need have no scruples. 
 
 My passion was very manifest, and I was 
 aware he watched it, as it were, out of his 
 sleepy eyes. I did not mind that the world should 
 observe it, if only it were from a little distance ; 
 but that he, so close a neighbour of her own, 
 so intimate an environment of our two selves, 
 should be the witness of my uneven passage to 
 her heart, chafed me beyond endurance. I be- 
 lieve he was so indifferent to her beauty that 
 it was a quiet amusement for him to note the 
 love of others for her. Of all these I was 
 assuredly the most in her thoughts, and yet she 
 held me at a greater distance than any, while 
 he looked on with his smile. He was privileged 
 with opportunities of sight and touch of her, 
 which were nothing to him, but would have 
 been all the world to me. Had he been her 
 brother, their close friendship would not have 
 annoyed me ; but there he was, unperturbed, in 
 serene possession, so to say, with the most obvious 
 and irresistible chances to his hand and not a
 
 THE ADVICE OF ACHATES 107 
 
 natural tie between them. It is true he was 
 never impertinent in his observance, never by a 
 word gave me a hint of his knowledge ; but his 
 eyes followed me in the course of my passion ; 
 and it irked me to remark the intelligent regard 
 with which he met me. 
 
 It will seem odd, but I had never put her to 
 the ultimate test by a profession of my love. 
 To say the truth, I still feared her own terror, 
 and was unwilling to risk my hopes prematurely, 
 ere she had been induced to recognise her feelings. 
 But with my eyes, with every act and service of 
 my life, I invited her to my heart, and to the 
 urgency of my silent pleading I knew she must 
 yield. Only this one irritation stood between 
 me and content ; and it was recurrent day by day 
 in all the trivial facts of our intercourse. Once 
 I had a rose for her from my garden. She 
 took it with uncertain fingers and a precipitate 
 flush, and carried it instantly to her bosom. It 
 lay in a coign of that sweet bodice, and I knew 
 she had given herself tremulously to the delight 
 of that moment. It flashed upon me then that I 
 had at last got to my end, and a vision of this 
 exquisite surrender dazzled my mind with its 
 surprising lights. I seemed to see the sacred soul 
 come creeping softly from its pinnacle of virgin 
 majesty down to the very level of my eyes, at 
 last to inspect and welcome this strange love. 
 And then, almost as I would have spoken, he
 
 108 THE ADVICE OF ACHATES 
 
 came out from his midday rest, whistling an air 
 and scrutinising the signs of the sky with amiable 
 carelessness. The smoke was wreathing from his 
 cigarette, and his friendly glance ran down her 
 faultless figure with approval. It rested for a 
 moment on the rose ; then shot silently at my 
 face. He put his cigarette between his lips 
 again ; said the rain was gathering, yawned and 
 passed on. But the light had faded out of her 
 eyes ; she contemplated his miserable clouds ; 
 her voice rang coldly ; she was itching to be off; 
 she turned, and the rose fell from her bosom. 
 You will not wonder that the grotesque situa- 
 tion filled me with indignation. She would pace 
 the walks with him in the morning for an hour 
 together, while I went solitary ; she listened to 
 his desultory talk as though it were the wisdom 
 of centuries. She was uncertain of a strange 
 course if she had not his opinion on it, and at 
 the moment when she seemed to be yielding to 
 the rarest emotions of her nature, his shadow 
 had sufficed to frighten her from the trembling 
 surrender. 
 
 It was impossible to remain in this distressing 
 uncertainty. I loved her in a tumultuous fashion 
 and the tide of my passion might not be unduly 
 retarded. I must put her to the test, I found, 
 and dare my dismissal. All fortunes must come 
 to the touch at last, I thought, and I had a 
 lively faith in my own success. When I had
 
 THE ADVICE OF ACHATES 109 
 
 reached the resolution my heart mounted like 
 a lark, as I set out that day upon my adventure. 
 I found her murmuring an air to her own play- 
 ing in the twilight of the drawing-room. She 
 rose on my entrance and bade me welcome with 
 some show of diffidence, as I fancied. Perhaps 
 my intention glowed in my eyes. She remarked 
 upon the softness of the night, and pushed open 
 the long window that overlooked the lawn. There 
 she stood with the melancholy light touching her 
 white neck, with the breeze stirring her rich hair. 
 She looked very young and very pure, and a little 
 embarrassed. At the vision she presented of 
 troubled innocence I was half in the mind to 
 keep my words unsaid yet a little longer, to go 
 forth from her and leave her still unacquainted 
 with passion, with that mystery still veiled, still 
 fearful of the voices that whispered within her. 
 To rob her of those doubts and tremors seemed 
 for that moment to reduce her to the horrid 
 prose of life ; she stood now on heights roman- 
 tical, with strange and mystic regions about her 
 feet. But this fancy passed like a shadow over 
 my determination, and when, startled at the long 
 silence, she turned and glanced wistfully at my 
 face, I made a movement forward and took her 
 hand. 
 
 ' Dearest," 1 said I, ' I love you.' 
 
 She shrank from me against the window ; her 
 eyes were beggars for my mercy ; but heedless in
 
 110 THE ADVICE OF ACHATES 
 
 the full course of my passion I discovered to her 
 my hopes in a flood of language. She had said 
 never a word, but her eyes had fallen, and the 
 hand she would at first have wrested from me lay 
 still and hot in mine. Even when I paused in 
 my entreaties she made no answer. 
 
 ' My darling, 1 I pleaded, ' you love me ? Give 
 me some word, sweetheart. Give me your eyes 
 and I will read it there. 1 
 
 She shook her head, all atremble from head to 
 foot. 
 
 4 No, 1 she murmured brokenly, ' I cannot. I 
 don't know. To-morrow no I will write to 
 you. It is better. Not to-day. I am you 
 have startled me. 1 
 
 With that, and one look of her pitiful eyes, she 
 slipped from my hold and vanished into the 
 garden. I stood for a while wrestling with the 
 temptation to pursue her, but at length regaining 
 possession of myself left the house glowing with 
 elation. She loved me beyond question. 
 
 All the next day I had no word from her, 
 and refrained from the house with the greatest 
 difficulty ; and when on the following day there 
 came no letter I fell from an elevation of joyous 
 confidence into critical misgivings. I took to 
 strolling in the vicinity of the house I might not 
 enter, and here in the afternoon befel that which 
 once more filled me with the fiercest chagrin. 
 When I espied him entering at the gate there
 
 THE ADVICE OF ACHATES 111 
 
 revived in me all the foolish jealousy of my 
 early acquaintance with them. He then had 
 the liberty of those precincts from which I was 
 an exile. Him she would meet with smiles, 
 while from me she had fled as from a danger. In 
 my fancy I could hear her merriment as they 
 laughed together ; and I not there to intercede 
 against her gaiety. I hung about in concealment 
 in the humour of a desperado, and when, at the 
 end of an hour he came out, her voice accom- 
 panied him to the foot of the walk. I heard her 
 thank him with some perturbation ; and when he 
 left the gate, across his face a smile broke slowly, 
 and he chuckled to himself. Then in the fury of 
 this sudden revelation I could have followed and 
 struck him to the ground. For now the object of 
 his visit had flashed upon me in an instant : she 
 had distrusted the evidence of her own perplexed 
 feelings and had fallen back upon his cooler judg- 
 ment. Upon his verdict was to hang my fate ; 
 he was the recipient of my confession ; to him I 
 had poured out my hopes ; his was the decision 
 that should make or mar my happiness. The 
 more I reflected upon this turn in events the more 
 embittered I became. This was not the act of 
 one who truly loved me ; a sincere devotion should 
 be held in confidence ; that another should be 
 summoned to review the delicate characters of 
 love was repulsive to its divine instinct. Even 
 though she had veiled her problem in impersonal
 
 112 THE ADVICE OF ACHATES 
 
 hypotheses it were an affront upon the sovereignty 
 and independence of the passion. He was called 
 in to pronounce upon the case, as it were, and 
 from him I was to take my fortune. The thought 
 broke like gall in my stomach. I had no doubt 
 now that I should have her answer at once ; 
 and so it fell out, for that evening she wrote 
 to accept me. It appeared then that he had 
 ' passed ' me, and I might breathe with freedom. 
 The idea was so ludicrous that I screamed with 
 laughter, which lapsed, however, into a sudden 
 angry oath. To go through our joint lives on 
 these terms was impossible. One long farce 
 would be daily in progress by our fireside if 
 she were never to be weaned from this de- 
 pendence. A dictator betwixt me and her ac- 
 tions ! I vow I was in love to desperation, yet 
 such a marriage was preposterous, and I took 
 my pen to disentangle myself from the false 
 position. 
 
 My face must have glowered on him as dark as 
 night when he entered, but he nodded affably and 
 lolled in an arm-chair. I could not trust myself 
 to speak, but my silence did not affect his com- 
 placency. He smoked and talked with benevolent 
 lethargy. 
 
 No one had seen me these last few days. Had 
 I been ill or away ? he inquired. And then my 
 my wrath broke out before his imperturbable 
 smile.
 
 THE ADVICE OF ACHATES 113 
 
 ' Neither the one nor the other, 1 I answered, 
 ' merely patenting a scheme to suppress meddlers." 1 
 
 ' Ah ! ' he said lazily, ' good.' 
 
 ' See here," 1 I said, ' I want no interference in 
 my affairs. I can put my own fingers in my 
 fortune, and when I 've need of yours 1 11 ask for 
 them. This letter," 1 and I waved it at him, ' was 
 written to your dictation. I would sooner have 
 got it from the Devil." 1 
 
 He lifted his eyebrows, but made no sign of 
 discomfort. 
 
 ' Advice is cheap enough, 1 he said, ' nor am 
 I likely to give mine where it isn't solicited. 
 Of course I regret your annoyance, but it's only 
 natural. If I am asked ' he smiled and shrugged 
 his shoulders, ' well, what am I to say ? ' 
 
 ' I 'm not going to take any favours from you," 1 
 I burst forth, ' I '11 not owe you any thanks.' 
 
 ' Thanks ! ' said he, smiling ; * scarcely thanks, 
 is it?' 
 
 * She should never have come into our quarrel, 
 but in my passion I had lost my manners.' 
 
 ' I will not accept her at your hands,' I said. 
 ' If she will not have me of her own free will, 
 she '11 not of yours ; and that 's my answer.' 
 
 ' Have you ! ' he cried, starting to his feet, and 
 betraying for the first time a lively excitement. 
 ' She '11 have you then, after all ? Good Lord, 
 I 'd no notion of this,' and catching up his hat in 
 an absent manner he left the room. 
 H
 
 114 THE ADVICE OF ACHATES 
 
 I stood for a moment in silent bewilderment, 
 and then as the meaning of his conduct grew 
 upon me, some bar fell from my heart, and a flood 
 of delicious feeling swept along all my nerves. I 
 tore my letter into shreds.
 
 DICK A-DYING 
 
 E lay upon his rough bed, confined 
 within meagre wrappings, and con- 
 templated the mangy ceiling. In 
 one corner a spider wandered about 
 its dusty web ; the plaster, dis- 
 tempered with the grime of smoke, was streaked 
 and patched with blots of darkness; it gaped 
 with swelling fissures, from which thin filaments 
 hung, and shook at the rumble of passing 
 vehicles. The low roof stretched overhead as a 
 particoloured map, in which his eye travelled 
 listlessly over seas and continents. He had the 
 distribution of the elements by heart, and could 
 have redrawn them in their proper proportions. 
 The squalid ceiling held no more for him now 
 than the circumjacent space within the four walls, 
 than the dingy street at which his attic window 
 blinked. The phenomena of that room were 
 worn smooth by long use ; yet the day had its 
 own slow history. In fine weather the autumnal 
 sun struck through the panes at high noon, and 
 fell on the ragged carpet. There the thread of 
 
 115
 
 116 DICK A-DYING 
 
 light lay inert and dead for some time, then 
 stirred sluggishly and crept towards the doorway. 
 His eyes were wont to watch it till it vanished 
 somewhere through the chinks, along the wall 
 and into the street again. Towards evening it 
 flashed on the windows across the way, and was 
 then gone from his cramped world altogether. 
 The fall of night on these occasions was an agree- 
 able event, for it was as though more incidents 
 attended the close of day. There was constantly 
 some change in his purview. The air turned 
 chilly ; the sky showed some faint reflections from 
 the west ; the mists rolled out of the river ; and 
 lights sprang up in the houses opposite. At that 
 time, too, the streets emptied of its yelling 
 children ; doors clapped-to behind home-comers : 
 a piano tinkled in the distance ; an early tippler 
 beguiled the way with song ; and as the candle 
 spluttered out by his bedside, Dick drew nearer 
 to sleep. 
 
 The day broke bleakly, and for the more part 
 in fog or rain. Perched in his high seclusion, he 
 could despatch his gaze across a wide stretch 
 of housetops, broken by peaks and chimneys. 
 Narrow rims and gutters in the prospect marked 
 the deep streets and lanes that cut this mon- 
 strous plateau into islands. It seemed to him as 
 though he on his heights were the single tenant 
 of a silent and desert world, reaching indeter- 
 minately away, with stack on stack of smoking
 
 DICK A- DYING 117 
 
 chimneys, and wave on wave of rolling gables. 
 Below ran an invisible life in which he might take 
 no part ; monotonous, it would appear from the 
 unchanging sounds of traffic and communion, but 
 still a world too familiar to be forsaken for this 
 motionless and quiet sphere above. This thought 
 had grown clearer in him, had mounted into a 
 constant pain. He supposed he should be gone 
 from this outer life in a little without the liberty 
 of farewell ; and he was kept still within hearing 
 of it, a parcel of the next, to which he had not 
 yet resigned himself. By this he had grown too 
 weak for movement, though the throes of his 
 malady had left him ; and his mind, revolving in 
 itself, was free to regard the prospect with its 
 best fortitude. As he approached death he must 
 fit his spirit for the dissolution : must, at least, 
 withdraw it from the interests of the street, lest 
 it should take its separation too desperately at 
 the moment of departure. To think upon that 
 packed life, its marvellous passions, its snug 
 corners, its spacious breadth and singular con- 
 tinuity, the very chequers in its ample warmth 
 and brightness to take all this into his thoughts 
 in a flash, and to forecast his good-byes, chilled 
 his heart to an extremity of cold. He was upon 
 the precipice, with his eyes full-opened on the 
 fall ; and the agony of that anticipated descent 
 appalled him. It were better, he concluded, to 
 watch the yellow sunlight, to travel with the
 
 118 DICK A-DYING 
 
 the spider to and from his slimy web, to count 
 the stacks upon the houses in his superior world, 
 rather than to suffer his soul to dwell in this 
 torment. When these distractions failed he would 
 have the refuge of sleep, upon which his worn 
 body declined now with increasing readiness. 
 
 As he lay upon his pallet the door opened 
 noiselessly, and a man stood within the precincts 
 of the room and regarded him. Dick turned his 
 head and smiled as at a familiar face. 
 
 ' A little weaker,' said the doctor, taking hold 
 upon the thin wrist. ' You have had a con- 
 stitution of steel/ 
 
 Dick looked at him. He was a man of some 
 sixty years, meanly dressed ; his moustache 
 powdered yellow with the use of snuff, his eyes 
 hard and weary, his shoulders stooped, his skin 
 fitted tightly over a bony skull. He met his 
 patient's eyes, and passed them without recogni- 
 tion ; he had, no doubt, some grave point of 
 treatment to discuss with himself, and could not 
 be at the bother of ceremony. This man had 
 looked into the eyes of death for forty years ; 
 and yet (Dick wondered) did he spare a little pity 
 for this one of many thousands ? The doctor 
 hummed a gentle air ; he sat upon the mattress, 
 scanning the sick man. 
 
 ' It is a spurious kindness to keep the truth 
 from you, 1 said he. 
 
 Dick nodded ; his eyes were fastened on the
 
 DICK A-DYING 119 
 
 other's features. He hardly heard. His career 
 had been brief, as careers go ; he had made and 
 lost it for himself ; for fifteen years he had been 
 in the enjoyment of vain pleasures. He had been 
 at pains to constitute a scheme after his own 
 taste ; he had taken the trouble to step out of 
 his native circle into another he conceived of 
 greater opportunity and promise. He had given 
 no thought to enduring friendships ; he had 
 married no wife ; he had spent upon himself the 
 years of his manhood. This doctor alone of all 
 men that had fallen within the compass of his 
 acquaintance was to compassionate him on his end. 
 
 The doctor took some snuff. 
 
 ' Have you no friends ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' I have a brother, 1 said Dick. 
 
 ' Send for him,' replied his visitor. 
 
 Dick's glance drifted to the window. The 
 street was roaring with the midday voices ; the 
 air hung heavy with smoke and mist. At a 
 motion the dirty attic and its contiguous squalor 
 had lost their proximity, and he was regarding 
 himself with the eyes of childhood. The vices 
 and pleasures of his adult life invited him vainly 
 from their cold distance. In the full costume of 
 manhood, though the frame of it was shrunken, 
 with the complete experiences of his five-and- 
 thirty years, he had now the vision and emotions 
 of a boy. The habit of manliness, like the 
 pleasant vices, had faded inconceivably ; the
 
 120 DICK A-DYING 
 
 ghost of a strong will, bloodless and frail, stared 
 wofully through its prison-bars. The spirit lay 
 a-dying with the flesh, leaving vivid only the sense 
 of horror and the faculty of tears. Thrills of a 
 soft affection stirred along his nerves, and gentle 
 voices were calling in his ears. It was strange 
 how he could resume those preterite feelings, 
 upon which his memory had made no call for 
 years which he had long since flung off as attach- 
 ments unworthy of the larger mind. He could 
 not, indeed, perfectly reconstruct the ancient 
 company of his childhood : for of the faces many 
 came as shadows, some from the grave, some 
 from oversea ; with variable traits and uncertain 
 features. But their memories crept very near 
 him, enclosing him in a warm gush of affection ; 
 and closest and warmest of all was that figure 
 of his brother, now the sole relic from his school- 
 days, wearing the gracious air of common associa- 
 tions and claiming the tie of blood. If his eyes 
 must shut upon the world, let it be with some- 
 thing familiar in that final gaze. 
 
 4 1 should like him to be here,' said he in his 
 thin voice. 
 
 ' I will telegraph, 1 said the doctor. 
 
 There seemed that afternoon a pause in the 
 course of the sun. It was but a trickle of light 
 that dribbled through the shallow mist, but it 
 was long in passing. As the hours wore on, 
 Dick could hear mounting from below snatches
 
 DICK A-DYING 121 
 
 of sound in the house : as each rose he stiffened 
 in his bed with an anxious expectancy, his mouth 
 ready seamed for a smile. Betweenwhiles his 
 thoughts flowed in a sluggish dream, wherein the 
 past was very clear and present. But at the 
 fall of night the doctor returned, a brown 
 envelope between his fingers. Dick rose upon 
 an elbow painfully and searched the passive face. 
 Some change there in the narrow eyes answered 
 his silent question ; he sank again. 
 
 4 He is sorry ; he has a great press of business,' 
 quoth the doctor. 
 
 At the words those amiable phantoms of boy- 
 hood departed from their neighbourhood, and 
 resumed their proper distance. The past fell 
 clean out of sight, and but the present filled the 
 room. Yet the yearning for this familiar object 
 wherefrom to close the eyes survived from the 
 barren experiment. His associates were gone out 
 of his life ; he had quarrelled upon a woman with 
 one, had betrayed the honour of another, was 
 forgotten of a third. In this way and in that 
 he had destroyed an environment of no particular 
 consistency. There seemed to him left now only 
 the bare walls of his material enclosure. There 
 was a girl to whom he had professed more than 
 the current affection ; and perhaps she, too, had 
 taken him at a superior value. But these attach- 
 ments were of the whim, too casual, too ordinary, 
 too multitudinous for grave issues. His fancy
 
 122 DICK A-DYING 
 
 lingered for one instant on this careless creature 
 of black eyes, but the next perceived her wincing 
 through her paint, and withdrawing her dainty 
 skirts from the contact of his tawdry bed. The 
 incongruous apparition fled at the glimpse, and 
 he beheld the doctor regarding him with lowered 
 eyes. 
 
 ' There is no one else ? ' he asked. 
 
 Dick saw his spider nesting for the night ; in 
 the candle-light black shadows dodged and flick- 
 ered over the ceiling; the smoke floated up as 
 incense ; and little draughts whistled in the 
 cracks of the floor. The doctor rose, and pulled 
 the blind across the window. The action had a 
 touch of homeliness, and carried with it sugges- 
 tions of a fireside. He was shutting out the dark 
 from this poor candle, and would turn to talk 
 with him. Dick would fetch topics even now out 
 of his manifold experiences, with which they 
 might beguile the remaining hours. He would 
 discuss with abating breath stray ideas from his 
 rich memories, and make, as it were, a final stand 
 in life. Death should approach unheard in this 
 last exchange of sympathies. Or at least he should 
 sink quietly into oblivion, with some one watching 
 who had done him kindly offices, and had some 
 sense of those agonies which he was to endure. 
 
 ' Doctor,' said he ; * have you seen many die ? ' 
 His gaze moved wistfully over the parched face. 
 The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
 
 DICK A-DYING 123 
 
 ' I have lived some sixty years,' said he ; * and 
 my own death will be at the tail of very many." 1 
 
 Dick's eyelids drooped. Life, then, was so 
 mortal to this man that its termination must be 
 but an unessential incident, so slight and common 
 as to pass without record in the memory. To 
 die with those sharp, expert eyes upon him were 
 to add to the terrors of dissolution; far less 
 disquieting were the cold and pallid walls, the 
 vacant air, the droning silence. 
 
 ' Let me be,' he whispered ; ' I shall die gently.' 
 
 Some one late that night, stumbling to a 
 neighbouring garret by the gusty flare of a 
 candle, paused outside the sick-room. The door 
 crept open in a gap, and Dick saw the face of the 
 little serving maid, unkempt and flurried, framed 
 distressfully in the long aperture. His eyes and 
 his lean finger invited her towards the chair. 
 Staring with inflated eyes, she obeyed the gesture, 
 and sat, her candle on her knee, her mouth agape 
 in a pant of wondering fear. Dick dumbly 
 watched the ill-shapen features. This then was 
 the last human figure of which he might have 
 sense. Other phantoms might rise in his mind 
 and mingle there in a shadowy morrice, but this 
 alone would move and feel and speak with con- 
 tinuity and independence. Them he could ex- 
 clude from his weary brain in a twinkling, at the 
 call of a fly buzzing on the pane ; while this alone 
 should stay there persistent, should dance to no
 
 124 DICK A-DYING 
 
 invisible strings, should stir with young vigour, 
 should be fulfilled of lively motions. He could 
 not predict her actions ; she would be gay with 
 surprises. She would answer his mute eyes by 
 some correspondent expression of her features, 
 would interpret his impalpable thoughts into the 
 flesh of performance, would watch him with some 
 sorrow, would, perchance, tend him with some 
 pity and lament him with some sincerity. She 
 was too young to have this doctor's neglect of 
 death ; and with this poor creature's solemn awe 
 and childish sympathy he might pass from the 
 presence of a warm and living soul, not wholly 
 discarded of a world of which he still was part. 
 
 She had recovered from her emotions, and sat 
 staring about the room with a chastened wonder. 
 It was all too familiar to her ; and yet, it seemed, 
 the discoloured walls, the sooty roof, the cracked 
 chair, were all invested with new aspects. Her 
 gaze returned to him. Her face was small and 
 pitiful ; her years were few weighed against her 
 labours. Dick strove at a smile ; he fixed his 
 spectral eyes upon her. His wits were shining 
 clear and luminous, but he was past speech or 
 action. In his mouth the thought he would have 
 put into words rattled at its prison-bars. At the 
 sound the girl started. It was as if the sudden 
 irruption upon the quiet had frightened her. 
 She gave a tiny cry, which was suddenly hushed 
 in her throat as though she had remembered the
 
 DICK A-DYING 125 
 
 sick-chamber. A panic sprang out in her face. 
 She rose, and, watching him fearfully, backed 
 quickly and noiselessly from the room, leav- 
 ing the still figure with its eyes riveted upon 
 the door.
 
 THE NAIAD 
 
 AS ever woman in so distressful a 
 case?' she cried, flinging her 
 hands with a smack upon the 
 water. 
 
 I rapped my boot in medita- 
 tion. ' The devil's in the job," said I ; ' I can see 
 no way out of the predicament. It is certain, 
 then, 1 1 asked, ' that these garments went afloat ? ' 
 ' Certain ! ' she echoed. ' No sooner was I 
 sporting in the shallows than this libertine of a 
 river had snatched them in a twinkling ; and 
 away they scurried, shooting on the current like 
 a racer. Certain ! ' she wailed. ' Faith, I chased 
 them down the stream to the brink of exhaustion." 1 
 4 1 have gone up and down the banks," 1 said I, 
 ' and there 's never a visible vestige.' She lifted a 
 white arm out of the pool and threw back her 
 streaming hair. 
 
 ' You have been very good," 1 said she. ' Some 
 kindly providence surely despatched you on this 
 walk. 1 
 
 *'Twas a vague humour, 1 I explained, 'an in- 
 
 126
 
 THE NAIAD 127 
 
 different desire of solitude. I had been used so 
 ill at the manor that the sight of my fellows 
 grew distasteful, and ' 
 
 ' It is no time for reproaches, 1 she broke in 
 quickly ; 'you had nothing beyond your deserts, I 
 vow. 1 I shrugged my shoulders. ' The question 
 is,' said she, ' this inglorious position of mine. I 
 pray you, put your wits to work. Oh, that this 
 caprice ever took my silly fancy ! 1 
 
 The river ran in little whirls and singing eddies 
 between its heavy banks ; deep buried in the 
 quiet pool she clung distressfully to the osiers of 
 the tiny islet ; overhead shone the noontide sun 
 from the depths of a blue heaven ; and in the 
 pleasant shadows of the willows I sat and looked 
 at her. ' Let us consider the facts with care, 1 
 said I. ' Imprimis : the village lies five miles in 
 the valley. Should I start forthwith, 'twill be 
 nigh two hours ere you shall once more have the 
 liberty of clothes. 1 
 
 ' Two hours in this ticklesome stream ! ' she 
 cried ; ' two hours of chance perils ! "* 
 
 'ItemJ said I, ' of chance hopes also. May be 
 at a cottage ' 
 
 ' None within miles, 1 she wailed. ' 'Tis a 
 wilderness, a wilderness. Else I had not ventured 
 on this prank. 1 
 
 ' H'm, 1 said I. ' Item : your sex, ere this, has 
 masqueraded in knee-breeches. As for myself, 
 even though 'twas not you in the case, two hours
 
 128 THE NAIAD 
 
 in these cool waters were no great penance this 
 midsummer. Such as it be, this poor raiment 
 is at your service. 1 
 
 ' 'Twould fit me so ill ! 1 she complained ; ' and 
 to be seen so I should die of shame.' Her own 
 whims had reduced us to a quandary, and I 
 stared at a loss for a single suggestion more. 
 Silence fell upon us. Through the ruffled mirror 
 of the pool the contour of her white body 
 wavered and zigzagged. The sun glistered on her 
 golden tresses through the osier branches. A 
 sense of her beauty took me at this absurd time 
 very pleasantly, and I laughed softly at the 
 fancy. 
 
 ' Those golden locks 1 said I ; ' what better 
 vesture for you than that glorious hair ? "* 
 
 A pink flush got up in her cheeks ; she turned 
 away her head. 
 
 'You are unkind, 1 said she, 'and the jest is in 
 poor taste/ 
 
 'Twas no jest, indeed, 1 I protested warmly. 
 
 ' Then, 1 said she plumply, ' you have taken 
 leave of your wits. 1 
 
 ' Maybe, 1 I answered. ' They have bid me 
 good-bye these many weeks I have known you ; 
 and to have come suddenly upon you thus has 
 robbed me of my remaining judgment. I had 
 dreamed of river-nymphs in such a place. On 
 my soul, you play the Naiad most delicately 
 well. 1
 
 THE NAIAD 129 
 
 She smiled faintly at my speech, but in a 
 moment a shadow leapt over her face. 
 
 ' Oh, it is absurd ! ' she cried. ' This odious 
 country ! and this is all come of my affectation 
 of the rustic habit ! London at her dullest 
 held at least no such embarrassment. Oh ! "'tis 
 humiliating. I hate you. Go. 1 
 
 ' I cannot but think,' said I gravely, ' that 
 this adventure is in the nature of a retribution. 
 Yet, for all you have entreated me so evilly for 
 weeks together, my gay coquette, I cannot, 1 quoth 
 I, 'endure to triumph over you.' 
 
 With that I turned to be gone, but ere I 
 had taken a dozen paces a noise in the copse 
 arrested my attention ; and next moment a rustic 
 maiden pushed through the underwood and 
 stepped out upon the open patch by the river. 
 She wore a dainty gown that swayed about her 
 ankles as she walked, and her high bodice 
 paused over her bosom for all the world as 
 though she were a shepherdess from Arcady. 
 Her blue eyes stared widely from myself to the 
 water and its pretty nymph. 
 
 ' Ho ! ho ! ' said I. ' Good-day to you, young 
 mistress of the roses. You have come in the nick 
 of time to wrest a creature from despair.' I 
 ducked to her and pointed to the osiers. 
 
 ' For shame ! ' says she, eyeing me with some 
 scorn. 
 
 ' Indeed,' said I. < There 's nothing against 
 i
 
 130 THE NAIAD 
 
 me. She needs your help, good soul. For by 
 some gross misfortune her pretty robes are all 
 gone a-swimming for the sea; and she is left 
 shivering in the current, with none but me to 
 give her pity.' 
 
 ' You were better away, sir, 1 says my Audrey. 
 
 ' You speak truth/ I answered. ' And I will 
 leave her now in your hands. You shall dress 
 and compose her anew ; so shall the mishap be 
 but an adventure to be remembered with 
 laughter.' 
 
 She turned a pitying glance upon my lady. 
 
 ' But, sir,' said she, ' from this 'tis a good hour 
 to my home, and this dimity is all I have. What 
 I stand in, that is mine ; and no more.' 
 
 I made a gesture of despair. ' Come,' said I, 
 ' let us at least discuss the occasion plainly,' and 
 I drew her to the margin of the stream, where 
 my poor naiad waited expectantly. 
 
 ' She will procure something ? ' she burst out. 
 
 4 Alas, madam,' I answered, ' she has but her 
 own upon her.' 
 
 ' I shall die of cold and of shame,' she mur- 
 mured ; ' pray you, be generous,' she begged, 
 ' lend me those garments of yours, and you shall 
 have them back with interest. As one woman 
 may beg of another, so I entreat you.' My 
 Audrey shook her head ; she eyed her lady-sister 
 pitifully ; glanced at her own pretty gown and 
 then at me ; flushed red to her eyebrows and
 
 THE NAIAD 131 
 
 shook her head again. In the embarrassment of 
 the ensuing silence I turned away. 
 
 ' You shall settle it between you. I'm for the 
 village with all speed,' quoth I hastily, and would 
 have made off. 
 
 4 No, no,' called her voice from the osiers. 
 ' You would not abandon me so. This wretch 
 will do nothing in my behalf. Think of the perils 
 between now and your rescue. I beseech you,stay.' 
 
 In her solicitude she raised herself a little by 
 the osiers, and lifted a pleading face to me ; the 
 water washed and rippled over her bosom. So 
 distraught and sorrowful were those eyes, that 
 meeting them I had not the heart to desert her, 
 but took a sudden resolution to hazard all for 
 her release. 
 
 ' By heaven ! ' I exclaimed, ' you shall have 
 those garments, or I die.' 
 
 She thanked me with her eyes. I turned to 
 Audrey, standing with wonder in the shade of the 
 copse. ' My dear,' said I, ' this is the very devil. 
 I pray you will reconsider your decision. For 
 look you, here is the case. You were plainly 
 come for a dip ; let us employ this dimity of yours 
 during your performance in the river. Come.' 
 
 Something in my manner may have alarmed 
 her ; it was as though she feared I would strip 
 her perforce of her property ; and she retired into 
 the seclusion of the copse, peeping over a bush 
 at me.
 
 132 THE NAIAD 
 
 ' Look you,' said I, ' let me speak plainly. I 
 throw myself upon your mercy. For the better 
 part of this day has she borne with this sorry 
 plight ; her eyes are wet with tears, not water ; 
 she hath wrung her hands until they weary ; her 
 heart is aching with despair and shame. I entreat 
 you to show some pity. In a privy coign of this 
 dingle you might ensure yourself against all 
 observation, basking in the comfortable sun. 
 Then in a little you shall be bedecked in the 
 gayest of raiment, and a carriage, to boot, shall 
 take you to your home. Oh, she is the most 
 generous, and her favours are the rarest/ 
 
 My Audrey slowly dropped behind the bush. 
 ' And think again,' quoth I, fearful she was to 
 fly off in her alarm ; ' she has shivered in this 
 cool stream for hours, and has gotten a cold to 
 perish from. So fair a lady and so vile a death ! 
 Shall it comfort you, my little tender-heart, to 
 reflect one day that but for this cold prudery 
 she who now sleeps i' the grave might still be 
 dancing in her royal beauty ? Her fate lies in 
 your hands. Be pitiful and she will live ; refuse 
 her and she must die. 1 
 
 I caught a whimper from behind the bush, and 
 as I paused, a hand stole out, reluctant, with a 
 gown. I laid it by me. 
 
 * And what,' I asked, 'must be my future if this 
 tragic fate befall ? ' 'Alas ! ' I cried to Heaven, 
 ' the world must be a wilderness for me hence-
 
 THE NAIAD 133 
 
 forth. For she and I were wed but three months 
 since, and all these days shall I have striven to 
 shield her from harm in vain ; and to think 
 now, that this miserable weakling of a river that 
 might not drown a cat must tear my beloved 
 from me for the sake of one pretty prude ! "* 
 
 ' You are married ? ' she whispered from the 
 bush. 
 
 ' Is it not so ? ' I called to the islet. 
 
 ' Indeed, indeed ! ' she answered. 
 
 She thrust me forth her petticoat. 
 
 * But there is worse,' said I. ' Madam, my wife 
 is in the most delicate health. This assuredly 
 were not for mention save to your friendly ears, 
 but hark you ' and I whispered into the bush. 
 
 ' Is it so ?' she asked, weeping. 
 
 ' Is it not the truth ? ' I asked across the 
 water. 
 
 ' I'll swear to it, 1 says my naiad. 
 
 She thrust me forth her smock. 
 
 ' My dear," 1 I said, ' those dainty shoes and 
 elegant hosen ; and we will leave you under the 
 heaviest of obligations.' 
 
 She put them fortli with a pretty dimpled arm, 
 and I rose to my feet with my spoils, triumphant. 
 
 ' And now, my tender Audrey, 1 I continued, ' I 
 wish you joy of the sunshine and your rest. A 
 bed of soft leaves and cool fern will suffice for 
 slumber, and if you be tempted there is the water 
 purling at your feet. Anon you shall dress and
 
 134 THE NAIAD 
 
 drive with the most ravishing lady at His 
 Majesty's Court. 1 
 
 I ran down to the water's edge, and exhibited 
 my burden to my lady's sparkling eyes. 
 
 'I vow,' she said, 'you are the best of men. 
 I am sorry I have used you badly. Begone, 
 begone, sir,' she cried, laughing. ' I will give you 
 thanks and to spare hereafter.' 
 
 ' Softly,' I murmured, 'softly, my naiad. I have 
 bought this wardrobe at a heavy price of lies ; 
 my conscience quails and shrivels at the recollec- 
 tion. And what has cost me so dear my soul's 
 salvation, must surely go to the sale for its worth.' 
 
 She regarded me doubtfully, fearfully. 
 
 ' What would you have ? ' she asked. 
 
 I dangled the smock before her. ' This,' I said, 
 ' should fetch a precious price, no doubt, but I 
 am content to dispose most cheaply of my wares. 
 We shall walk home together to the manor.' 
 
 ' Agreed,' says she, smiling. 
 
 I took another garment from the heap. 
 
 ' By all tradition in the knowledge of men,' I 
 resumed, ' this hath a value beyond estimate. 'Tis 
 indispensable. But I am in a melting mood. 
 You shall take my arm and use me most sweetly ? ' 
 
 ' If it must be so,' said she. 
 
 4 And this,' I said, ' I must suppose you would 
 not be without. Well, you shall redeem it like- 
 wise. A price, a price, not overhigh in respect 
 of your needs, but high enough I grant you. For
 
 THE NAIAD 135 
 
 the intrinsic value of this thing I care not a jot ; 
 I am to reckon from your penury. It is yours, 
 but you shall give me what I have begged in vain 
 these many days you shall permit me to salute 
 you/ 
 
 ' Sir, 1 said she angrily, ' you have put all your 
 virtues to the hammer. But if you demand it 
 and will act thus scurvily by my troubles, in 
 God^s name have your way and be done.' 
 
 I laughed and left her ; and in the briefest 
 space we were on the road for the manor. But 
 now, although she took my arm and walked beside 
 me she was openly traversing the second article 
 of our bargain ; for she maintained a sullen 
 silence all the way, or at the most replied to me 
 in monosyllables. This breach was beyond my 
 toleration, and though I did not rally her upon 
 it by the way, her conduct weighed upon me all 
 that afternoon. It seemed that we had fallen 
 further apart than ever, and at last I sought her 
 later in the day and reproached her faithless- 
 ness. 
 
 * I have kept the letter, 1 she retorted. ' I have 
 none but literal obligations to one who would 
 presume on my misery. 1 
 
 * It was a scurvy trick, 1 said I cheerfully ; ' but 
 I have not yet taken advantage of your consent. 
 Indeed, there was no word of time in our con- 
 ditions, you will perceive. 1 She looked up at 
 me.
 
 136 THE NAIAD 
 
 4 You will not exact it ? 1 she asked quickly. 
 
 ' I said not so, 1 I answered. ' Let us come to 
 a conclusion. Will you marry me ? ' 
 
 I confronted her seriously. She laughed. 
 
 4 Marry you ! 1 she said, and laughed again. 
 
 ' And why not ? 1 I asked, ' I have long been at 
 your feet. Come, dear, will you love me ? 1 She 
 put back her head and laughed in her chair. ' If 
 you knew, 1 I said roughly, ' how much you have 
 sworn to this day, you would scarce laugh so 
 heartily. 1 
 
 ' Sworn to ? 1 she said, stopping suddenly, 'what 
 do you mean ? Have you said ' 
 
 ' Well, 1 I explained, ' I had the purchase of 
 your garments, you will recall. 1 
 
 ' Those lies what were they ? "* she cried, a 
 flash of colour in her cheeks. 
 
 ' We were man and wife, 1 I replied, ' and 
 
 4 Well ? ' she urged. 
 
 I wavered, and my eyes sought the ground. 
 
 The red burned in her face ; she made as 
 though she would cry out with passion ; but 
 meeting my beseeching gaze her eyes fell, and she 
 was mute. 
 
 ' Come, 1 I said hotly, ' I will only exact that 
 article upon your consent to this petition. See, 
 I tear the contract into pieces. Now, sweet, be 
 my wife, 1 and I put out my hand. 
 
 She gave me hers, half smiling, half frowning, 
 and the third clause was fulfilled on the instant.
 
 THE NAIAD 137 
 
 Suddenly I started back. ' Good Lord, 1 I ex- 
 claimed, ' I had forgot poor Audrey ! ' 
 
 She stared for a moment, and then burst into 
 laughter.
 
 MY LADY 
 
 ER complexion is so exquisitely fair 
 that there is no comparison for it; 
 to look for one would be to dis- 
 honour her loveliness. It is strange 
 that though she is so dear to me 
 I cannot describe her with precision. I am con- 
 scious that she is fairer than I know, for my sight 
 dims a little in regarding her; her beauty is blurred 
 for me in its own irradiance. As I near her eyes, 
 which are the full centre of her glory, a haze sets 
 in, bedewing her mistily. I am content to know 
 her thus, though I should wrong her great per- 
 fection. I would not have you think her pale or 
 waxen ; for those eyes and her canopy of hair 
 are full of colour, and her cheeks are softly tinted. 
 I cannot give you any image of her for the infir- 
 mity of words. I have put about to describe her, 
 but there are no terms for her ; her loveliness is 
 new to the world with herself. Her face is so 
 delicately beautiful that I cannot separate its 
 characters ; in itself it is an ultimate thought. 
 Yet from each one of her features I should know 
 
 138
 
 MY LADY 139 
 
 her face, they are so rare to me. When I look 
 at her I am conscious mainly of her eyes, though 
 should I meet them not the rest fills me so 
 divinely that when at last she glances to me my 
 delight flows over in esteem. Observing the 
 conduct of others, I wonder sometimes if aught is 
 wrong with my vision that I see her so lustrous 
 when they can be placid. I know not why she 
 should be different from her fellows. Of her 
 dress I can tell but little, for its contemplation 
 would lead me from her face. Yet they say, it 
 meetly clothes a gracious body. If it is meet for 
 hers, there is no higher praise for it. 
 
 I would not you held mine to be a common 
 affection ; yet I am at a loss in bare words to 
 prove it above the general enchantment. If you 
 could see her, it would be the argument. Her 
 favour has ordered my life so wonderfully as to 
 make me a stranger to myself. I have desires 
 and feelings greater than you would attribute to 
 to our mortal clay ; and I am constrained to put 
 my delicate sensations into poor thoughts, and 
 these into poorer language. I have grown subtler 
 since I met her. I have not yet resolved the 
 secret of my fascination ; she makes of my heart 
 and mind a dim confusion. When she speaks I 
 marvel to find her material ; her voice distresses 
 me with its reminder that there are times when 
 others listen to it and not I. I do not know 
 whether it is this or the turn of her head moves
 
 140 MY LADY 
 
 me most ; I thrill at both ; but when her eyes 
 touch me she has no other magic. I discern her 
 smile afar, and then I rejoice with her. Her 
 happiness has illumined the whole street for me 
 ere she has turned the corner. In my thought I 
 watch her by the hours in her daily progress, 
 hanging upon her changes with tremulous de- 
 light, till I have forgot her bodily absence. I 
 have striven at times to conceive a being of a 
 finer mould, but my imagination has foundered in 
 the venture. The most ingenious of my supposi- 
 tions was pitiful beside her. I would keep all 
 harm from her, though, as she holds me, so surely 
 must she hold all else within her orders. My 
 reverence would protect her even from myself. 
 When her skirts have swept by me I have been 
 minded to take them to me, but have shrunk back 
 lest the perfidy of my kiss should taint her. I 
 fear to pluck my rose out of the morning lest per- 
 chance it bloom sweeter on the stem. And yet I 
 
 */ 
 
 would have her always by me; the departing 
 rustle of her gown is a dirge for me. I bear about 
 with me the marks of my passion, so that to my 
 friends I am become as a fool. I am grown so 
 inseparable from her in my thoughts that I 
 am become her shadow ; to recall her image is to 
 see my own stark face. I am fallen into a by- 
 word to myself because of her: she stands between 
 me and the immediate concerns of life. Time 
 has laid me under heavy bonds, who was from the
 
 MY LADY 141 
 
 first a captive. I have no thought or feeling 
 through the day that does not turn to her. Her 
 soul stands now for mine ; there is but one 
 between us, and that is hers. At nights I sum- 
 mon her picture to me ere I fall asleep; her 
 vision drifts before me till morning. In the dawn 
 I take her from my heart, and regard her linea- 
 ments with dispassionate remoteness. I call her 
 then my dream and my illusion, and vow to live 
 more sanely, as one who knows the gross roots of 
 human affection. But this thought of treason 
 passes in the second, and I fall to crying that the 
 world is mad, not I. I have sworn that the 
 secrets of the earth are ignoble, but at her smile 
 I have forsworn myself. It is odd so exquisite a 
 sentiment as mine should be of human derivation. 
 I am aware that you will hold my rapture to be 
 compound of final instincts, clear, catholic, 
 unmarvellous. But there are deep mysteries in 
 this tangle of Nature. I will deny all earthliness 
 in her. There is naught but Heaven anigh the 
 transfigured soul. I am grown loftier now. I am 
 grown graver too. I have become the prey of fell 
 terrors. Each day an added impulse makes my 
 life more ethereal ; each day my eyes are more 
 familiar with her beauty, my lips with her name. 
 But each day, too, I have the burden of a new 
 fear, that she must meet the chances of the world. 
 I dread the night for its dark vicissitudes; I have 
 a horror of the uncertainties of day. There is a
 
 142 MY LADY 
 
 word I dare not whisper to myself; it is a spectre 
 stalking through my heart. There are such fears 
 abroad in my life that I am a quaking coward. 
 I ponder daily upon mortality. Will not God 
 who has given such goodliness preserve it ? I set 
 out with a vain glory that I had found this pearl ; 
 I am now the humblest of His creatures suppli- 
 cating mercy.
 
 THE MERRY COMPANY 
 
 I E are met with a merry company at 
 our elbows, and are bent upon put- 
 ting Sorrow to shame. In this room 
 shall be none but the gay and the 
 glorious; God send the others to 
 the pit ! Thought pulls at his brows, Care weeps 
 like a jade : let the unhandsome couple go match 
 out of doors, out of sight, out of hearing. There 
 is no favour we would require of Fortune but to 
 commend us to the jocund, to withhold us from 
 the sad. This sober melancholy is no divine con- 
 trivance but a manufacture of the Devil, where- 
 with he would have us mock our human com- 
 position. We make no terms with Sorrow at our 
 board ; he turns in a rout at our menace, and we 
 fall to scoffing at his flight. Time has not seen 
 this craven in our midst since man issued his 
 primeval challenge. Whatever changes pass 
 before us we have ever the trick of laughter. 
 Without, though the street roar with noises or be 
 silent with dread, silence nor uproar may trouble 
 us here : our merriment is secure, our joy is 
 
 143
 
 144 THE MERRY COMPANY 
 
 immutable, we measure out delights with the 
 measure of our lives. There be none here but 
 have grinned through the feast since Time first 
 set them at the board ; grief is a breath that fleets 
 ere the features take note of it, a cough, an itch, 
 a blink that hath no place in time. Despair 
 has no home here ; from the roar and flyting of 
 this revelry trouble slinks away. To assume a 
 melancholy visage were the surest discomfiture, 
 for our clean wits fall upon it, white-hot, ere the 
 expression be set; and the heavy lines turn for 
 sheer shame into a gamesome smile. Nay, there 
 is none here but the roysterer, the free of heart, 
 the quick of head, the heedless, the all-merry. To 
 be wise, we say, is to be the fool of circumstance ; 
 let the mind run only upon the latest chuckle of 
 your neighbour. A dull dog, we say, is a rebuke 
 unto his Maker. He hath bequeathed you a 
 monstrously well-meaning gift, sirs; pray guard 
 Him from the knowledge of His failures. Is 
 there an error in the type ? As you are gentle- 
 men, pardon this faulty architecture. Two dis- 
 positions has He given you : the one unto mirth, 
 the other unto morals. Are you mad that you 
 halt between them ? Life is to us all here a 
 swift pageant of delights ; one ensueth upon the 
 other, grin upon grin, jape upon jape, laughter 
 upon laughter, content upon contentment, con- 
 tinuously rounding infinitely to the end. Yet 
 our feast hath no end, as it hath no beginning ;
 
 THE MERRY COMPANY 145 
 
 for they that were are no longer ; and when we 
 shall be not, others shall have our places. Against 
 this solid defiance Death is but a poor antagonist, 
 this vain browbeater, this uncomely visitant. He 
 hath grown mad at his figures, and hath the 
 thought, poor zany, to lap up the eternal. 
 
 Upon us now and then in our rudest tempers 
 breaks this Apparition. We hear the still small 
 knock, and lo ! the familiar spectre at the door, 
 glancing with infinite quiet about the company. 
 But he hath no terrors for us ; for our goodly 
 fellowship is immortal, and his presence is stale 
 and intimate. He has endured upon us thus, 
 this weak wreck of a mighty spirit, from the 
 back of old Time ; he has become a convivial 
 fellow to us, so often do we see him in our cups. 
 A veteran mild-mannered acquaintance, he can 
 work no harm upon us, for he taketh one by one, 
 and as each goes another enters ; the place 
 empties not : it fills and refills ; more cry for 
 entrance at the windows. He hath no impression 
 upon us ; his jaws drop at our numbers ; he 
 winces from our vivacity ; he has set himself the 
 maddest task. Yea, and we use him despitefully. 
 If he enter, he too must be gay ; we will have 
 none in our presence but is a jester. He is our 
 familiar, our seneschal, our janitor, our meagre- 
 visaged keeper, the associate of hoary age. He 
 must come in to us with smiles for us, or we flout 
 him. ' To your work, 1 we say, ' old Satan ! ' 
 I
 
 146 THE MERRY COMPANY 
 
 This Death has come to wear a face of the most 
 grotesque importance; he has taken his office 
 seriously and with pride, and is grown most 
 deadly solemn. He raps with hesitation, and 
 stalks in with a religious air, forsooth, as on a 
 mission from the preachers. ' Come in,' we shout, 
 4 come in and take your choice of us. Have no 
 fears, old wry-face ; here is no squeamish but an 
 impudent company.' And when his business is 
 done we put him to the door. We have no 
 patience with this grey and serious spectre, with 
 his grin sedate, with his mien austere, with his 
 gait sanctimonious and exemplary. ' Out with 
 him, 1 we cry, ' if he will not gibe ; ' and with one 
 for his fellow he issues forth, a blank and moody 
 ghost. ' Is that old vulture-face gone out ? ' we 
 call ; 'here's to his body disparate from his soul! 1 
 The dropping goblets clank; the table roars. 
 The hours slip by, slip by ; we shall have him 
 again shortly if we pause. Swift flies the newest 
 humour round and round ; the hot blood clamours 
 in the veins ; the spirit mounting from the fiery 
 heart breaks out upon the tongue ; the rafters 
 echo we are met at a feast, and old Death him- 
 self may not stay us. One leans to another and 
 whispers ; the jest flits lightly ; Disdain is our 
 only mother. There is no moment of awe at our 
 board ; there is never a hush, never an hour but 
 has wings. Is any mute ? Let Death take him 
 for the next ; he knows not the way of life. Quit,
 
 THE MERRY COMPANY 147 
 
 quit, an you have not the fashion of merriment ; 
 ancient, staid, respectable Death were your fitter 
 companion. Hark ! there is the uncertain step 
 once more; and there is the hesitant knock. 
 * Enter ! enter ! "" we cry ; and lo, the grisly 
 creature in our midst again, spelling upon his 
 lean fingers, with his silent eyes. Nodding, drink- 
 ing, laughing, winking out we go.
 
 OYEZ! OYEZ! 
 
 'EAR, all ye that make beauty your 
 god, and be warned of me in respect 
 of this woman. Let him that is 
 without her range, and him that 
 moveth in her circle, consider mv 
 words which are of wisdom. 
 
 She has the witchery of the Devil, yet is she 
 nearer in her soul to Heaven than all they that 
 do no evil in your midst. From the outset of 
 your acquaintance she will be to you as the most 
 wholly adorable of all idols, whose beauty is a 
 mockery unto the Decalogue. She will smile 
 with such eyes as shall go shining through your 
 solitary soul, making manifest to you its great 
 emptiness. She will bend to you with so lithe 
 a grace that you will have no space in your 
 thoughts but for the immediate sensation ; it 
 will set you aflame on the instant. There is 
 ineffable abandonment in her movements that 
 was learnt of houris or of faery. Her lips are 
 the gates of Paradise. I am aware how fatuous 
 is this summary of her charm, and yet merely 
 to class her as lovely were to shrink from one's 
 
 148
 
 OYEZ! OYEZ! 149 
 
 duty of homage. If you will suppose these and 
 far subtler graces compact in one favoured body, 
 you will perchance conceive with what show 
 of resistance you will be like to approach her. 
 Assuredly you will regard your finest efforts as 
 unworthy tributes in her service, and account 
 yourself blessed to be admitted to this new reli- 
 gion. For the neophytes in her worship she has a 
 particular kindness, and will thus display to you 
 such natural sympathies as will reveal her the 
 most tender of her tender sex. Indeed, there is 
 nothing too mean for her pity nor too remote for 
 her kind thought. You yourself will consider 
 that you are followed day-long by her gracious 
 regard, and that in the night your memory is 
 contemplated by those frank and faithful eyes. 
 Her heart, you will vow, corroborates her face, 
 and there is none since God made Eve, such an 
 epitome of excellence. 
 
 But I that alone among worshippers have the 
 gift of clear discernment cry you a warning in 
 the streets. You have the folly in your blood 
 and the blink of the sun in your eyes. Pause ere 
 you venture nearer this divinity that to me as to 
 you is the centre-piece of earth ; that has put me 
 to despair above all, the greatest of her sufferers 
 by reason of his most arrogant desire. What 
 she shines in your eyes, that is she truly sweet- 
 hearted, gracious, beautiful, and free ; but she 
 has put a bar twixt herself and the supreme
 
 150 OYEZ! OYEZ! 
 
 passion. Hence shall you behold her as she is. 
 That smile of hers, in truth the significant index 
 of a kindly heart, and those admirable affections, 
 its necessary expression, are of such a ruthless 
 sanity that it is not possible to be fully just to 
 them upon a longer acquaintance. They appear 
 a mockery which are but her inborn grace. For 
 she herself is without guile or evil purpose, un- 
 touched of diablerie, open-souled, gay, light of 
 heart, serene, indifferent, the most natural, self- 
 revealed, unhesitating idol of this world. Out of 
 her glass her fair face must surely start each 
 morning an immortal surprise upon its owner ; 
 yet I will swear it is odds she has forgotten it 
 when she meets you. It is true, the admiration 
 in your gaze will prick her memory ; but the 
 vanity is passing, the picture of her own perfec- 
 tion flits like a shadow over the sunlight, too 
 brief for recognition, too familiar for regard. 
 The simplicity of her unconsciousness is inordi- 
 nate. Each day she goes into the whirl of the 
 world with a dainty delight; each night she whips 
 out of it with a wreathed smile, half for these 
 dear done pleasures, half for the happy morrow. 
 Become by her pretty gestures, she has fallen 
 into them through no desire of attraction, but 
 fortuitously as to the habit born, from the very 
 persuasion of her own individuality. Yet she is 
 aware they are engaging, as she has knowledge of 
 her own loveliness, and with the most surprising
 
 OYEZ! OYEZ! 151 
 
 candour will discuss them with you, should she 
 have the whim. The whim is her master ; she is 
 at the mercy of the moment's inspiration. It 
 will bid her confess you all things ; there shall be 
 no secrets between you and herself; before you 
 the inner mysteries of beauty will be laid bare 
 with convincing sincerity. The idle humour is 
 like blood in her veins, the active spirit of her 
 being. Nothing is set for you, nothing prepared. 
 If you shall behold her at one particular moment 
 transcendent above her lovely self, it is not of 
 her arrangement ; she lays no mine against your 
 heart's integrity. It is true she has the eyes of a 
 woman, and discerns your affection ere it come to 
 your own knowledge. But the discovery has small 
 interest for her, for she has long known that you 
 too must join the worshippers ; and what matters 
 one in a crowd ! If it were not you, lo ! it must 
 be another; and, to do her justice, she would as 
 lief be kind to you as to him. Even were it in 
 her power, she would never prohibit you from 
 your folly. Though the cruelty of her beauty is 
 so notorious to herself, she doubtless takes a 
 certain pleasure in its handiwork ; if so be, that 
 is, no incompatible caprice be dancing in her 
 veins. She will never, be assured, withhold her 
 eyes for fear of their danger. The rest is 'twixt 
 yourself and your Maker. Save on the sway of 
 the moment, her regard for one is no greater 
 than for another. She will deal with you as with
 
 152 OYEZ! OYEZ! 
 
 me, with me as with another, and will think it a 
 pity that some should bear their fate so ill. 
 It was no fault in her ; Fate must be to blame, 
 and neither she nor you. There have been few 
 occasions, I should judge, when she has been out 
 of temper with the importunity of her admirers ; 
 out of her excellent pity and kindness she will 
 not suffer it to interfere with her fastidious 
 friendliness. Though by this her satisfaction 
 must be of the smallest, she will hear your 
 passion with the utmost indulgence. Nay, her 
 excellence is so preposterous that when you are 
 describing your rare feelings she will positively 
 simulate an air of sympathetic interest, as though 
 you were telling of your influenza ; and in the 
 end will condole with you and wonder aloud what 
 cure will meet your case. When you arrive her 
 pleasure is free and facile ; when you leave, she 
 is unfeignedly regretful. Throughout you are 
 part of her necessary environment in a most 
 delightful life ; and the law of her nature is to 
 be tolerant and kind. Thus, should you come 
 into her acquaintance, you will find her : your 
 ecstasy and your despair, as she is mine, who am 
 the foremost and most forlorn of all her victims.
 
 THE DEAD IMMORTALS 
 
 creatures of our fathers' fancy 
 have long since taken flight from 
 the woods and meadows of our land, 
 leaving no vestige upon their once 
 familiar habitations. The whole 
 length of this island, heretofore populous with 
 dainty presences, lies now forlorn and empty in 
 the possession of inferior hands. The soil is 
 turned to ignoble uses, broken with the plough 
 and the harrow, and the hills that once tinkled 
 to the laughter of the fairy now smoke from a 
 hundred brazen mouths ; or at best stand silent 
 in a melancholy reticence. Each hour brings its 
 own disillusionment, but it seems a pity we have 
 lost our hold upon this pretty faith, which ran 
 against no whim of modern progress. The red 
 sun takes the humours from the grass, and the 
 wind set the trees a-quiver, but they warm not, 
 neither fan, the elfin folk in the quiet glades. 
 All these are fled, rapt into a limbo of forgotten 
 myths, where gnomes and djinns and trolls keep 
 them spectral company. The lively imagination 
 
 153
 
 154 THE DEAD IMMORTALS 
 
 of the human kind has fashioned a creditable 
 variety of these creatures, and now that the art 
 is gone with the capacity of belief, we cold inheri- 
 tors of the ages may take our choice from a 
 motley society of perished immortals. For my- 
 self, I have little liking for the Oriental inven- 
 tion ; one could not have used these lank black 
 monsters with special tenderness or confidence. 
 They were too oppressive in their distance from 
 humanity, and it had been impossible to invest 
 them with the common graces of intercourse. 
 They were not constructed for company, and at 
 most might be tamed into some sort of grudging 
 slavery by mystic rings and signals. For the 
 more part their work was evil like their persons, 
 and you could not but feel that they were hap- 
 piest torturing some individual enemy out of his 
 wits. They were potent enough, it is true, and 
 had an admirable gift of incorporeality which 
 must have served their masters at odd times ; but 
 their grotesque and ingenious personalities put 
 them out of human sympathy. One could never 
 have been quite secure with them ; while they 
 lasted, society must have ever been within a pinch 
 of chaos. The djinns would have made a black 
 and a bitter business of the world. 
 
 The Greeks, on the other hand, showed a far 
 more fastidious taste in conjecture. Knowing of 
 nothing more delightful than themselves, they 
 proceeded to build up a heaven upon this basis,
 
 THE DEAD IMMORTALS 155 
 
 withdrawing therefrom the least idyllic elements 
 of their own nature. My sentiment has always 
 lain at the mercy of their mythology, but yet I 
 cannot in my mind wholly acquit the plan of 
 imperfection. The gods and the goddesses, with 
 the various nymphs and resident deities of earth, 
 though a charming society, cunningly and 
 elegantly devised, come too near our human selves 
 to keep their necessary dignity. The notion that 
 the divine and beautiful beings should make a 
 playground of our favoured planet is of itself 
 ravishing beyond question ; but still I have that 
 critical objection in my eye. They were too 
 little remote, too omnipresent, too casual and 
 inevitable in their dealings ; they could have been 
 no surprise to one of any decent experience in the 
 world, and must have worn themselves indeed into 
 a commonplace. This would have been of little con- 
 sequence had they been intrinsically superior to or 
 more profound than their subjects; but they were 
 insufficiently commanding to enforce respect, and 
 thus, no doubt, they came to pass current lightly, 
 at times even for a joke. And yet life was after 
 all the fuller for the fine superstition. It was 
 not indigenous here nor even naturalised, but it is 
 pleasant to reflect that, had Pan not died, he and 
 his train might have visited England. Nowhere 
 would he have found a more free and fitting 
 paradise. I can with difficulty refer the system to 
 our own woods and streams, so long the haunts
 
 156 THE DEAD IMMORTALS 
 
 of other creatures, yet the white flash of naiad 
 limbs in the running water would add some glory 
 to a landscape. These nymphs were but feminine, 
 if of a little finer clay ; they had the form and 
 faculty of woman, no more ; but their tastes were 
 entirely original, and though they shared with 
 their mortal sisters the sexual frailty, and were 
 nothing moved thereby, yet they employed a 
 delicate art in the occasions of their appearance, 
 and the vision of them leaned unto the romantical. 
 You might indeed have surprised them skimming 
 and gliding through the translucent shallows, and 
 taken them at first sight for a bevy of girls at 
 play, but your visit would have a mightier con- 
 sequence than merely to start the pack blushing 
 and squealing. You have no opportunity of this 
 experience now ; not even in Greece. The river 
 goes purling and loitering on his way, for all the 
 world as though never a naiad had dipped from 
 his banks. There is a certain desolation in the 
 thought. Poppies and willows and marigolds 
 and marguerites you shall find, but never a shin- 
 ing body with tossing hair afloat from shallow to 
 shallow, through deep upon deep. The pools 
 are ruffled only by the trout and the grayling or 
 the flitting gnats ; the spirits are clean gone from 
 their accustomed places. 
 
 It was a pretty humour to people the woods 
 also with these rare inhabitants, but there was 
 little proportion in the thought. For the fair
 
 THE DEAD IMMORTALS 157 
 
 and sprightly hamadryads were really better 
 suited to the smiling meadows than to the grim 
 forests. By the side of knotted boles and gnarled 
 branches the lithe and lovely limbs would make 
 an uncouth contrast, incongruous to the reason, 
 however enlivening to wayfarers conscious of the 
 peeping eyes. In this respect our Northern fancy 
 has observed a severe propriety, as indeed through- 
 out its inventions it has been most sensitive and 
 exact. For the forests there were gnomes, 
 goblins for the dark places of the hills, elves and 
 fairies for the meadowlands and dales : mermaids 
 also to wash about the seas. The rivers managed 
 somehow to slip out of this scheme, though doubt- 
 less a fluent occasion of elfin happiness. How 
 peculiarly appropriate was this division of power ! 
 It was the pretty issue of a dream more spiritual 
 than the Greeks, more familiar than the 
 Oriental's. The countryside was crowded with 
 these presences dancing somewhere betwixt invisi- 
 bility and materiality, hovering like things 
 unshapen in the eyesight. Should you close your 
 lids at moonlight, they would flicker before you 
 between sleeping and waking, with the transi- 
 ent reality of darting flames ; in and out, in and 
 out of the vision they would fly, till, grown auda- 
 cious from the indolence of your recognition, 
 they would descend into the warm life, and come 
 skipping breast-high amid the daisies. The grin 
 with which those elves would approach you was
 
 158 THE DEAD IMMORTALS 
 
 of the merriest and most affable, and their antics 
 were vastly entertaining. Not Puck nor Cobweb 
 nor any of them, you could swear, would do you 
 harm. They must have their own small chuckle, 
 being of a humorous turn ; but the jest against 
 you was ever to be amiable. And their fairy 
 companions were models of elegance in minature ; 
 the daintiest fry that ever presumed on immor- 
 tality, large-eyed and wonder-mouthed, fragile 
 and delicate beyond apprehension. Could you 
 steal through the woods to the verge of the open 
 glade you might behold them upon any clear 
 night, a merry band, fluttering in a ring about 
 the ancient groaning oaks, kicking their elfin 
 heels, tumbling and rioting through the long 
 grass-stalks, a pretty company of dishevelled 
 spirits gone mad at the fulness of the moon. 
 They were unlike the gloomy djinns or the very 
 human naiads : theirs was the very spirit of fan- 
 tastic delight, the pure ecstasy of disembodiment. 
 No less than the sad-eyed mermaid became her 
 melancholy sea did those gay mannikins and fays 
 fulfil the humour of the cheerful countryside. It 
 is in all ways a pitiful reflection that they are 
 gone. But just as a noise from your hiding-place 
 within the copse must have sent them all into an 
 instant dissolution, so too at some big roar in the 
 world's progress have they vanished o 1 nights for 
 ever, and only silence now holds the long valleys.
 
 TO ANY GREYBEARD 
 
 lOU are now distant many winters 
 from your prime, yet you were once 
 as I am ; and I entreat you, pardon 
 me if, foreboding my own declension, 
 I reflect upon your state. How long 
 you have lived ! What a term of years has fallen 
 to you, if you will but consider ! There are three- 
 score and more of venerable annals in your 
 memory, and to live a twelvemonth is to see 
 strange things. You are yourself a fraction of 
 the world's age, and must embrace some mighty 
 circumstances in her history. You are no cipher, 
 therefore ; for, even though it were against your 
 will, you have been a constituent of change in a 
 planet which is part of the universe. No wonder 
 this knowledge disposes you to disdain the unin- 
 fluential young, for your movements have helped 
 to set the stars a-tingle. You are of my fore- 
 runners and my founders ; I am of your manufac- 
 ture, unawares ; were it not for your white locks 
 I should have no being. I bow to you : for you 
 
 159
 
 160 TO ANY GREYBEARD 
 
 I have a reverent gratitude. Shall I be like you 
 sometime ? Let me look upon my fate. 
 
 These long grey years have taught you many 
 things, for Time's is the only school. When I 
 consider with what a fantastic armoury you set 
 forth, I find it marvellous that you have got so 
 far in safety; though it is long since you cast 
 away your last ineptitude, I wonder you did not 
 perish in those early days. But now you are 
 equipped after Time's own heart, and nothing 
 but misadventure of the flesh can make a dint 
 upon you. What great lessons he has impressed 
 on you since first you came under his stick ! You 
 have learned to regret not nor to mourn, not to 
 refuse nor to deny, to be silent, to sit at ease, to 
 laugh. In your perilous passage to so remote a 
 rock as now you occupy, you have gathered a 
 cheerful stock of wit, pilfering from a thousand 
 forgotten sources ; and with this your grey 
 thoughts keep most incongruous company. How 
 is it such a fellowship does not appear unto you 
 bitter ? I fancy you must have lost your sense 
 of the grotesque. Your continued joyous exist- 
 ence is most unnatural, for you have violated 
 every spontaneous injunction of your youth. 
 There was never an instinctive longing in you 
 that Experience did not crush ; yet so has she 
 shaped you to a grinning disregard that you 
 stand exquisitely adjusted to her. When you 
 were as I am now, you turned from those who
 
 TO ANY GREYBEARD l6l 
 
 were as now you are, with a restrained contempt, 
 a noticeable pity, an incipient fear. It did not 
 seem to you that they were well, alive. You had 
 looked for their disappearance at fifty, but they 
 surprised you. So do you us, your grandsons. Is 
 it not plain to you that in your youth you pur- 
 sued objects which were shadows ? And, were they 
 substantial, you are a score of years beyond them 
 now. What keeps you alive ? What can you 
 have left for your ruin of a human frame, for 
 your pillaged temple of a body ? 
 
 Yet you take life with the ease and indifference 
 of twenty, with no greater anxiety than has the 
 youth on whom a golden world is dawning. It 
 is true his model is not yours to the finger-tips, 
 for you have the secret of living with ease only 
 and not with elegance. Yet you are more fortu- 
 nate than he ; for though like you he lives in the 
 ever-flowing present, there comes a time when he 
 fears the future, while for you there is only the 
 past. Between you and him lie all the terrors, 
 the sorrows, the failures, the tragedies of life. 
 He is not yet upon the tide ; you have been 
 washed to the beyond. All great desires have 
 left you ; the passions that are born of Life, yet 
 wear their mother to the grave, have fled from a 
 house which holds now but the desire of existence, 
 the passion of self-preservation. You keep your- 
 self in an even balance with external accidents so 
 that they do not disarrange your equable mood,
 
 162 TO ANY GREYBEARD 
 
 and time has formed this habit so perfectly that 
 you yield only to some material disappointment 
 of a primary order. Threescore years have turned 
 you out a most dainty connoisseur of the daily 
 round, and it is only outrage of this taste smacks 
 to you of misfortune. If your dinner misfits, 'tis 
 an offence for the stocks ; but happily you will 
 forget it with the day, as you forget all things. 
 And yet in a way you have but now begun 
 to remember. The champions of old time lie 
 buried in your youth, and their memories are 
 your monopoly. Jealousy died when you resigned 
 the passions, so your delight is at its highest in 
 the company of those who can remember with 
 you. But the memories of coevals are rarely at 
 one, and each will add a new note of admiration, 
 each will extend into the most astonishing par- 
 entheses. These asides are better than your main 
 theses, being instantaneous miniatures of your 
 life, whereas the latter are apt to be cut to one 
 length, excerpts from larger reminiscences, filch- 
 ings from the public knowledge. But this hark- 
 back is your sweetest diversion, and I often 
 wonder how you bear the passage of your com- 
 peers. For as your grey beard turns white, one 
 by one they go by you into the darkness. How 
 long have they been falling away who could 
 remember with you once the great occasion of 
 your manhood ? Once you could crack with 
 many, but now your recollections overlap with
 
 TO ANY GREYBEARD 163 
 
 few. You have not even a fellow to recall the 
 dish old Terre served upon that summer night 
 sixty years since. For the lack of a stimulus you 
 too are forgetting, and if your friends give you 
 leave Terre will soon pass from you as all else is 
 passing ; even the fragrance of a dish must leave 
 you at last. One would think that this growing 
 isolation would strike a chill into your bones ; 
 but though I watch I do not observe you to 
 tremble. I could vow there is not one of you 
 looks across the border enviously ; not one blinks 
 at the open prospect. You have no grudge 
 against your position, nor any dread of it. I 
 doubt if you have ever wittingly set your faces 
 to the mist since you grew greybeards ; the 
 desire of knowledge and the fear of the unknown 
 died gradually with that growth. I cannot con- 
 ceive your tie to life. How much of romance 
 have you left ? Have you still the dear fiction 
 that there are wondrous things beyond the west ? 
 I am sure that long since you have forgot the 
 very name of Woman. She is a domestic instru- 
 ment between you and the dark ; to escape 
 thither you must pass her. She fends you from 
 the eventual evil; you know nothing more of 
 her. 
 
 From this side forty your plight seems piteous, 
 but I dare be sworn you are happy. You are 
 without hopes, but you are without fears ; and 
 you have the pleasant occupation of life.
 
 THE LOTOS SHORE 
 
 >AR lovelier than the vale in Ida 
 reaches this valley dreamfully to- 
 wards the sea. Inland above the 
 lesser heights rise the purple 
 mountains faint and mystical 
 through the gauze of dawn, barriers of the great 
 outer world, spectral sentinels upon the peace and 
 resignation of this nether ravine. Closed upon all 
 sides from the vagrant foot of man, the long and 
 gentle slope stretches through mead and woodland 
 to the grey sands upon the shore. Day passeth 
 after day, and night giveth place to night, but in 
 this silent land naught moves or changes, all is 
 eternally immutable. For day and night have 
 we none, but one great dreamtide beneath the 
 sun or in the shadows of the darkness. Between 
 us and God's troubled creatures that serve Him 
 hour by hour most dolorously yawns the wide 
 chasm of forgetfulness. At the gate of our re- 
 fuge the soul must take its farewell of sorrow, of 
 thought, of labour, of ecstasy, of pain ; for here, 
 one and determinate, is contentment soft, sleep- 
 
 164
 
 THE LOTOS SHORE 165 
 
 ing, still and changeless beatitude. Away beyond 
 the seas, beyond the mountains, hearts burn and 
 wither at destiny, faint and re-arise in the sorry 
 fabric of life ; with us still lie the rebel humours, 
 soft runs the placid blood, gently sinks the weary 
 mortal upon a divine apathy. At this sweet 
 low level do our lives pass smoothly in a quiet 
 sleep of dreams and moving fancies. The air is 
 tranquil and serene ; from the odorous groves the 
 birds call musically, drooping slowly into silence ; 
 all things, grown drowsy with ease, fall mute and 
 cease ; full is the peace that breathes o^er the 
 shore of this our Lotos Land. 
 
 At the first breath of dawn in the wide heaven 
 above us tree murmurs to tree in the woodland, 
 bird calleth to bird in the close thickets, flower 
 noddeth to flower upon the meadows, and the 
 light creeps up the fells and sets the tiny brooks 
 alight; the hill-slants soften to the East and 
 the white peaks of the mountains take the 
 sun. Sleep shakes his wings free of us as the 
 day-star quivers overhead, and the quiet visions 
 of the night pass from the kindly darkness and 
 look out upon the new day through our lus- 
 trous eyes. There is no waking to the sombre 
 laws that once set us limits in the world ; there 
 is no border 'twixt our dreams and our life : on 
 flows the level tide through waking and through 
 sleeping, through light and shadow, day by day and 
 night by night. Of old-time phantom monsters,
 
 166 THE LOTOS SHORE 
 
 grisly fears, and ghostly thoughts were for our 
 nightly portion. Of what be they dreaming in 
 the fevered world this dawn, ere eyes shall open 
 upon hideous life ? Where now be those awful 
 memories on our Lotos Shore ? Night hath fared 
 forth from us, the morning is at hand, and we 
 awaken with dear smiles to go dreaming anew 
 down the long and perfect day. From dawn till 
 noon, from noon till nightfall, at the back end of 
 the long shore the sea washes languorously about 
 the hollow cliffs and open strand, cooing her 
 whispers in our drowsy ears. Listen to the 
 voices in the lazy surf rolling in low cadences 
 upon the yellow beach ! So stilly, so subtly, 
 gather in our hearts the sounds of this silent 
 valley that they appear faint echoes from a dis- 
 tant world : a world of phantasms, a world of 
 shadows, a world of immaterial and exquisite 
 music. Dead is all here to the jargon of dis- 
 tressing passions ; voiceless and vain they cry to 
 us for fellowship, thin jaded wraiths of another 
 sphere gibbering across the waste of waters un- 
 heard, unheeded, dimly seen through misty veils. 
 Eyes open gently and look forth their content, 
 lips sigh their pleasure to the zephyrs. There is 
 neither death nor life within this place of seclu- 
 sion ; there is but peace that leadeth kindly to 
 the end. Mortality hath here its final home, a 
 lodging against the darkness. What soul can 
 travail in this resting-place, what poor spirit
 
 THE LOTOS SHORE 167 
 
 falter at its imminent extinction ? All, all is 
 slumbrous peace ; the bonds of the troubled flesh 
 are broken, the tired spirit lulls and is mute, for 
 this hush that broodeth continuously is death in 
 life, and death is the precious goal of our dim, 
 languid thoughts. Here at least we have an end 
 of pain and jealous joy, here we have put off 
 the body, the weariful disguise of an aspiring 
 soul. The yellow lotos on the meads hath 
 overmastered God's secrets and come between us 
 and our humanity. No longer are we of the race 
 of men ; they loom in our eyes as strange and 
 unknown creatures in a strange and unknown hell. 
 The cares of them, far off, remote and inaccessible, 
 peer at us through the mists of oblivion forlorn, 
 desperate, unintelligible shapes, mad, haggard- 
 eyed, lean, miserable ghosts. In the still noon- 
 tide and the stiller evening we watch them in our 
 visions flitting, a myriad host, about the emmets 
 of Time's continent things such as once we 
 were. And in them cry the voices of our past 
 and woful lives, reaching us yet in echoes still, 
 sweet, melancholy echoes, the phantoms of a 
 troubled memory turned to a soothing pleasure 
 by the benign device of distance. Thus weareth 
 the afternoon to its close. 
 
 And when the westering sun slips over the 
 hills and the shadows fall upon the sky, our 
 hearts are still undarkened, basking in the clear 
 sunshine of repose. The reaches of the valley
 
 168 THE LOTOS SHORE 
 
 abide in a dead calm, and the songs of bird 
 and stream and tree hush in the dusk. Then 
 in the twilight rises a soft voice calling us 
 through the deepening shadows, as the allure 
 ment of a delicate love, the mirage of that 
 earthly Desire we once held so sweet a recom- 
 pence for all the pangs of living. It calls and 
 calls across the meadows and through the 
 thickets, summoning to rest. Here with the un- 
 vexing spirits of our long-dead desires is rest, 
 sweet rest. And the lid of day closes over the 
 dale, and night falls upon us clothed in our 
 sufficient happiness. Through the darkness, the 
 great darkness, comes no thought of care or 
 joy, but the dewy blessing of immeasurable for- 
 getfulness descends upon all ; and life hushes 
 but a little deeper, for here all life is but a 
 hush. The sea washes on the beach to our list- 
 less ears, the fragrance of the ranker dells steals 
 into our senses ; we have made Time our thrall, 
 and there is neither yesterday nor to-morrow, 
 but merely Now. Thus rid of Time, ours is 
 full immortality : though hour by hour and day 
 by day we draw nearer to the waters whereon 
 old Charon's boat floats idly waiting for the signal 
 of a greater rest.
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE 
 CARESS 
 
 is surprising to what monstrous 
 importance the empty habit of 
 caressing has continuously aspired. 
 When all is considered it is surely 
 a ridiculous item in a man's daily 
 ritual, yet upon it hangs the whole service of 
 woman ; it is the most particular act in her 
 worship, to abolish which would be to raise the 
 devil at once upon our affections. I speak in a 
 little remoteness from the whole topic, having 
 studied these many years to regard it from a 
 discreet distance. I do not indeed claim that I 
 am without the influences of the passion, having 
 in my memory a few absurdities of the past ; but 
 I have come, I think, by diligence and abstention, 
 to an equable calm wherein the heat and glamour 
 of this idle custom seem truly remarkable. I 
 make no doubt that it is of our ancestry we in- 
 herit the instinct ; but to accept this is to grow 
 no wiser is still to go marvelling that its hold 
 upon us should be so intolerably severe. At this 
 
 169
 
 170 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CARESS 
 
 late date, one would suppose, the thing would 
 have resigned its tenure, as we develop more per- 
 fectly into the purely intellectual. For that it is 
 sheerly animal is beyond all doubt, as also that 
 it is still a catholic taste. And yet in a manner 
 it is not hard to understand why it should be so 
 popular. In itself the world has a pleasant sooth- 
 ing cadence caress and there is besides the full 
 tide of song from the most ancient days, a tradi- 
 tion nigh irresistible. But the act itself has a 
 charm, an indescribable charm, which I will not 
 deny. I have in my mind a situation in which I 
 can conceive the coolest would delight. To be 
 within a short reach of some pretty maiden ; to 
 have realised her fair proportions at a glance ; to 
 see the rose growing in her cheeks, the eyes silent 
 midway 'twixt fear and joy, the lips soft, dubious, 
 so manifest, so imminent there were surely but 
 one obvious issue from the propinquity. I am 
 free to confess that a fascination of this sort is 
 most natural. Indeed I have myself known one 
 between whom and me I was fain to put the table 
 whenever we met ; my distrust of my own resist- 
 ance was so great. There was never so dainty a 
 creature as she appeared in her exquisite raiment, 
 with her admirable contour, her engaging com- 
 plexion, her shining eyes of blue, her inviting lips. 
 Were it not for a certain timidity in her manner, 
 which rebuked me into a withdrawal, I would 
 have often ventured upon the kiss I had always in
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CARESS 171 
 
 my thoughts when I saw her ; and when I had 
 left I would invariably reflect upon my diffidence 
 with feelings of regret. I can recall that on one 
 
 occasion she But much has changed since 
 
 that time, and I myself have grown to take a 
 more philosophic view of life. It is clear then, 
 that the taste for the caress is still vehement ; I 
 can compare it to nothing so excellently as to the 
 desire for an intoxicant, and the effects are very 
 similar. You will experience a ridiculous elation, 
 you will grow hot, you will turn giddy of the 
 head, and the end will be to set up a craving. It 
 does not seem that a reasonable being should sub- 
 mit himself to this slavery of the wits. 
 
 And though its power be great the practice is 
 trifling. It is the view of some that this is of no 
 consequence ; for all pleasures being bubbles, they 
 say, this is no more inferior than others. It is 
 not my place here to appeal for the abolition of 
 the triviality, if that indeed were possible, but 
 merely to consider the thing as it is : to account 
 for its potency, and even in a measure to apologise 
 for its existence. And if you accept it as an 
 essential fact in human nature, the practice has a 
 fair claim to observance. While we have woman 
 with us it would seem indispensable. And woman 
 herself, it is obvious, serves a necessary use, 
 though that be little outside the indefinite pro- 
 longation of the race. In the common concerns 
 of daily living she is of no very clear advantage,
 
 172 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CARESS 
 
 has no very secure position. There is no one, I 
 may conjecture, who would go the length of in- 
 sisting that he took any genuine pleasure in her 
 conversation or her manner of conduct. It is so 
 plainly the possibility of the caress that keeps 
 him in her neighbourhood, the undeniable 
 usufruct of her sex. Beyond this I see no gain 
 in the possession of her kind. To put it baldly, 
 this property of hers is the one reasonable apology 
 for her being ; all the virtues of her depend from 
 the performance. If we do not take her to exist 
 for the mere experiment of propagation an un- 
 worthy view of her she has been created also for 
 this potent though ridiculous pleasure. I am 
 offering no excuse for the absurdity, which is 
 patent, but simply acknowledging the power, 
 which again is in the knowledge of all. There 
 can be little doubt that the monotony of our 
 converse, with its regular and recurrent offices, 
 would put us to disgust of our condition, did we 
 not find these bubble pleasures within easy dis- 
 tance. Life may be a poor thing at the best, but 
 its distractions are near, and the madness of the 
 lover is one of them. It lies between us and 
 placid stagnation, and, though fatuous and a 
 derivative of the animal from which I for one 
 would desire to see the race emerge, is yet a factor 
 to be reckoned and put to service. The caress 
 and its congeners may often stand for a buckler 
 against evil days, upon which Time may fling his
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CARESS 173 
 
 shafts in vain. This is a most superlative 
 estimate of its value, but from my knowledge I 
 can believe it is precise. In the memory of a kiss, 
 I am informed, men may live out their troubles. 
 Some have pleaded, they assure me, that their 
 lips held the fragrance of another's for a se'nnight, 
 inspiring them upon their rounds to breast the 
 utmost misfortune. If the testimony be true, 
 woman has veritably a meritorious use ; and the 
 issue of my inquiries and my thoughts has been 
 to confirm this witness in favour of the vulgar 
 practice.
 
 A COLLOQUY ON THE HEARTH 
 
 lay upon the hearth, basking in the 
 comfortable heat, and looked at me 
 distressfully. Such a melancholy 
 inspired its brown eyes as seemed to 
 question me of our common plight 
 in this world. I could not but fancy it had en- 
 dured its disappointments, had found life some- 
 thing of a failure, and was yet resigned to the 
 act of living. So much the implicit silence of 
 those eyes revealed to me. 
 
 1 A thing, 1 said I, ' of such emotions should 
 have a tale to tell. I cannot believe you to 
 be the placid vehicle of a few rude instincts. 
 You have emotions ; the tears have trickled 
 down your muzzle. Those eyes have wept ; that 
 heart has burned. Your soul has feasted on good 
 things; you have had your moments of aspira- 
 tion, your doubts, your fears, your incredulities, 
 your pangs, your sense of loss. I, here, that 
 address you, can claim no more. We have re- 
 ferred you to a lower class, but you have even 
 the superiority of wisdom. For I sit by and 
 
 174
 
 A COLLOQUY ON THE HEARTH 175 
 
 bicker with these thoughts, while you are content 
 to scrutinise me with your calm, indifferent gaze. 
 We fret and fume ; yours is the peace of know- 
 ledge.' 
 
 The creature put its nose into my hand. 
 
 4 And with your doubts,' I said, * you have 
 also an extreme faith. Do you question, I 
 wonder, your tedious service ? Have you ever 
 taken a disgust for your calling ? Was there 
 never a whimsey in your head, that you should 
 quit your servitude and go yourself set up for a 
 gentleman of leisure? You have your wits 
 they are of the sharpest and yet you will live in 
 an humble obedience, pleased with your master's 
 pleasure, sad in his sorrow, hungry when he is 
 anhungered, mad with him, too ; with him, too, 
 wicked and perverse. It has not been an easy 
 bondage, and you have ever discovered a sensitive 
 spirit, cowed by his frown, humble in his disfa- 
 vour. And yet you have never relinquished him ; 
 if all else have fallen away, you only have re- 
 mained. Is it of your great heart alone you keep 
 this fidelity ? or is it also that you lack desire 
 that as you are resigned to life, so also are 
 you to friendship ? You are our great Exemplar 
 of constancy ; it is you, and you only, death finds 
 watching.' 
 
 It blinked its eyes and yawned at the fire. 
 
 ' I wonder at your patience,' I said. ' I know 
 your ways ; your fluent vitality is familiar to me.
 
 176 A COLLOQUY ON THE HEARTH 
 
 You come of a brave, sound stock, no whit below 
 my own, and have retained the primal vigour. 
 I have never seen you tire at your work ; your 
 tongue lolls from your mouth, you slobber at the 
 jaws but these are merely superficial signs of a 
 pleasant excitement. You are upon your legs 
 all day ; you revel in action ; to be up and about 
 is your one delight. But you will sit for hours 
 at the pinch of duty ; you will keep guard as no 
 human sentinel is able. No restlessness irks you. 
 You will look into the fire and be still, if it be 
 your master's wish. You may be bored an 
 hundredfold, and will never declare it. You are 
 a miracle of courteous tolerance." 1 
 
 The creature wagged its tail. 
 
 ' Whence,' I asked, ' have you that sweet cheer- 
 fulness which seems to sit so at ease upon you ? 
 Your wistful eyes proclaim you an inheritor of 
 evil ; you have been upon the rack of this tough 
 world with all of us. Bitter have been your 
 sorrows, doubtless ; sharp your pains. And you 
 can have few ambitions, but a meagre prospect 
 the satisfaction of an instant appetite, the hope 
 of a caress. From day to day there is no great 
 change in your life ; your round is surely as dull 
 and immemorable as ours. Never a pleasure 
 presses itself upon you uninvited ; evils make 
 their board with you. You have the fear of 
 death, and yet you are merry withal. In a 
 twinkling you have thrown off your troubles,
 
 A COLLOQUY ON THE HEARTH 177 
 
 and put on your dancing humour. Fun sparkles 
 in your face. You watch my mood and fall in 
 with it. Am I pleased to laugh, you too will 
 wag your tail. There is no distress you cannot 
 forget in order to sport with me. There is no 
 gaiety like yours, no joyous abandonment in 
 Nature so precipitate, so notable. The world is 
 your prison. How have you beautified and 
 adorned it with contentment ! "* 
 
 The creature stretched its nose upon its paws, 
 and slept. 
 
 ' And your philosophy, 1 I said, ' how marvel- 
 lous ! I could swear none other has so mastered 
 the secrets of conduct. You live opportunely 
 with your environment, and have adapted your- 
 self to this archaic muddle we call the world. 
 For there is none that can obliterate as you do. 
 You can pass out of the present and be still on 
 the moment. Whatever trials surround you, by 
 whatsoever menaces you are begirt, however sad 
 your temper, you have but to stick your muzzle 
 to the floor and are at once in oblivion. Sweet 
 is this happy refuge of sleep and quietude. You 
 have the keys of peace ; for hourly in this still 
 abstraction are you soothed and renewed. Here 
 here is your lesson to mankind. For, howso- 
 ever great the tribulation, a little space will pre- 
 vail against it. All things swing into balance 
 again ; Nature disturbed resumes her equipoise. 
 And if we shall be content to tarry a little in 
 
 M
 
 178 A COLLOQUY ON THE HEARTH 
 
 forgetf ulness, as an animal hibernates through 
 the severities of an unruly season, we shall return 
 to the norm of our lives. By what divine guid- 
 ance have you put in practice a truth as yet but 
 partly revealed to us ? ' 
 
 The creature growled in its dreams. 
 
 ' It is so, 1 said I : ' you have also your passions. 
 Derived from a savage and honourable blood, 
 your hot instincts have been refined and 
 chastened by the years ; but they are still lively 
 within you. Yours is no craven heart, nor 
 have you given yourself over to undue senti- 
 ment. Pity you can feel, and affection, but yet 
 upon occasion you can be fierce and passionate. 
 Your smooth benevolence comes from no lack of 
 spirit. Ay, you have the fire of the prime, as 
 you have the energy. And your muscles are not 
 flabby with inaction. There is, in truth, no 
 decadence in you ; you have preserved your vital 
 faculties unbroken, but only tempered. You can 
 fly out in rage when it is needful ; and there is 
 no wrath more merciless than yours, as there is 
 no judgment more discreet. You can define the 
 evil, and will visit upon it yourjustest indigna- 
 tion.' 
 
 The creature woke and watched me. 
 
 'You are of iron nerve,' I said, ' of resolute will, 
 of a strong and enduring frame ; you have a full 
 knowledge of life, and have composed yourself to 
 its accidents. You are a boon companion ; yours
 
 A COLLOQUY ON THE HEARTH 179 
 
 is the most soothing fellowship. You have the 
 finest sympathies, the largest affections. These 
 qualities are of the essence of our earthly desires. 
 How have you contrived them ? What be your 
 thoughts ? What passes in your mind as you 
 regard me now with steadfast and searching eyes ? 
 Were you put in communion with me here, what 
 voice would you find, to what secret would you 
 admit me ? ' 
 
 The creature rose and looked at me ; in its 
 eyes it strove hard with its thoughts ; it whined, 
 and licked my hand.
 
 HER PICTURE 
 
 [HOUGH her picture has been with 
 me but these few short weeks it has 
 so crept into my past that I can 
 conceive not the room without it. 
 I had not thought myself solitary 
 here before, but now should her face vanish from 
 my wall I were indeed in ashes. From its place 
 in the still corner it looks out upon me through 
 the day with eyes of full hazel, wistfully ; and at 
 times the firelight flickering in the golden brown 
 of her hair and o'er her close unassailable lips 
 turns them to a vivid appearance of life. And 
 yet it is not in this demure mood of gravity I 
 know her best, which is in a manner strange to her 
 custom, at most a rare and passing exhibition of 
 her thoughtfulness. If you should see this ex- 
 quisite portrait you would proclaim her of a 
 tender seriousness, one that had caught some 
 knowledge of the workTs travail, nor learnt to 
 smile at it, though the gift of joyous blood ran in 
 her veins. You would misjudge her did you so 
 imagine her. For she has no unwholesome gravity, 
 is not oppressed by outer woes, suffers not vicari- 
 
 180
 
 HER PICTURE 181 
 
 ously beyond a woman's habit, is blithe and 
 jocund, nods at her own poor troubles merrily, 
 and meets fortune with a negligence of uncommon 
 grace. There is none other whom her dainty 
 gaieties so become. She has in truth sedater 
 moments as in this picture; but I am assured 
 that her eyes go no further than the eyes of her 
 happy sisters, her lips whisper nothing more. 
 This visage of shy solemnity is not most notable 
 of her, and yet I love its mute expression even as I 
 love her speaking face. Her winsome smile in life 
 possesses all my idle hours ; her sober gaze from 
 out the mellow canvas moves me to draw a little 
 nearer to her through my daily work. Her gaiety 
 is sweet to me, yet somehow I prefer her picture 
 to be grave and quiet. To have her laughing 
 ever in my face were to wince at a certain callous 
 apathy of the cold paint. I suffer the common 
 tragedies of mortality day by day ; my humours 
 vary with the shifting hours ; anon I am in pain 
 or sorrow ; and that she should be witness with 
 her smile were distasteful to me, as it were to her 
 own pitiful self. And so as I bend to my work she 
 looks down upon me hour by hour, peaceful and 
 softly earnest, till the peace and earnestness of 
 her presence have entered also into the possession 
 of my spirit. 
 
 This picture is now my dearest treasure, a 
 function of my heart, as integral a part of myself 
 as are my constant thoughts and fancies. The
 
 182 HER PICTURE 
 
 gross accidents of life step between me and her 
 daily, but her picture nought may assoil ; it 
 abides with me always, a gracious guardian above 
 the reach of chance or time. Though she herself 
 should fade from my experience (which God in 
 His grace forbid ! ) I have her here still watching 
 me with a most kind regard. Those lustrous 
 eyes, fashioned of raw paint, informed with light 
 and life, keep ward upon the world in which I 
 move, so steadfastly that I could think they 
 follow my diurnal course, and at my failures will 
 grow wet with tears. And yet her own sweet 
 eyes, I am persuaded, have never wept for me, 
 whose servitude is but a vain reiterated tribute to 
 her loveliness. To bow before her is the common 
 lot; man's adoration and her beauty are two 
 correlatives of fate ; the one is born and moveth 
 with the other. Many there be that live upon 
 her smile ; there is but one that hath taken her 
 picture for his heart. That soft face speaking 
 from the wall has grown to be my conscience ; 
 most often has it detached me from the society of 
 rude thoughts and ruder companions. When I 
 am most errant and most evil of mind I have but 
 to look up and read her delicate glance to rid me 
 of my inmost devil. At such times I shut my 
 lips against my babble, and listen to her low 
 voice through the boisterous talk, bethinking me 
 how unworthy am I of so delicious a communion. 
 She in her counterfeit shares with me my
 
 HER PICTURE 183 
 
 graver thoughts, though she herself has suffered 
 me no entrance into her interior feelings. From 
 her outward conduct to me, who am a mere atom 
 in her pleasant circle, she would appear to be 
 very human, full of light, heedless, dainty whims. 
 I should consider, did I judge her so, that her 
 mind runs little on sad phantasies. Her customs 
 are so joyous and unrestrained, and she bears 
 upon her face the marks of a great and smiling 
 innocence. This behaviour doth belie her. 
 
 Still I keep company with her graver picture, 
 though her pretty frolics thrill me through and 
 through. I come from the vivid flesh to the 
 breathing image on the wall. They are both 
 real to me, the same in diverse moods : the one 
 as I know her best, the other as I should know 
 her worthiest could I but look, clandestine, into 
 her soul. These twain resemblances mirror her 
 full nature, comprising the sentient round : the 
 one in life with her brimming eyes of mirth, the 
 other with her sedate and chastened looks watch- 
 ing me about my room. How near had I grown 
 to her were I the licensed intimate of this grave 
 mood in life ! Ofttimes have I caught but a 
 fleeting glimpse of it when the laughter ebbed 
 from her dimples, and it has shown me in a flash 
 how far I stood from one who locked her secret 
 thoughts so closely. ' It is thus I have seen you 
 at sweet intervals, 1 I cry to her picture ; ' it is 
 thus I would have you always in my room. Yet
 
 184 HER PICTURE 
 
 it is not thus," 1 I cry, ' I would have you always 
 live your pretty life. 1 For that soft countenance 
 was not born for tears. Time, indeed, shall bring 
 it these moments of awe: pray God, but rarely! 
 Smiles are fitter to her need than sombre medita- 
 tion. That fragile, exquisite life shall be wrecked 
 upon no austere denial. Let the shadow pass ! 
 It is nothing in the sunlight. 
 
 Thus have I come to read the changing humours 
 of this pictured face, which often when I fix my 
 gaze upon it seems to be instinct with gracious 
 humanity. It is so perfect in its delicate flesh 
 that (methinks) it needs but a little to break 
 through the rigid surface of the canvas and 
 descend to very life. Immured and pent within 
 the smooth dead medium breathes the soul of 
 one, real and palpitant ; and beneath the eye- 
 lids thoughts seem to burn and glow till I have 
 wondered that the lashes flicker not and the lids 
 close not at my ardent gaze. And when in the 
 twilight I look through dim and half-closed 
 vision I can see that soft white bosom slowly 
 rise ; the brocade sparkles, the lips quiver and 
 part, the eyes open from their dreaming, the 
 aureate hair waves in the breath of the evening. 
 She seems to dissolve into warm flesh and come 
 out to me with a sudden cry of welcome. Should 
 she step forth, I think I should greet her with no 
 surprise, so implicit am I in her constant pre- 
 sence : yet a little timorously, lest in her con-
 
 HER PICTURE 185 
 
 tinuous guardianship she had acquired a distaste 
 for my inferior ways. And yet I know that she 
 would only break into smiles, and that I should 
 but feel the familiar clasp of her hands, but see 
 that alluring curve of her mouth. As I have ever 
 been to her so should I then be : a unit in a mul- 
 titude, one but as others, used with no special 
 care or individual attention.
 
 THIS BODY OF DEATH 
 
 ROTESQUE, precarious, defiant, here 
 stands this temple of the human 
 soul, the house of infinite pains, the 
 plaything of organic change, the 
 masterpiece of God. Erect from a 
 trivial foundation, framed of a mysterious stuff un- 
 known, insecure, desperately resolute, fulfilled of 
 gay bravery, obnoxious to all general vicissitudes, 
 it fronts the baser principalities of earth, unbend- 
 ing, unafraid. In its passage out of the void its 
 home into the void its bourne, it holds a brief 
 tenure of the world, the mark of multiform and 
 multitudinous antagonists. It is transfigured 
 from the worthless dust ; and 'twixt that state of 
 precedent nothingness and this stage of delicate 
 life lies a divine handicraft, the ever-recurrent 
 miracle, which should you fathom you were come to 
 the skill of God. Pallid and frail, composite of 
 vain and sluggish elements that blow about a windy 
 world, it has uprisen to such a glory, has touched 
 such an eminence, has assumed so fine a property, 
 that now it moves the noblest visibility on earth. 
 
 186
 
 THIS BODY OF DEATH 187 
 
 From the hour of its conception to its moment 
 of eternal rest it swaggers stoutly against brave 
 old Time, eager to wrest some short and meagre 
 privilege. All the coarse and stridulous creatures 
 of inferior creation come out against it, arrayed 
 as one to lay it in its kindred ashes. All evils 
 have their way with it ; day by day and year by 
 year a myriad demons claw and fret it. Earth 
 unchains her monstrous horrors against it : the 
 vile universe joins in a sordid bond to thrust it 
 back upon its Maker. Out of the deeps, from 
 the shallows, upon the flat, in cloister, upon 
 open, out of space and all eternity issues the hot 
 breath of their wrath upon it, this poor, slim, 
 tremulous continent of life, the latest-born of 
 God, the final achievement of the asons. Earth 
 has no trial, hell has no torture, ruthless enough to 
 inflict upon this fabric. Fragile, weak, perishable, 
 sensitive of all, it stands subjective to the wild 
 hand of Nature, piteous, unpitied, terrible, un- 
 deterred, supreme still over its vehement adver- 
 saries, indefatigable, steadfast, tolerant, and 
 debonair, prolific and populous, the most eminent 
 and sanest apparition upon the whole globe. 
 
 Thus tenaciously existent it endures, the 
 keeper of that superior soul that is ourself. And, 
 derivative of earth, while still our guardian, it 
 smacks yet of its own lowly constituents. By 
 it we have our being this is its finest service 
 and with it we are ever in tumultuous war.
 
 188 THIS BODY OF DEATH 
 
 From end to end of its swift course it is ever in 
 our bonds and we in its ; now the one in servi- 
 tude, anon the other. Twin with the spirit in 
 being, it battles ceaselessly for the lordship : now 
 the slave and abject, now the imperial task- 
 master. Dumb, blind, insensate, it yet lends 
 eyes, ears, and intellectual vision to the soul. It 
 is a clog, a heavy burden to trail us in the mire, 
 turning to clay its own inhabitant ; yet by its 
 means we move, aspire, and pray. Anon is it 
 servile to the spirit's uses, anon it slips the yoke 
 and bolts for ruin. It descends upon abasement ; 
 its haunts are animal and low ; it is fain to 
 grovel ; it is dull and somnolent ; it would keep 
 us perforce in company with our lowermost 
 agnates, after the likeness of which it is fashioned. 
 Yet in itself it is the material conduit of a 
 thousand lofty feelings ; not one fine thought or 
 noble fancy but has run through its vile and 
 wonderful channels. We are its subject and its 
 debtor ; we are its contemptuous over-lord. Here 
 have we our home appointed us : herein we watch 
 its growth, its lapses, its wayward courses, its 
 eccentric, unlovely, and most horrid humours ; 
 and when it fails we fail in synchronism, clinging 
 to it in despair, calling upon it as ourself, mourn- 
 ful and disconsolate, shamelessly tenacious of it, 
 fain to grope a way from out it, all ungrateful 
 for its hospitable sanctuary, weeping and praying 
 for an immortality this thing has never craved.
 
 THIS BODY OF DEATH 189 
 
 And I beseech you, when from your pulpits 
 you behold the helpless faces of the sinners 
 moving to your wrath and bowing in the trouble 
 of your displeasure I beseech you to remember 
 these meritorious benefits. This edifice of dust 
 and passion, whereof you too are in the bonds, 
 should plead with you for mercy ; a voice in it 
 should cry out upon your clamant indignation, 
 asking a little pity by reason of its own malig- 
 nant composition. Here stands the body humbled 
 before the magnificent soul, itself the plea for its 
 own pardon. To the one falls the burden of the 
 long day ; to the other is meeter that divine 
 communion to which you would exhort us. If, 
 indeed, we stand between God and the brute, 
 pardon us a little that we divide our interests 
 unevenly. We have no right to make exact 
 comparisons ; doubtless we are gone astray with 
 the body in which we lie, our close and narrow 
 prison-house, our exigent and sleepless tyrant. I 
 would have you to reflect how ceaseless is its 
 vigilance, how distressing its penalties, and, re- 
 calling jthe long slavery of our fathers, to stay 
 your denunciation of the habit in ourselves. We 
 have been well-instructed in the truth, and the 
 blood of goodwill is in us ; the more part of us 
 have set out to be careful of the right. From 
 our mothers at birth we took the gift of excellent 
 intention, and were framed for honour in her 
 eyes, full of promise and hope. I dare guess
 
 190 THIS BODY OF DEATH 
 
 there be few of us that have not made some 
 gallant endeavour to deal honourably by our 
 heritage, to cleave unto the better way, to spur 
 the dull body from its baser tastes. Out of its 
 ignorant eyes the child looked upon life and 
 spake scorn of its wickedness, marvelling at the 
 lapses of the half-divine. Surely therein the image 
 of God was come to dishonourable uses, his 
 trust betrayed, his hopes foregone, his faith 
 shipwrecked, his pride swallowed in abysmal 
 degradation. But soon the facile-growing body 
 would outlap the soul ; slowly the effort ceased, 
 the wonder died, and the infernal prison-house, 
 our fort and garrison, compact, inexorable, closed 
 round the struggles of its fearful tenant. Life 
 then, you must consider, took an added shade of 
 horror ; for he that was most surely half-divine 
 was nought now but the fell animal of his 
 ascendants, pleased with its pleasures, hedged by 
 its afflictions, stayed by its limits. The iron 
 mould, growing ever more rigid, held in its core 
 that nobler part incarcerate. And this iron flesh, 
 our kind and goodly servitor, at once our gaoler 
 and our bodyguard, is the blind subject of its 
 own strict laws ; which we too thus come to follow 
 and obey. And this body which is death is the 
 sole vehicle of life.
 
 (ONSTANCY has always received an 
 improper meed of praise at the 
 hands of the moralists. At the 
 best it is a dull virtue, of no special 
 allurements for the young and 
 beautiful, fitter for dusty age, and no doubt a 
 comfort in the grave. It would be easy to tell 
 the advantages of this respectable quality, which, 
 in truth, lie upon the surface, and make a pretty 
 show at first sight ; but its adherent failings are 
 even more eminently visible upon deeper con- 
 sideration. Constancy is the fruit of a social 
 convenience, the heirloom from a time when 
 solid comforts went for more than an exact de- 
 light in the offerings of Nature. The ambition 
 of the barbarians that once we were was to live 
 in perfect ease, with as few distractions from the 
 engrossing appetites as possible, and with as small 
 a spiritual reflection as might be. Constancy was 
 to these the happiest expedient, being in a man- 
 ner a moral assurance that in regard to one con- 
 cern of life at least they were to be at no trouble 
 
 191
 
 192 A PLEA FOR INCONSTANCY 
 
 or expense. But though the invention of the 
 virtue was felicitous in the extreme, its tradition 
 to our days is not wholly as welcome. Constancy, 
 to speak plainly, is a most stagnant virtue, and 
 one that should reflect little credit upon its 
 exhibitor. It is one that is achieved with ridicu- 
 lous ease, consumes little time, and occupies few 
 faculties. It makes no call upon the intellect 
 nor upon the soul ; it is neither discreet nor 
 voluntary : but is in the main a blind, mute 
 instinct as mechanical and uninspiring as the 
 tenacious grip of a lobster or the unreasoning 
 attachment of a limpet. Two such primordial 
 creatures duly juxtaposed will grow together as 
 a matter of course, lacking the natural impetus 
 to wander from each other. The horizon of the 
 constant is limited, their environment has narrow 
 bounds ; they themselves are sparingly percipient 
 and massively lethargic. So that it would seem 
 that those who cultivate this false virtue affect 
 the distinctive quality of an inferior organisation. 
 Constancy is the cheap possession of the mediocre. 
 It is followed by its adherent as naturally as the 
 mule will chase the carrots dangling in his 
 blinkers, or the tame horse follow after his own 
 nose. It needs no incentive to pursue, no more 
 than does a wheel to run down an incline or a dog 
 to go baying at the noises in the air. It is the 
 inherited habit of the dull and docile to be faith- 
 ful ; and to break through this habit is no more
 
 A PLEA FOR INCONSTANCY 193 
 
 possible than for a machine to have a mind of its 
 own. It is nothing to the credit of the train 
 that once set a steaming it keeps to the appointed 
 lines; but should it take to leaping the hedges, 
 there were some original spirit here. Constancy 
 is the obvious, the commonplace, the mechanical, 
 the necessary, if you will (for it is doubtless indis- 
 pensable to the work of the world) ; but it is 
 singularly unhandsome and unromantic. 
 
 Constancy is the sepulture of admiration, and 
 has, indeed, an ugly look of death itself; while 
 inconstancy, on the other hand, is always alert and 
 vital. To take the surest pleasure in the workTs 
 many lovely possessions we must have inconstant 
 hearts, which shall find rest nor stop in no one 
 thing, but keep perpetually astir. A protracted 
 devotion to a single object is a reckless extrava- 
 gance of time and soul ; and there is no more dis- 
 mal fate than thus to fall into an infatuated absorp- 
 tion, and become heedless of other opportunities 
 of joy. The plight of one who had put such a wall 
 to his affections were deplorable, for he would be 
 no partner with Time in the eternal changes. 
 Constancy, it may be, runs deep and strong, but 
 it runs also narrow ; whereas inconstancy gads in 
 a broad stream, indifferently ecstatic. Its bed is 
 here to-day and there to-morrow, and the day 
 after somewhere else; none can foretell its eccentric 
 courses ; for there is but one thing certain that 
 it will flow through the best and choicest pastures.
 
 194 A PLEA FOR INCONSTANCY 
 
 Inconstancy is the dilettante, constancy the poor 
 professional content with the humdrum round. 
 The one is a brave rogue, the other but a sober- 
 coated citizen. Life full of faithfulness were too 
 puritan, too dogmatic, too grey and reputable ; 
 its little infidelities give to it a dainty colour and 
 a jaunty air. The constant soul answers but to 
 one strain and is insensible of foreign melodies ; 
 the inconstant has an ear for the newest and rar- 
 est music. The one is a connoisseur, the other an 
 ignoramus. The world lies open to inconstancy ; 
 constancy keeps the gate locked upon itself, and 
 in its moments of self-distrust is minded to lose 
 the key and thank God for a good deed. Should 
 it be tempted for an instant out of its melancholy 
 fidelity, it will withdraw from the beguiler pre- 
 cipately and go to grass again in all humility and 
 penitence. 
 
 But it is possible to excuse the inconstant on 
 somewhat more material grounds. They live in 
 accordance with the laws of natural change as with 
 the regulations of their own being. It would be 
 an affront to one's personal design to pick but one 
 of several attractions. Nature, a worthy exemplar 
 and pattern, is immutably fickle, and be assured 
 it is against her wish and precept if we alone are 
 still and changeless. She has an elegant dislike 
 to monotony, and expends herself in dodging it ; 
 and she has informed us with the same shifting 
 tastes. We weary of a dress, we weary of a
 
 A PLEA FOR INCONSTANCY 195 
 
 fare, of a scene, of a company ; and why should 
 it be for a reproach that we weary also of a 
 passion ? It is only an absurd tradition that 
 discriminates between these different pleasures. 
 And, in a word, to be done with logic, those who 
 obey their own fancies in this matter, and not an 
 austere ordinance, will find their plainest justifica- 
 tion in the issues of their conduct. Inconstancy, 
 be it known now and for all time, is the one 
 superior of death. Our deepest pains come of 
 long fellowship and plethoric association : these 
 will the inconstant avoid. We do not mourn 
 the unknown nor the indifferently acquainted ; so 
 too a passing admiration will entail merely a 
 passing regret. Some are crushed to the earth by 
 loss as by an intolerable burden ; these are the 
 prosaic faithful : and this is their reward they 
 go down into the dust of their own sorrow. But 
 the inconstant may endure many such trials with- 
 out discomfiture ; having paid their respects to 
 the past they have still the future. They take oft' 
 their hats to trouble, but are on more intimate 
 terms with happiness. Day by day they come 
 freshly to their pleasure, as the bee to its work, 
 under no obligation to attend one flower rather 
 than another, with no regret for the last if the 
 next will serve as well, and with no silly vows of 
 permanent devotion. Life is most insecure ; it 
 needs that Love also should be.
 
 THE SHADOW ON THE YEAR 
 
 HERE comes a day in the autumn 
 season, and somewhere, I think, near 
 the middle of September, when, at a 
 sweep, the year unfolds its future. 
 Till then it has lived at full strength, 
 ominous of no failure through all its changes, 
 with no menacing memento morl : with no doubt, 
 no question, of its own absolute sufficiency. Virile 
 even in its excesses, it has laid with an easy air 
 the eternal forces of dissolution ; so that we in its 
 bosom have grown to forget them. So much of 
 seeming power has there been in its lavish per- 
 formance that we have never considered defeat. 
 Yet upon this day of humiliation it is come, and 
 the strong year bows to its mortality with silent re- 
 signation. What an abject to-day, and how proud 
 but yesterday ! It is strange the discovery should 
 be so swift and so sudden ; it conies in a flash to 
 the year and those that trust in it. There is no 
 quiet ebbing of the full life. The tide stands still, 
 turns in the moment, and behold it racing seaward ! 
 This day is surely known to allof us. You remember 
 
 196
 
 THE SHADOW ON THE YEAR 197 
 
 that hour in the sudden gloaming when the miasma 
 of the autumn crept through your nostrils. 
 Last night it was a full moon, and looking from 
 my window I saw the stars flicker out, and felt 
 the cool air enwrap me. It was summer then, 
 and I had the dreams of a summer night ; there 
 was a warmth in the blood of the earth, and its 
 smile was sweet and gracious. One could lean 
 over and listen to the year's fresh confidences ; one 
 saw its young thoughts upon its face. Nature was 
 unsecretive, buoyant, overbearing. To-night she 
 is grown older, and her age is on her sober visage. 
 A little ago, as I passed into my garden to the 
 roses, the dusk fell and I stumbled among the flower 
 beds. A mist rose quickly from the quiet earth, 
 and there was the savour of decay in my throat. 
 There were roses here last night : I watched them 
 from my window dipping in the breeze. But now 
 I cannot find them ; perhaps it is the dusk. 
 Surely last night there were birds in the elms and 
 the sweetbriar. I vow it was a thrush I heard 
 calling to the moon for the lack of a nightingale. 
 Now there is silence ; the dreary mist is creeping 
 higher, and I see the newly lighted street-lamps 
 dimming in the haze. A chill is mounting in my 
 bones. The tide is running seaward ; the year 
 is persuaded of death. 
 
 At this unexpected hour of her defeat is all 
 evil triumphant. In one moment, as it were, the 
 year sickens, and conscious of her destiny, falls
 
 198 THE SHADOW ON THE YEAR 
 
 to thinking on the grave. Through the breach 
 in her fine vitality rise abysmal vapours of the 
 underworld out of the patient earth the fog 
 and the deadly chill ; nor shall anything prevail 
 against them longer. Unto Nature is revealed 
 now her own impotence, and she must henceforth 
 go with her hand to her heart ; stricken with eld 
 she must limp forward to her tomb. It is long 
 months since we knew her young and debonair, 
 when each of her movements was tremulous with 
 vigour, vivid with significance. How vain she 
 was, how riotous, how merry ! She did not spare 
 her thews in the whirl, but drained all the 
 pleasures. And yet she has worn the same gay 
 front into her fuller maturity ; she has been at 
 one pitch till this collapse. And we have excused 
 this extravagance, holding her justified by the 
 grace of her very joyousness. Where are they 
 now, those vivacious measures and that noble 
 vanity ? See this pitiful creature choking in the 
 damp shadows, and take heed unto yourself. For 
 our lives have been enclosed in hers ; and her 
 abasement, is it not also ours ? We have laughed 
 with her and have danced with her ; with her too 
 shall we not weep and become the poor ghosts of 
 our younger selves ? Nay, though we would not, 
 we are so constrained ; our blood has lost the 
 quality of youth. The splendour has faded from 
 the fabric of our dream, from the world is gone 
 the charm that once held us intent upon the
 
 THE SHADOW ON THE YEAR 199 
 
 nearest pleasure. It is not only that your body 
 carries the marks of another year, but one might 
 say a certain elasticity of the mind dies year by 
 year with Nature. You will not resume your 
 occupations comfortably to-night. Do you think 
 there is not a tinge of sadness in your laughter 
 over your favourite humourist ? Has not your 
 study an air of melancholy ? Your pictures 
 speak of the vanity of this passing life. From 
 your shelves a thousand still voices of your books 
 summon you to the thought of final rest. To 
 what end is this infinite trouble ? Of a truth you 
 are a weary soul fighting for you know not 
 whether good or evil. In your accustomed chair 
 your thoughts flow inwards, and you see the 
 tissue of desires and aims you call yourself. If 
 you can find in this moment one worthy aspira- 
 tion, one feeling other than of clay, then shall 
 you find the night a little clearer, the year a little 
 younger. But your poignant introspection will 
 perceive the weariness and the folly and the 
 vanity of being. Your soul is cold and clammy ; 
 you think it on the brink of death, and cry out 
 upon the horror of your creation. How meanly 
 selfward now do all your habits show ! how tire- 
 some your slender virtues ! how misspent your 
 indulgences ! It is but a few weeks since you had 
 the disposition to pride yourself on life as a very 
 sweet benevolence of God. Then you were sure 
 of your footway saw in it a swift, short path to
 
 200 THE SHADOW ON THE YEAR 
 
 golden gates. You mounted on your brave 
 ambitions and soared to pinnacles, doubting not 
 the good of them. Have you no questionings 
 now, when one by one your stars have sailed into 
 the mist ? Should you ride now so high as those 
 month-old thoughts, would you tremble and 
 despair at the mortality of your office ? would you 
 suffer of surfeit and weariness ? It would seem so 
 on this grey autumn evening. 
 
 But perhaps you will not have these untoward 
 thoughts. Perhaps these changes are but the 
 prelude of divers new delights, and your chair is 
 no seat of melancholy, but a place to forecast the 
 corporeal pleasures of the winter. You may 
 dwell upon the rich charnel colours with a deli- 
 cate thrill. You have the secret of survival, so, 
 and are the proper denizen of this world, seeing 
 your correspondence with Nature is so perfect. 
 In truth it is an unwholesome spirit in which to 
 take her decadence, which, since it has recurred 
 through aeons, must be nobly wise. Is it so ? 
 Rots she towards perfection year by year ? And 
 is the whole universe mutable to a supreme 
 glory ? 
 
 It is a trifle changes us. A wind swaggering 
 down the street has blown the drift into rags, 
 and I see my stars again. They are still white 
 and shining.
 
 NE^ERA'S HAIR 
 
 IE WED with a quiet judgment, as it 
 were in the placid observation of 
 art, I cannot affect a genuine pas- 
 sion for her hair. Its intrinsic 
 worth is of the highest, I acknow- 
 ledge, and it would go upon the market at a 
 notable price. But, to be honest, I have never 
 taken fire save at the touch of something very 
 human, and the absolute or the ideal, however 
 consummate, I have always reckoned in the very 
 coldest values. The sheer perfection of a form 
 or colour, the exquisite achievement of some in- 
 dependent and impersonal beauty, has always 
 seemed to me desolate and uninspiring. It is the 
 easiest affair to execute marmoreal contours, and 
 to follow them with the eye is to get only the 
 integral interpretations of sense ; but relate them 
 to a human soul, and the very devil is in your 
 emotions. Of themselves the tresses of a woman's 
 hair discover no particular charm, but may be 
 simulated in a score of factories. There is, to be 
 
 201
 
 202 NE^ERA'S HAIR 
 
 sure, a certain distinction in colours, as there are 
 also degrees of fineness and variations of abund- 
 ance ; but properties of this sort away from the 
 human subject are ineloquent and ineffectual. 
 Were it not for her own rare beauty and the 
 individual framework of her sex, I fear Neaera's 
 hair would be of little moment in my life ; 
 whereas it is now the supreme end and finish of 
 her loveliness, for which I profess a taste some- 
 thing unwarrantable and very inordinate. 
 
 4 God,' I have said, while riveted upon the con- 
 fusion of her face, 'contrived three wonders in 
 this creature, woman : the one her eyes ; her long 
 and slender outline for the second ; and to crown 
 all her hair. The rest, maybe, He rendered by 
 some deputy. 1 The thought is a superfluous 
 blasphemy, the merest ecstasy of contemplation, 
 in no wise the issue of my calmer moments. As 
 at a sober distance from her presence I resolve 
 within myself the complex riddle of my feelings 
 for her, I can see now how unessential, how 
 immaterial, is that one grace of hers that takes 
 me to the upper heights of passion. Her hair is 
 the most idle accident of her composition, an 
 after-thought in her design, a supererogant fancy, 
 nothing warm nor intimate, imposed upon the 
 full, rich body of her breathing humanity. All 
 other parts of her have part in her ; her hair 
 alone is distressingly exterior. I can hardly 
 imagine there is one freer than herself to the
 
 NE^ERA'S HAIR 203 
 
 mercy of tempestuous and aery humours. I sup- 
 pose she is more supremely sensitive to her own 
 thoughts than any of her sex since Eve : the 
 slightest flutter of her heart flashes on the instant 
 in her eyes, and thrills through her delicate 
 flesh. More sensations flit over her changing 
 features than you would credit to the feelings 
 of an hour. Her expressions are her soul, and 
 she herself is an oblation to the visual passions. 
 But in all those outward offices her hair has no 
 part ; the passions in full cry sweep through 
 her, leaving it unruffled. It is extrinsic and im- 
 particular, the veriest appanage to an unerring 
 mirror of her inner self, of a cold essential beauty, 
 changeless, subservient, gestureless, and dead. 
 There is no fancy nor mood in her soul but 
 twinkles a moment in her eyes, which are a 
 record surer than might be devised of science. 
 Each mute thought, demure or wild, rebellious or 
 serene, leaps in a dart to the surface of that blue, 
 flashes and drowns in those deep and silent wells. 
 Nor is there a strenuous emotion that spares her 
 slender frame. I have seen Fear break from her 
 eyes, pass, and run trembling down her body. 
 Disdain has gleamed through those enchanted 
 windows, and quivered on her fastidious shoulders. 
 From those clear deeps Anger has sprung forth 
 upon me, and her bosom has rocked to its frail 
 foundations. And there too I have watched 
 Love circling as the great lights dancing on a
 
 204- NE.ERA'S HAIR 
 
 summer sea. There never lived on earth a 
 creature of such rare poise. 
 
 And her long tresses sleep quietly upon her 
 head. From all these fascinating exhibitions of 
 herself they stand apart, dumb sentinels on her 
 loveliness. I could admit no glory in them 
 separate from her, and of God's three gifts they 
 are the least of note. And yet they stir me as 
 though they were the prime factors in her 
 beauty. To gaze upon her hair is to break 
 the last bonds of my senses, and to set my heart 
 crying in the night. The lustrous brown, with 
 its swift passages of gold, sits demure upon a 
 dainty brow, soft, wreathing, and all-fragrant. 
 Ten thousand wavering threads go in and out 
 together, burning aud shining and flickering on 
 her head. Her hair caresses her ; it runs in a 
 company of myriads, it curves in innumerable 
 tiny arcs, it droops in a multitude of intertwined 
 festoons ; it rises in slow curls, it falls in minute 
 and tremulous cascades ; it is of infinite com- 
 plexity, of manifold audacity. And on a day 
 when the warm summer gusts are chasing through 
 the woods I have seen it, free of its catches, stir- 
 ring in the wind, a stream of fire in the sun's 
 eye. At such a time it wakes into life and 
 blows to the air. It is as vital then as the 
 gay features of her face ; at each breath it 
 swerves, and it tosses ; it riots with the wind ; 
 it runs atremble down the breezes. It keeps high
 
 NE^RA'S HAIR 205 
 
 holiday against heaven, and leaps, a merry frolic, 
 to the sky. Ah, then is it instinct with life and 
 light. Then is she bound with a cowl of gold : 
 a hood of motley gold gold upon her head and 
 gold upon her shoulders, dancing gold about her 
 arms and bosom. 
 
 One confidence contents me in Neaera's hair. 
 So tranquilly it rests on her pretty head, that it 
 will suffer no thought of change. It shall abide 
 against the press of Time, when all else fails. 
 Years shall not toucli it, nor filch any fragrance 
 from those coils. In the face of Death shall 
 this fine grace be left her : change shall bereave 
 her of her eloquent form ; the eyes shall narrow 
 and grow dim ; but untarnished, unimpaired, 
 surely that golden hair shall abide through all 
 decay.
 
 'THE VOICE OF STRANGE 
 COMMAND ' 
 
 SPHERE is a call in that white star 
 luminous in the south this midnight. 
 In it, hanging silent over Africa, I 
 hear the still voices of the world 
 ringing from zone to zone to invoke 
 the sleeper from his dreams. Its clear, pellucid 
 light is a reproach against the indolent round of 
 my life. It was not wont of old time thus to be 
 regarded by a contemplative race of men ; not as 
 a pleasant problem for the philosopher, not as 
 the darling figure of the rhymer, nor for the 
 signal awe of the worshipper. It was a lure and 
 a bait then to our fathers 1 zeal of adventure, an 
 incessant trumpet in the placid heaven, calling 
 to exploration of the earth^s mysteries. Serene, 
 benignant, it yet holds for me to-night an echo 
 of those voices. Four-square to the four quarters 
 of the world I seem to see it from my drowsy 
 street, erect, vigilant, the spy of God's handi- 
 work, the sentinel of a roaring earth. Heaven ! 
 what voices cry in my blood this night ! How 
 
 206
 
 < THE VOICE OF STRANGE COMMAND ' 207 
 
 the new time fades and vanishes, leaving me the 
 plain, bold guest of the past ! Rude, ungenerous 
 Nature screams for my life, and I greet her claim 
 with blows and laughter. The thunderous surge 
 is booming in my ears and the ethereal touch of 
 the mists is on my face ; shall I not shake my 
 fist at the sky ? I hear the pulse of feet, and the 
 wrack drives about me ; dry clashes my harness ; 
 there is champing of horses : let me engage with a 
 watchword on my lips. Here is the splendour of 
 battle ; charge home for chivalry. The drowsy 
 villas pass from my sight ; and lo ! the broad moon 
 over a barren waste and wide confusion. Are 
 not the roaring and the yelling as music? O 
 the fever of those noises, the glory of those 
 spirits, rampant and clamorous ! I have set the 
 winds to shriek. I am betwixt the devil and the 
 blasts. Stars and glories float before me out of 
 the illimitable. My soul sings at the approach 
 of peril ; my heart is the heart of the universe 
 at one with it. I am afire to sail the world 
 around, and fall upon the most golden adventures. 
 These are sounds and visions of the romance of 
 the earth, the madness of yonder falling star, in 
 the eye of which is no peace. Yet is the potency 
 of its invitation paling. Generation by genera- 
 tion does Nature swagger less and her vaunted 
 prospect dwindle. When the earth was young and 
 gallant her legions were indomitable, our will was a 
 poor reed to hers. She had no pity for us then,
 
 208 'THE VOICE OF STRANGE COMMAND' 
 
 as now she has not, and was unsparing in her cruel 
 attentions. At that time to appear in bravery 
 before her was to disappear in a twinkling. Be- 
 yond all question she was a villainous acquaint- 
 ance then ; and would be so now but that her 
 times are accomplished. She has retained her 
 rancours but can only spit them at us, for we 
 have put her to the dust and ride roughshod 
 over her body. She is nothing less vicious, 
 nothing less wanton than of old, but indubitably 
 her dominion has been curtailed, the sphere of 
 her barbarous rule has shrunk. In her youth the 
 world had one neck for her, so supreme was her 
 outrageous sovereignty. Man had then no need 
 of an incitement to confront her, for she leered at 
 him hourly in his daily emprises. It would have 
 been as impossible to step out of her way as to 
 deny her authority ; she dogged the poor wretch 
 persistently, played with him a little, jeered or 
 frowned at him upon her pleasure, and in the end 
 despatched him evilly. There has been no mark 
 upon time so notable, so deplorable, as this of 
 our unnatural stepmother ; and, if you view our 
 attainments in this connection, how shall we 
 appear to you ' a little breed ' ? To have tamed 
 this monster, now for the better part within 
 blinkers, is no unworthy service, and comes of 
 good blood. In what quarter is she not worsted, 
 though fighting still ? The sons of those that 
 perished by her are scattered abroad to their
 
 'THE VOICE OF STRANGE COMMAND' 209 
 
 vengeance, choking her back upon her haunches, 
 maiming and lacerating her in a thousand places. 
 The reverse is so complete, indeed, that I have it 
 in my mind to commiserate her ; there is some 
 sort of tragedy in her case. Upon all sides have 
 they risen against her, penetrating to the hinder- 
 parts of the north, to the womb of the east where 
 the day is born, to the white bones of the south, 
 to the red west, to the hot and palpitant heart of 
 the earth. In arms cap-a-pie they have raided all 
 her quarters. Who can stand against this new 
 power of darkness, Man ? Weaklings, the virgin 
 forests yield him their honour. Mountain and 
 plain and their swarming tenants are to him 
 sullen captives. He is a ravisher of the fairest, 
 a thief, a cut-purse on old Earth's highway, a 
 pirate, a most indefensible and monstrous libertine. 
 He is putting all things under his feet, and it is 
 but now and then his abjects break away for a 
 passage of freedom ; as when the main snaps its 
 bridle and rolls over him. It is thus he atones 
 for his ancient servitude ; it is thus he is become 
 regnant over all. 
 
 But Nature takes long a-dying ; in a hundred 
 parts she still disputes the end with all her old 
 virulence, and it is a summons to the closing 
 struggle I hear in yonder star. In a little the 
 voices will have ceased and dreamful ease be our 
 only portion : that is why the call rings so clearly 
 to-night, mingling with all the sounds of time 
 o
 
 210 'THE VOICE OF STRANGE COMMAND' 
 
 departed . But has, then, Nature really no further 
 hope ? Has she no surprises for us ? Having 
 slain and coffined her, shall we have taken the 
 measure of the universe ? Or, infinite as Fate, 
 will she ever hold strange facts to which from 
 age to age we must adjust ourselves ? Shall there 
 never be peace ? And will the gross creature 
 rise and confound us with greater wonders, and 
 fight with her claws to the end ? At least for our 
 lessening romance shall be left man's wayward 
 soul and his wicked imaginings. These shall go 
 to the tourney.
 
 CONCERNING A GRIMACE 
 
 AM unable to understand what 
 possessed her that she puckered her 
 face so wantonly. Ere that one act 
 she had my sincerest homage, and 
 but a sapient procrastination detained me from 
 an open betrayal at her feet. I held her to be 
 adorable beyond the common lot of women, and 
 would have gone out of my way to thrust this 
 faith down another's throat, even while prohibit- 
 ing him from a devotion in keeping. I admit 
 that my intentions wavered, for a man has the 
 liberty of his manhood, and is not bound to 
 dethrone himself at a glance. Yet I considered 
 her, in all, so perfect an achievement as to con- 
 stitute a universal challenge ; and my satisfaction 
 in her beamed in my tolerant regard of others 
 less fortunate. She had the air of a mystery, for 
 one thing ; and it is but those we cannot plumb 
 that draw us. For my own part I believe that 
 the measure of one's affection is the profundity of 
 one's ignorance. Then her talk had a certain 
 
 sweetness incomparable to the accents of her 
 
 211
 
 212 CONCERNING A GRIMACE 
 
 inferior sisters. The toss of her head, though 
 but a trick at the best, I had a fancy to see in 
 my mistress ; it was pretty and an exquisite irrita- 
 tion to my fellows whom I kept from her com- 
 pany. ' You shall learn,' I would say to myself, 
 'to wriggle at my better fortune. This pretty 
 creature with her tricks is for me. 1 I desired 
 their envy. There was that about her mouth, 
 moreover, cultivated in me an outrageous appe- 
 tite, which I doubt not I could have contained 
 but a little longer, had she not put me to shame 
 by this one terrible performance of her features. 
 For the moment I had relegated her to the com- 
 pany of some poor fool to whom her feminine 
 chatter was wisdom, who lived upon the sight of 
 her for weeks, and took it as an honour did I say 
 she had spoken of him. There is in such a crude 
 juvenility as of a younger time than ours, when 
 men took the smiles of women for their laws. 
 How impossible a philosophy in this wiser age, 
 which has allotted each his proper place ! But 
 for the nonce I was content to watch his sudden 
 despatch of colour, his foolish elation, his silly 
 melting eyes, his pleading smile, his ardent con- 
 cern to forestall her wishes, and all the idle exhi- 
 bitions of his preposterous passion. She too 
 pleased me, but in another way ; he was for my 
 amusement, she for my delectation. It gratified 
 me to note how she bent him at will : now into 
 smiles, anon into a decent appearance of solici-
 
 CONCERNING A GRIMACE 213 
 
 tude, playing upon his admiration as a harper 
 upon chords. At my table I desired she should 
 so incense my guests, whilst kicking my heels to- 
 gether I might chuckle at my own triumph and 
 their delusion. (It is odd how one's humour lies 
 so in a balance that another's must fall if it rise.) 
 She had moved from her seat and was passing 
 me with this delirious oaf, when, on a sudden 
 (I presume at a remark of his), she twisted her 
 face into a remarkable grimace. 
 
 Twas not indeed that I hold a grimace beyond 
 the severe limits of beauty ; I have known some 
 that were abiding treasures of contempt, astonish- 
 ment, disdain, or indignation, the most artistical 
 epitomes of these becoming emotions. But the 
 beauty must needs be assured of her features, and 
 reckon up the chances ; such an one and such an 
 
 one, indeed ; but this or that Pah ! to what 
 
 end is her mirror? And yet, though I confess the 
 inelegance should have been the measure of my 
 distaste as a man of fashion, as a philosopher I had 
 a deeper surprise and a deeper indignation. That 
 face awry came upon me as a swift revelation, and 
 through it I pried into all her interior follies. I 
 had referred unto her certain qualities becoming 
 to so excellent a beauty, and these I now found had 
 been even more instant in my desire of her than 
 her mere bodily attractions. But this one brief 
 moment had given me a newer, truer insight. 
 Heaven ! that I had come so near loving such a
 
 214 CONCERNING A GRIMACE 
 
 woman ! I cannot describe it to you (my sword 
 is more at your service than my pen) but in 
 that contortion dwelt a score of abject characters. 
 It was a peephole into her soul, and I thank God 
 for its opportunity. To have lived with such a 
 grimace potential had been to have dwelt under 
 an avalanche. I should have looked for it in fear 
 day by day; its prospect would have been my 
 terror ; in the night beside her apparitions of it 
 had haunted me like ghosts. Yet this were a 
 small matter ; to the philosopher such an expec- 
 tation would be as nothing beside the terrible 
 evidence of her qualities thus manifest. I have 
 no irreverence in my mind when I say that it had 
 been purgatory to have housed with a woman of 
 such flaws. That grimace opened a vista of her 
 imperfections ; and though I cannot depict them, 
 they glare upon me each moment I recall it. I 
 saw her then to be of a humbler construction 
 than I had thought. Alas ! I propound my feel- 
 ings but weakly ; I shall despair to make you 
 understand me. A dozen possible vulgarities 
 lurked round her mouth ; lapses innumerable 
 gleamed in her eyes ; and for the shape of her 
 face it was past the semblance of loveliness. In 
 that grimace her character was exhibited, and my 
 own fatuity made public. 
 
 The philosophy of this fortunate disillusion- 
 ment is most manifest to an astute thinker. It 
 is a common error to suppose that the object of
 
 CONCERNING A GRIMACE 215 
 
 the affection glorifies her own actions ; that from 
 the love flows a divine halo to encircle all the 
 properties of the beloved. It was so perhaps 
 with the raw passions of our ancestors ; it may 
 even be so with certain backward types of our 
 own dav ; but true wisdom is certain of nothing. 
 To be cajoled, indeed, by a pretty seeming were 
 easy even for the wisest, but haply there will 
 come a time when the miserable man shall dis- 
 cover his folly. It is this knowledge should set 
 us on edge to watch the phases ere it be too late. 
 I am not of those who hold, as they barbarously 
 phrase it, that it is chiefly the animal we regard 
 in woman. Affection upon such a basis were 
 rightly unreasonable and fatuous. But to them 
 that seek the soul within the precincts of beauty 
 love wears another guise. And that soul (who 
 shall deny ?) is portrayed amply in the bodily 
 phenomena ; from which the sage may gather 
 how earnestly the tricks, gestures, and facial 
 expressions of the sex must be regarded. In one 
 look he shall see nothing but the modest habit 
 of innocence, and if he go no further he will 
 swear she be virtue incarnate. In another there 
 will be pride, and a little pride is most commend- 
 ing to a man of fashion ; in yet another, humour 
 a gift of excellence upon a dull evening, when 
 there is no news in the town ; again, timidity, 
 which a man shall find tempting in a woman ; or 
 once again, an affectation sufficiently engaging.
 
 216 CONCERNING A GRIMACE 
 
 But if these fascinations breathe through her 
 frequent public expressions, can you say (without 
 due care) that she hides not as many defects ? 
 A shrewishness, the love of gossip, a leaning unto 
 spite, an affection for the vulgar, a ribald temper, 
 a distressing appreciation of the table, a pre- 
 tentiousness, an indelicate desire of laughter : all 
 these and more may be betrayed in looks, in 
 gestures, in motions in a grimace. I thank 
 Heaven for my warning, and am constrained to 
 feel some kind of pity for the frenzied fellow to 
 whom my timely withdrawal has assigned her, 
 and who now boasts himself (poor fool !) the 
 happiest in my acquaintance.
 
 OVER THE FIRE 
 
 O them that have no fears of the 
 narrow house, winter is a time of 
 keener pleasures than any of the 
 three remaining seasons. I think, 
 indeed, it is pretty amply redeemed 
 by its own idiosyncrasies. Its very vices provoke 
 their own defeat, and call forth conditions which 
 lay them into insignificance. Of its ill purpose 
 there can be no doubt ; its slow and shuffling 
 gait, its noxious breath, its little sneaking round 
 of spites, smack all of malignity. You can see 
 its withered arms itching for action from the 
 back of September where it jostles with the 
 melancholy autumn. It is thanks to no mercy of 
 the season, but to your own fortitude alone, that 
 you can clear the corner and come safely into 
 spring. But we are happily armed with some 
 compensation for those treacheries, and so live 
 through the winter pretty securely in our trenches. 
 The evil humours of this Septentrion prey upon 
 the weaker bodies ; for the more part, though we 
 keep at odds, we exact therefrom many definite
 
 218 OVER THE FIRE 
 
 pleasures and one particular ecstasy. Each 
 season has its individual habits, proper to the 
 respective rigours, and by these our human kind 
 maintains itself in harmony with its circumstances, 
 and derives from these its separate delights. 
 But this particular ecstasy of which I speak is a 
 character of the fourth alone. It will sound odd, 
 perhaps paradoxical and flush of sentiment ; it is 
 irrational, I know ; it is certainly a most imma- 
 terial enjoyment; and yet in one mood not 
 uncommon to a man of cares, there is a finer zest 
 in dreaming at the fire than may be got from any 
 employment or recreation from term to term of 
 the rolling year. 
 
 It is this touch of superterrene fancy that 
 makes winter the most romantical of seasons. 
 There is something unessential to earth in a fire- 
 side reverie, whence or how deriving I know not. 
 You will have, of course, the gross comfort of 
 creature warmth in cover from a snowing or 
 a streaming sky; but this is intelligible and 
 human, very welcome and soothing against the 
 outrageous elements. It is in the mind you will 
 feel the subtilest delight. Your hands rubbing 
 at your knees, your body relaxing in a gentle 
 glow, your eyes set with some gratitude upon the 
 occasion of your comfort, you will drift and pass 
 into another world : a world of the rarest 
 illusions, a world of exquisite and intangible 
 thoughts and fancies. To say you are building
 
 OVER THE FIRE 219 
 
 castles in the embers is to interpret your dreams 
 heinously : you will never see in the fire one single 
 vision that ministers to your vulgar ambitions or 
 aspirations. Wealth and prosperity, long life 
 and happiness these have no place in the sug- 
 gestions of the fire ; nor, indeed, has any passion 
 common to the streets. The sights and visions 
 are too delicate, too fleeting for utterance, even 
 for distinct comprehension. The flames trans- 
 figure all. When you enter therein you leave 
 the world of coherence and form behind you, and 
 live only with impalpable presences and undefined 
 desires. There are castles and palaces, it is true, 
 glimmering through diaphanous veils of mist ; 
 there are caverns beyond caverns of mystical light 
 reaching from space to space till they vanish in 
 the glowing recesses. But these fabrics are 
 unsubstantial and recall no memory of the earth, 
 
 J 
 
 being of faery, and released from all mundane 
 laws and conditions. What reason can there be 
 for this strange transition ? In the red heart of 
 the fire alone does sorcery linger ; and here alone 
 it is possible to be made free of exigent time, and 
 to turn Space into Infinity. All that is illimit- 
 able and eternal pervades the thoughts that rise 
 with the flames. The mind assumes the quality 
 of a mirror, and reflects each momentary change 
 of the ashes with sensitive precision. In a minute 
 you will have suffered as many sensations as in 
 other times would crowd a life. There is no
 
 220 OVER THE FIRE 
 
 stability nor rest in the ethereal construction of 
 the embers, and your mind, too, wanders on wings. 
 The stream of fancies sweeps in a luminous page- 
 ant over you : the breath comes and goes, and 
 with each inspiration a hundred formless imagin- 
 ings have fled. You can behold wonders in the 
 fire. You may see the universe in ruins, and your 
 life reverted and resolved ; spirits may appear to 
 you in the flickering tongues ; you may be rapt 
 up to catch a glimpse of Deity itself. And what- 
 ever marvels pass before you, these fantasies so 
 swift, so instant, as to slip the nimblest mind 
 leave by their passage a sweet and thrilling con- 
 tentment, a self-sufficient ecstasy. You will per- 
 ceive that you are communing with a higher 
 sphere, are admitted to a transcendent company. 
 At times some faint memory seems to mingle with 
 your sensations, as though they were the issue of 
 your own past : a recollection descends with a 
 thrill upon you ; flashes and is gone. The gates 
 of your soul swing open for an instant ; but ere 
 your eye can spy with certainty upon the inner 
 sanctuary it has clapped to again, and you are 
 left to wonder on your own secrets. How much 
 is there in the spirit of man without his know- 
 ledge ? Is it that in these moments he makes a 
 vague contact with a superior consciousness, in 
 fits, in gushes, in irregular spasms ? There is, at 
 least, no wit sufficient to track to its fount this 
 intermittent flow of royal condescension. As an
 
 OVER THE FIRE 221 
 
 arrow in the air, as a swallow through the sky, so 
 thought upon thought takes flight out of the 
 void into the void, leaving vacancy behind. The 
 motes of fancy glitter in the mind, impalpable, 
 luminous, and innumerable. They impress the 
 soul with a certain mark, and sail forthwith out 
 of vision. Your hold upon your own mind is at 
 this time very insecure, and you flutter with the 
 flames in and out of sanity. For to feel and to be 
 unable to refer your feeling to its components is 
 to verge on madness. Now you will have a float- 
 ing sensibility of something dear and familiar; 
 remembrance comes at a call to your elbow ; and 
 then the flash has gone, and the unknown, the 
 unknowable, the ineffable, that which lies beyond 
 sense of touch or sight or audience, gleams, an 
 instantaneous spark, in the shadows of your soul. 
 And thus the phantasmagoria passes, until the 
 white embers fall and fade and turn suddenly to 
 red ; and the red pales behind its feathered coat 
 of ashes, leaving you confronted and encompassed 
 by the monstrous verities of this boreal and 
 laborious life. Gone are your serene and mys- 
 tical dreams, and there lie the ashes grey, 
 elemental, most comprehensible, rudely tangible, 
 dust and rubbish for the broom.
 
 'THE ROSE OF THE MORNING' 
 
 |O-DAY the Spring is in my heart 
 the Spring and its roses. The fumes 
 of the morning have mounted into 
 my senses ; the blood runs in little 
 gushes of delight through my body. 
 Yet with all this intoxication I am sober enough 
 to think upon the courses of the sun and to see 
 the world with the eyes of wisdom. This is the 
 time of roses. It is true enough that the flowers 
 no longer have their seasons ; but each still makes 
 an ample exhibition at its own particular point 
 of the year. Our artificers of the garden have 
 stolen from us the individual enchantment of the 
 months ; these no longer enjoy their divine rights, 
 but slip by now without distinctive gait, with no 
 private gaieties of their own, an equable proces- 
 sion of good-natured visitors lacking their proper 
 spites and ecstasies. It was the flowers that marked 
 the time of the year ; and now from January to 
 December our clock is broken, and we must set 
 our lives by the stars. Once my love had lived 
 
 222
 
 'THE ROSE OF THE MORNING' 223 
 
 through twenty summers of the rose, and now 
 she must take her age from the sun. We may 
 pick our roses now in the snows of Christmas as 
 appropriately and as casually as upon May-Day. 
 This despotic abolition of our calendar would 
 have been welcome had it kept the sun in the 
 heaven, and left us unchanged our vicissitudes in 
 the garden ; but we cannot live our time out 
 under frames, and as yet we lack the secret of 
 the rains. And to rob these periods of their 
 emblems is, as it were, to rob a house of its 
 scutcheon, a woman of her honour ; certainly to 
 rob the year of its history. We have plundered 
 the returning moons of their birthrights, and it 
 is now only by the profusion of its offerings that 
 a season protests against the monstrous violation 
 of its natural law. 
 
 In June, it may be, is the grand climacteric of 
 the rose ; then she blows and swells into her 
 maturer proportions, her fuller fragrance. But 
 our summers live hard in these days, and, do we 
 get that solstice at all, we are by mid-year 
 steeped in its favours and asweat with its gifts ; 
 and the rose is overblown. May, if she come in 
 her own apparel, is a fresher, fairer time, as is this 
 May of mine. Her flowers have bourgeoned, but 
 they have still the dew of the morning upon 
 them, they still disperse the odour of the Spring- 
 time. This truly is the proper dawn of the
 
 224 'THE ROSE OF THE MORNING' 
 
 year, and wears the face of youth, even in this 
 old and veteran city. To-day I have put by the 
 prodigious achievements of human art, and am 
 living in the supreme hour of the rose. The 
 town is ablaze with roses ; the very streets and 
 houses breathe them to my nostrils. For I have 
 risen with the whimsey in my head, and all 
 Nature is one blushing rose. The air is scented 
 with the summer rain ; the squares are joyous. 
 There comes my mistress with a red rose at her 
 bosom this merry morning. Drops sparkle be- 
 tween the petals ; she wears the first white gar- 
 ment of the year ; everywhere is a rose a rose. 
 It laughs in her eyes, which are blue as the 
 violet ; it blooms in her cheeks, which are pink 
 as a daisy ; on my faith, it is in her lily-white 
 brow, it tosses with her brown hair. Her lips 
 when were not lips a rose to a lover ? The shops 
 are a masque of roses, but her rose is the rose for 
 me. Upon their stems the flowers hang sedately, 
 reticent within their leaves, modest apparitions 
 of grace ; but, plucked and shining on her breast, 
 they are endued with a new courage, informed 
 with a fresh pertinence, and inspired with the 
 zeal of their comely dwelling-place. She herself 
 is their exemplar, and to adorn her is to wither 
 with honour. But as my love trips towards me 
 there is no thought of death this dewy morning. 
 Her soul creeps up the sky to the meridian, and
 
 'THE ROSE OF THE MORNING' 225 
 
 in the light and warmth of her being the roses 
 bud and blow in her possession. To-day the 
 morning rings with gaiety. If you would see 
 Aurora newly lighted upon the earth with her 
 sweet dimples, here is the vision at your doors, 
 ye modern men of London ! There are no softer 
 smiles than hers, there is no shyer ecstasy. Each 
 step makes music in her ears ; each glance espies 
 battalions of delight; with each breath she has 
 thrills of the world and its mystery. No thought 
 interrupts the sprightly march of her sensations ; 
 life throbs in her body ; and the rose is dancing 
 over her heart to the beat of her gaieties. 
 
 On this rosy morning the flowers are vivid on 
 their bunches. They wake and stir together, one 
 might say ; they, too, have the spirit of youth. 
 And this rose on the bosom of my mistress, afire 
 with its pride of place, grows garrulous and 
 jocund, and lives at the heat and pace of fever. 
 See now, as she nears me, how it calls in its 
 exhilaration to the roses in her face ! In and out 
 they blow and fade, trepidant and precipitate ; 
 here with a quiver, gone with a shake, in fitful 
 and bewildered answer to the summons from 
 below. 'Fuller and ever fuller' the crimson 
 swells and shrinks, flames and falters. Like a 
 flaw upon the sea a stain of red starts up and 
 spreads over her cheek ; at her white bosom is 
 that patch incarnadine the red, red rose. Agi- 
 tant and tremulous it has burst open, and its pure
 
 226 'THE ROSE OF THE MORNING' 
 
 heart lies bare. It has lived its life through this 
 merry May morning, but the dew and the 
 fragrance still linger in its petals, as the happy 
 tears on the eyelids of my beloved now she lies 
 in my arms, with her roses.
 
 THE FACILITY OF LIFE 
 
 >T has in all times been a part of our 
 creed to think sadly upon our 
 human estate, which is the gift of 
 God, and to consider ourselves no 
 better than bondmen till we be free 
 of our carnal husk. The growing voice of ages has 
 proclaimed this wretched investiture of flesh to be 
 a continuous evil, so that with the cloud of wit- 
 nesses we have come to take it for a common 
 axiom of life. Yet upon the facts this would 
 seem a foolish assumption, and may indeed be 
 rebutted as an error of the supersensitive. Per- 
 haps it is the Christian faith that has most 
 favoured the error ; yet such as Socrates had the 
 same thought, and we should rather regard it as 
 succeeding naturally to a sympathetic contempla- 
 tion of human suffering. So long have our 
 philosophers impressed upon us that we live at 
 war, in a plenitude of sorrows and losses, dis- 
 traught with the horrors of our environment, 
 agape upon the sudden breaches in our immediate 
 ranks, that almost any one of us may now, upon 
 
 227
 
 228 THE FACILITY OF LIFE 
 
 provocation, fall to tears at the moral of it. And 
 yet were it only true that man had this agony of 
 life for a constant purview, poor Nature had long 
 since succumbed to the wretched neighbourhood ; 
 there had been no duty more sacred, as no 
 prospect more inviting, than the release of the 
 frail tenant from the frailer clay. Philosopher 
 and theologian have held life to be nothing but a 
 toilsome pilgrimage to some peaceful bourne it 
 may be Paradise, or haply oblivion. The balance 
 (they have both declared) is against us here ; but 
 (quoth the one) it shall be readjusted upon the 
 dissolution of our mortal frame ; while the other 
 has looked oftener to a restitution in the conclu- 
 sion of death. Must we, then, confess to this 
 grotesque subservience to a shadowy faith, or to 
 a grim patience ? Surely, were the balance ever 
 against us, the soul had determined its own 
 miseries upon the first appreciation of the horrid 
 iniquity. We are surely to say that there are all 
 but none to whom this existence has sincerely 
 seemed intolerable ; nay, that there are few that 
 have not j udged it, at the worst, a pleasing tragi- 
 comedy with an impertinent ending. Yet should 
 you go by their open professions this were not so. 
 How glibly falls from the tongue the deprecation 
 of a thing so shameful and unworthy ! It is 
 possible to take no pride in life, if we be rightly 
 minded. At each turn we hold up our hands 
 and lengthen our faces upon the knowledge that
 
 THE FACILITY OF LIFE 229 
 
 we are still in travail. We shake our heads upon 
 a calamity, remarking how truly sorrow is our 
 portion. But withal this profession is, as it were, 
 a mere habit of the outward features, as you may 
 grimace at the conception of a pain you have 
 not felt. In the life it is but an hypothesis, a 
 supposition of our fathers which it is seemly to 
 acknowledge upon decent occasions. 
 
 Were a proof of this assertion needed you 
 would find it in the very fact of life ; for that 
 cannot be odious which all use with such affec- 
 tion. We cannot doubt that, were this vain re- 
 petition true, humanity had effaced itself, for it 
 is clear man has never lacked spirit for a desperate 
 act. But perhaps, you will say, it is not from fear 
 of death the race is withheld from this oblitera- 
 tion, but rather by the hope of a fortune that 
 never befalls. This hope, you may urge, and not 
 a real preponderance of happiness, keeps us from 
 the desire of that final equilibrium. And were 
 this so, is not hope also an integral part of the 
 human equipment, to be reckoned in the general 
 sum of our substantial pleasures ? Being of our 
 carnal endowment, this too must go into the 
 scales against evil. And in the higher natures, I 
 doubt not, so subtle a property must raise a 
 formidable barrier 'twixt life and death ; though, 
 unhappily, it is also so ethereal that upon a 
 change it may dissolve and leave clear a sudden 
 access. But it is not hope inspires the most of us
 
 230 THE FACILITY OF LIFE 
 
 with content ; it is rather the immediate and 
 manifest delights of living. And how many 
 there are if we rightly divine them ! The whole 
 journey is to the last full of opportunities of 
 happiness for mind and body, though some so 
 fatuously ignore them. It is here, in truth, while 
 we thrust our hideous ancestry from our rarer 
 minds, we yet derive from it our greatest bless- 
 ing ; for it is only so far as we are of common clay 
 with the brute that we can forget and enjoy. The 
 brute proceeds upon his grosser pleasures with a 
 blind complacency from which our finer natures, 
 an ineffectual compromise between God and him, 
 shrink and wince. It is to such as he, neverthe- 
 less, we owe our desire of life. For to forget and 
 to enjoy these are the capacities that serve us 
 best, and these are of the brute's prerogative. To 
 those of human kind that have these fulfilled life 
 can be nothing but an ample satisfaction ; to him 
 that has his just share of them life is this toler- 
 able affair I have said. The joys of living may, 
 indeed, be of no great proportions, but they are 
 ever-recurrent, small, unexpected, immediate, 
 grateful. You would account them meagre and 
 unsatisfying did you regard them as a philosopher; 
 yet by their continuous passage they yield a sense 
 of repletion. You will gather a score of them 
 ere you rise ; they will pursue you all day if you 
 have eyes for them ; they are incessant and multi- 
 tudinous. The flesh wherewith you are clothed
 
 THE FACILITY OF LIFE 231 
 
 will exult in them, if you will permit ; the mind 
 will passively absorb them. They are in your 
 delicate senses, in your gentle meditations, in your 
 books, in the air, everywhere. Is the wind soft, 
 it is a charm ; be it chill, how brightly burns the 
 fire ; does it snow, you may admire a white world ! 
 You must snatch these delights from the hour, 
 neither remembering evil nor forecasting; you 
 must train your mind to the habit ; your senses 
 must be alert ; you must laugh ; you must be 
 content ; you must forget. There is always 
 magic in the air if you will forget. 
 
 It is this forgetfulness which is, after all, the 
 foundation of our pleasures, for in memory is the 
 weightier part of our misfortunes. Of a truth in 
 the course of our journey many pains befall, and 
 there are times of gross evil, when sorrow, as a 
 toad, squats in our doorway, when the scales kick 
 the balance with a rush. In such an hour we 
 come to look upon life as the dreary passage of 
 our commonplaces ; there is neither present gain 
 nor future hope. But how soon this mood 
 passes ! From our base ancestry we have the 
 divine gift of forgetfulness. In a little we are 
 upon our way again, a lessening memory at our 
 backs ; growing ruddy and merry, laughing, de- 
 riding, scoffing, enjoying, taking the blandish- 
 ments of the moment with a heart of the lightest. 
 And thus do we trip along the road, with a lapse 
 here and there (in a trice forgotten), until we are
 
 232 THE FACILITY OF LIFE 
 
 come to the verge ; and lo, how short has been 
 the journey which once stretched out so far ! how 
 pleasant the way we have feared at times would 
 prove so dreary ! How they all fade, sorrows 
 and pains and memories ! and upon the verge how 
 finite they seem against the eternal ! Life is very 
 facile to animals ; it is facile also to the supreme 
 animal. 
 
 Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press.
 
 A LIST OF NEW BOOKS 
 
 AND ANNOUNCEMENTS OF 
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS : LONDON 
 
 1 8 BURY STREET 
 
 W.C 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 FORTHCOMING BOOKS, . 
 POETRY, . 
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY, 
 GENERAL LITERATURE, . 
 
 WORKS BY S. BARING GOULD, . 
 FICTION, . 
 
 NOVEL SERIES, . 
 BOOKS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS, . 
 ENGLISH LEADERS OF RELIGION, 
 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION SEKIES, 
 SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY, 
 
 OCTOBER 1892
 
 OCTOBER 1892. 
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S 
 
 AUTUMN ANNOUNCEMENTS 
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 Eudyard Kipling. BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS; And 
 Other Verses. By RUDYARD KIPLING. Extra Post 8vo, pp. 208. 
 Laid paper, rough edges, buckram, gilt top. 6s. 
 
 A special Presentation Edition, bound in white buckram, with 
 extra gilt ornament, "js. 6d. 
 
 The First Edition was sold on publication, and two further large Editions have 
 been exhausted. The Fourth Edition is Now Ready. 
 
 Gladstone. THE SPEECHES AND PUBLIC ADDRESSES 
 OF THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. With Notes. 
 Edited by A. W. HUTTON, M.A. (Librarian of the Gladstone 
 Library), and H.J.COHEN, M. A. With Portraits. Svo. Vol. IX. 
 
 125. 6d. 
 
 Messrs. METHUEN beg to announce that they are about to issue, in ten volumes 
 Svo, an authorised collection of Mr. Gladstone's Speeches, the work being under- 
 taken with his sanction and under his superintendence. Notes and Introductions 
 will he added. 
 
 In view o/tht interest in the Home Rule Question, it is proposed to issue Vols. IX. 
 anil X., -which will include the speeches of the last seven or eight years, im- 
 mediately, and then to proceed with the earlier volumes. Volume X. is already 
 published. 
 
 Collingwood. JOHN RUSKIN : His Life and Work. By 
 W. G. COLLINGWOOD, M.A., late Scholar of University College, 
 Oxford, Author of the 'Art Teaching of John Ruskin,' Editor of 
 Mr. Ruskin's Poems. 2 vols. 8vo. 321. 
 
 Also a limited edition on hand-made paper, with the Illustrations 
 on India paper. $, 3*. net. 
 
 Also a small edition on Japanese paper. $, 5$. net. 
 
 This important work is written by Mr. Collingwood, who has been for some years 
 Mr. Ruskin's private secretary, and who has had unique advantages in obtaining 
 materials for this book from Mr. Ruskin himself and from his friends. It will 
 contain a large amount of new matter, and of letters which have never been pub- 
 lished, and will be, in fact, as near as is possible at present, a full and authoritative 
 biography of Mr. Ruskin. The book will contain numerous portraits of Mr. 
 Ruskin, including a coloured one from a water-colour portait by himself, and also 13 
 sketches, never before published, by Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Arthur Severn. A biblio- 
 graphy will be added,
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 3 
 
 Baring Gould. THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS : The 
 
 Emperors of the Julian and Claudian Lines. With numerous Illus- 
 trations from Busts, Gems, Cameos, etc. By S. BARING GOULD, 
 Author of ' Mehalah,' etc. 2 vols. Royal 8vo. 30*. 
 
 This book is the only one in English which deals with the personal history of the 
 Caesars, and Mr. Baring Gould has found a subject which, for picturesque detail 
 and sombre interest, is not rivalled by any work of fiction. The volumes are 
 copiously illustrated. 
 
 Baring Gould. SURVIVALS AND SUPERSTITIONS. With 
 
 Illustrations. By S. BARING GOULD. Crown 8vt>. 7s. 6d. 
 A book on such subjects as Foundations, Gables, Holes, Gallows, Raising the Hat, 
 Old Ballads, etc. etc. It traces in a most interesting manner their origin 
 and history. 
 
 Perrens. THE HISTORY OF FLORENCE FROM THE 
 TIME OF THE MEDICIS TO THE FALL OF THE 
 REPUBLIC. By F. T. PERRENS. Translated by HANNAH 
 LYNCH. In three volumes. Vol. I. 8vo. 12s. 6d. 
 This is a translation from the French of the best history of Florence in existence. 
 This volume covers a period of profound interest political and literary and 
 is written with great vivacity. 
 
 Henley & Whibley. A BOOK OF ENGLISH PROSE. 
 Collected by W. E. HENLEY and CHARLES WHIBLEY. Crown 
 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Also small limited editions on Dutch and Japanese paper. 21*. 
 and 42^. 
 A companion book to Mr. Henley's well-known Lyra Heraica. 
 
 "Q." GREEN BAYS : A Book of Verses. By "Q.," Author of 
 ' Dead Man's Rock ' &c. Fcap. 8vo. 3*. 6d. 
 Also a limited edition on large Dutch paper. 
 
 A small volume of Oxford Verses by the well-known author of ' I Saw Three Ships,' 
 etc. 
 
 Wells. OXFORD AND OXFORD LIFE. By Members of 
 the University. Edited by J. WELLS, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of 
 Wadham College. Crown 8vo. 3*. 6d. 
 
 This work will be of great interest and value to all who are in any way connected 
 with the University. It will contain an account of life at Oxford intellectual, 
 social, and religious a careful estimate of necessary expenses, a review of recent 
 changes, a statement of the present position of the University, and chapters on 
 Women's Education, aids to study, and University Extension. 
 
 Driver. SERMONS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT. By S. R. DRIVER, D.D., Canon of 
 Christ Church, Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of 
 Oxford. Crown %vo. 6s. 
 
 An important volume of sermons on Old Testament Criticism preached before the 
 University by the author of ' An Introduction to the Literature of the Old 
 Testament.'
 
 4 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 
 
 Prior. CAMBRIDGE SERMONS. Edited by C. H. PRIOR, 
 
 M. A., Fellow and Tutor of Pembroke College. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 A volume of sermons preached before the University of Cambridge by various 
 preachers, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop Westcott. 
 
 Kaufmann. CHARLES KINGSLEY. By M. KAUFMANN, 
 
 M.A. Crown Svo. $s. 
 A biography of Kingsley, especially dealing with his achievements in social reform. 
 
 Lock. THE LIFE OF JOHN KEBLE. By WALTER LOCK, 
 M.A., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. With Portrait. 
 Crown Svo. $s. 
 
 Hutton. CARDINAL MANNING: A Biography. By A. W. 
 HUTTON, M.A. With Portrait. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 
 Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Sells. THE MECHANICS OF DAILY LIFE. By V. P. 
 SELLS, M.A. Illustrated. Crown %vo, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Kimmins. THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE AND HEALTH. 
 By C. W. KIMMINS, Downing College, Cambridge. Illustrated. 
 Crown Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Potter. AGRICULTURAL BOTANY. By M. C. POTTER, 
 Lecturer at Newcastle College of Science. Illustrated. Crown Svo. 
 2s. 6d. 
 The above are new volumes of the " University Extension Series." 
 
 Cox. LAND NATIONALISATION. By HAROLD Cox, M.A. 
 Crown Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Hadfield & Gibbins. A SHORTER WORKING DAY. By 
 R. A. HADFIELD and H. de B. GIBBINS, M.A. Crown Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 The above are new volumes of " Social Questions of To-day " Series. 
 FICTION. 
 
 Norris. HIS GRACE. By W. E. NORRIS, Author of Mdle. de 
 Mersac,' ' Marcia,' etc. Crown Svo. zvols. 2is. 
 
 Pryce. TIME AND THE WOMAN. By RICHARD PRYCE, 
 Author of 'Miss Maxwell's Affections,' 'The Quiet Mrs. Fleming,' 
 etc. Crown Svo. 2 vols. 2is. 
 
 Parker. PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. By GILBERT 
 PARKER. Crown Svo. Buckram. 6s.
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 5 
 
 Marriott Watson. DIOGENES OF LONDON and other 
 Sketches. By II. B. MARRIOTT WATSON, Author of ' The Web 
 of the Spider.' Crown 8vo. Buckram. 6s. 
 
 Baring Gould. IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA. By S. BARING 
 GOULD, Author of 'Mehalah,' ' Urith,' etc. Cheaper edition. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Clark Russell. MY DANISH SWEETHEART. By W.CLARK 
 RUSSELL, Author of 'The Wreck of the Grosvenor,' 'A Marriage 
 at Sea,' etc. With 6 Illustrations by W. H. OVEREND. Crown 8vo. 
 6s. 
 
 Mabel Robinson. HOVENDEN, V. C. By F. MABEL 
 ROBINSON, Author of 'Disenchantment,' etc. Cheaper Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. $s. 6d. 
 
 Meade. OUT OF THE FASHION. By L. T. MEADE, Author 
 of 'A Girl of the People,' etc. With 6 Illustrations by W. PAGET. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 CuthelL ONLY A GUARDROOM DOG. By Mrs. CUTHELL. 
 With 1 6 Illustrations by W. PARKINSON. Square Crown 8v0. 6s. 
 
 Collingwood. THE DOCTOR OF THE JULIET. By HARRY 
 COLLINGWOOD, Author of 'The Pirate Island, ' etc. Illustrated by 
 GORDON BROWNE. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Bliss. A MODERN ROMANCE. By LAURENCE BLISS. 
 Crown 8vo. Buckram. $s. 6d. Paper. 2s. 6d. 
 
 CHEAPER EDITIONS. 
 
 Baring Gould. OLD COUNTRY LIFE. By S. BARING 
 
 GOULD, Author of ' Mehalah,' etc. With 67 Illustrations. Crown 
 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Clark. THE COLLEGES OF OXFORD. Edited by A. 
 CLARK, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Lincoln College. %vo. I2s. 6J. 
 
 RusselL THE LIFE OF ADMIRAL LORD COLLING- 
 WOOD. By W. CLARK RUSSELL, Author of ' The Wreck of the 
 Grosvenor.' With Illustrations by F. BRANGWYN. Svo. los. 6d. 
 
 Author of ' Mdle. Mori.' THE SECRET OF MADAME DE 
 Monluc. By the Author of 'The Atelier du Lys,' 'Mdle. Mori.' 
 Crown 8vo. $s. 6d. 
 ' An exquisite literary cameo.' World.
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 
 
 and Eecent Book0, 
 Poetry 
 
 Rudyard Kipling. BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS; And 
 
 Other Verses. By RUDYARD KIPLING. Fourth Edition. Crown 
 Svo. 6s. 
 
 ' Mr. Kipling's verse is strong, vivid, full of character. . . . Unmistakable genius 
 rings in every line.' Times. 
 
 ' The disreputable lingo of Cockayne is henceforth justified before the world ; for a 
 man of genius has taken it in hand, and has shown, beyond all cavilling, that in 
 its way it also is a medium for literature. You are grateful, and you say to 
 yourself, half in envy and half in admiration : " Here is a book ; here, or one is a 
 Dutchman, is one of the books of the year." ' National Observer. 
 
 '"Barrack-Room Ballads" contains some of the best work that Mr. Kipling has 
 ever done, which is saying a good deal. " Fuzzy-Wuzzy," " Gunga Din," and 
 " Tommy," are, in our opinion, altogether superior to anything of the kind that 
 English literature has hitherto produced.' Athenteum. 
 
 ' These ballads are as wonderful in their descriptive power as they are vigorous in 
 their dramatic force. There are few ballads in the English language more 
 stirring than "The Ballad of East and West," worthy to stand by the Border 
 ballads of Scott.' Spectator. 
 
 ' The ballads teem with imagination, they palpitate with emotion. We read them 
 with laughter and tears ; the metres throb in our pulses, the cunningly ordered 
 words tingle with life ; and if this be not poetry, what is?' Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 Itsen. BRAND. A Drama by HENRIK IBSEN. Translated by 
 WILLIAM WILSON. Crown Svo. $s. 
 
 'The greatest world-poem of the nineteenth century next to "Faust." "Brand" 
 will have an astonishing interest for Englishmen. It is in the same set with 
 "Agamemnon," with " Lear," with the literature that we now instinctively regard 
 as high and holy.' Daily Chronicle. 
 
 Henley. LYRA HEROICA: An Anthology selected from the 
 best English Verse of the l6th, I7th, i8th, and igth Centuries. By 
 WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY, Author of 'A Book of Verse,' 'Views 
 and Reviews,' etc. Croivn Svo. Stamped gilt buckram, gilt top, 
 edges uncut. 65. 
 
 1 Mr. Henley has brought to the task of selection an instinct alike for poetry and for 
 chivalry which seems to us quite wonderfully, and even unerringly, right.' 
 Guardian. 
 
 Tomson. A SUMMER NIGHT, AND OTHER POEMS. By 
 GRAHAM R. TOMSON. With Frontispiece by A. TOMSON. Fcap. 
 Svo. 3-r. 6d. 
 Also an edition on handmade paper, limited to 50 copies. Large crown 
 
 Svo. los. 6d. net. 
 
 ' Mrs. Tomson holds perhaps the very highest rank among poetesses of English birth. 
 This selection will help her reputation.' Black and White.
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 7 
 
 Langoridge. A CRACKED FIDDLE. Being Selections from 
 the Poems of FREDERIC LANGBRIDGE. With Portrait. CrownSvo. 55. 
 
 Langbridge. BALLADS OF THE BRAVE : Poems of Chivalry, 
 Enterprise, Courage, and Constancy, from the Earliest Times to the 
 Present Day. Edited, with Notes, by Rev. F. LANGBRIDGE. 
 Crown Si'O. 
 
 Presentation Edition, 3^. 6</. School Edition, 2s. 6d. 
 ' A very happy conception happily carried out. These "Ballads of the Brave" are 
 intended to suit the real tastes of boys, and will suit the taste of the great majority. 
 Spectator. ' The book is full of splendid things.' World. 
 
 History and Biography 
 
 Gladstone. THE SPEECHES AND PUBLIC ADDRESSES 
 OF THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. With Notes 
 and Introductions. Edited by A. W. HUTTON, M.A. (Librarian of 
 the Gladstone Library), and H. J. COHEN, M.A. With Portraits. 
 Svo. Vol. X. I2s. 6d. 
 
 Russell. THE LIFE OF ADMIRAL LORD COLLING- 
 WOOD. By W. CLARK RUSSELL, Author of ' The Wreck of the 
 Grosvenor.' With Illustrations by F. BRANGWYN. %vo. los. 6d. 
 
 'A really good book.' Saturday Review. 
 
 1 A most excellent and wholesome book, which we should like to see in the hands of 
 every boy in the country. ' St. James's Gazette. 
 
 Clark. THE COLLEGES OF OXFORD : Their History and 
 
 their Traditions. By Members of the University. Edited by A. 
 
 CLARK, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Lincoln College. 8vo. 12s. 6d. 
 ' Whether the reader approaches the book as a patriotic member of a college, as an 
 
 antiquary, or as a student of the organic growth of college foundation, it will amply 
 
 reward his attention.' Times. 
 
 'A delightful book, learned and lively.' Academy. 
 1 A work which will certainly be appealed to for many years as the standard book on 
 
 the Colleges of Oxford.' AtheneEum. 
 
 Hulton. RIXAE OXONIENSES : An Account of the Battles 
 of the Nations, The Struggle between Town and Gown, etc. By 
 S. F. HULTON, M.A. Crown Svo. $s. 
 
 James. CURIOSITIES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY PRIOR 
 TO THE REFORMATION. By CROAKE JAMES, Author of 
 ' Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.' Crown Svo. Js. 6d.
 
 8 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 
 
 Clifford. THE DESCENT OF CHARLOTTE COMPTON 
 (BARONESS FERRERS DE CHARTLEY). By her Great-Granddaughter, 
 ISABELLA G. C. CLIFFORD. Small 4/0. 105. 6d. net. 
 
 General Literature 
 
 Bowden. THE IMITATION OF BUDDHA: Being Quota- 
 tions from Buddhist Literature for each Day in the Year. Compiled 
 by E. M. BOWDEN. With Preface by Sir EDWIN ARNOLD. Second 
 Edition. i6mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Ditchfield. OUR ENGLISH VILLAGES : Their Story and 
 their Antiquities. By P. H. DITCHFIELD, M.A., F.R.H.S., Rector 
 of Barkham, Berks. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. Illustrated. 
 ' An extremely amusing and interesting little book, which should find a place in 
 every parochial library.' Guardian. 
 
 Ditchfield. OLD ENGLISH SPORTS. By P. H. DITCH- 
 FIELD, M.A. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. Illustrated. 
 'A charming account of old English Sports.' Morning Past. 
 
 Burne. PARSON AND PEASANT: Chapters of their 
 Natural History. By J. B. BURNE, M.A., Rector of Wasing. 
 Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 ' " Parson and Peasant ' is a book not only to be interested in, but to learn something 
 from a book which may prove a help to many a clergyman, and broaden the 
 hearts and ripen the charity of laymen." ' Derby Mercury. 
 
 Massee. A MONOGRAPH OF THE MYXOGASTRES. By 
 G. MASSEE. 8vo. i8s. net. 
 
 Cunningham. THE PATH TOWARDS KNOWLEDGE: 
 Essays on Questions of the Day. By W. CUNNINGHAM, D.D., 
 Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Professor of Economics at 
 King's College, London. Crown 8vo. qs. 6d. 
 Essays on Marriage and Population, Socialism, Money, Education, Positivism, etc. 
 
 Anderson Graham. NATURE IN BOOKS : Studies in Literary 
 
 Biography. By P. ANDERSON GRAHAM. Crown &vo. 6s. 
 The chapters are entitled : I. ' The Magic of the Fields ' (Jefferies). II. ' Art and 
 Nature" (Tennyson). III. 'The Doctrine of Idleness" (Thoreau). IV. 'The 
 Romance of Life ' (Scott). V. ' The Poetry of Toil" (Burns). VI. 'The Divinity 
 of Nature ' (Wordsworth).
 
 MESSRS. METIIUEN'S LIST n 
 
 Works by S. Baring Gould. 
 
 Author of ' Mehalah,' etc. 
 
 OLD COUNTRY LIFE. With Sixty-seven Illustrations by 
 W. PARKINSON, F. D. BEDFORD, and F. MASEY. Large Crown 
 8vo, cloth super extra, top edge gilt, los. 6d. Fourth and Cheaper 
 Edition. 6s. [Ready. 
 
 ' " Old Country Life," as healthy wholesome reading, full of breezy life and move- 
 ment, full of quaint stories vigorously told, will not be excelled by any book 
 to be published throughout the year. Sound, hearty, and English to the core.' 
 World. 
 
 HISTORIC ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS. Third 
 
 Edition, Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ' A collection of exciting and entertaining chapters. The whole volume is delightful 
 reading. ' Times. 
 
 FREAKS OF FANATICISM. (First published as Historic 
 Oddities, Second Series. ) Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ' Mr. Baring Gould has a keen eye for colour and effect, and the subjects he has 
 chosen give ample scope to his descriptive and analytic faculties. A perfectly 
 fascinating book. - Scottish Leader. 
 
 SONGS OF THE WEST : Traditional Ballads and Songs of 
 the West of England, with their Traditional Melodies. Collected 
 by S. BARING GOULD, M.A., and H. FLEETWOOD SHEPPARD, 
 M.A. Arranged for Voice and Piano. In 4 Parts (containing 25 
 Songs each), Parts I., II., ///., 3*. each. Part IV., $s. In one 
 Vol., roan, l$s. 
 
 'A rich and varied collection of humour, pathos, grace, and poetic fancy.' Saturday 
 Review. 
 
 YORKSHIRE ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS. 
 Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 SURVIVALS AND SUPERSTITIONS. Crownlvo. Illustrated. 
 
 [In the press. 
 
 JACQUETTA, and other Stories. Crown 8vo. y.6d. Boards,. 
 
 ARM I NELL: A Social Romance. New Edition. Crown %vo. 
 
 35. 6d. Boards, 2s. 
 
 ' To say that a book is by the author of " Mehalah " is to imply that it contains a 
 story cast on strong lines, containing dramatic possibilities, vivid and sympathetic 
 descriptions of Nature, and a wealth of ingenious imagery. All these expecta 
 tions are justified by "Arminell."' Speaker.
 
 io MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 
 
 URITH: A Story of Dartmoor. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. y.6d. 
 
 ' The author is at his best.' Times. 
 
 ' He has nearly reached the high water-mark of " Mehalah." ' National Observer. 
 
 MARGERY OF QUETHER, and other Stories. Crown 8vo. 
 35. 6d. 
 
 IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA : A Tale of the Cornish Coast. 
 New Edition. 6s. 
 
 Fiction 
 
 Author of 'Indian Idylls.' IN TENT AND BUNGALOW: 
 Stories of Indian Sport and Society. By the Author of ' Indian 
 Idylls.' Crown 8vo. 35. 6d. 
 
 Fenn. A DOUBLE KNOT. By G. MANVILLE FENN, Author 
 of ' The Vicar's People,' etc. Crown 8vo. $s. 6d. 
 
 Pryce. THE QUIET MRS. FLEMING. By RICHARD PRYCE, 
 Author of 'Miss Maxwell's Affections," etc. Crown %vo. 3*. 6d. 
 Picture Board:, 2s. 
 
 Gray. ELS A, A Novel. By E. M'QUEEN GRAY. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 1 A charming novel. The characters are not only powerful sketches, but minutely 
 and carefully finished portraits.' Guardian. 
 
 Gray. MY STEWARDSHIP. By E. M'QUEEN GRAY. 
 
 Crown 8vo. $s. 6d. 
 Cobban. A REVEREND GENTLEMAN. By J. MACLAREN 
 
 COBBAN, Author of ' Master of his Fate,' etc. Crown &vo. 4*. 6d. 
 * The best work Mr. Cobban has yet achieved. The Rev. W. Merrydew is a brilliant 
 
 creation.' National Observer. 
 ' One of the subtlest studies of character outside Meredith.' Star. 
 
 Lyall. DERRICK VAUGHAN, NOVELIST. By EDNA 
 LYALL, Author of 'Donovan.' Crown &vo. $ist Thousand. 
 3*. 6d. ; paper, is. 
 
 Linton. THE TRUE HISTORY OF JOSHUA DAVIDSON, 
 Christian and Communist. By E. LYNN LlNTON. Eleventh and 
 Cheaper Edition. Post 8vo. is. 
 
 Grey. THE STORY OF CHRIS. By ROWLAND GREY, 
 
 Author of ' Lindenblumen,' etc. Crown 8vo. 5*. 
 Dicker. A CAVALIER'S LADYE. By CONSTANCE DICKER. 
 
 With Illustrations. Crown &vo. $s. 6d.
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST n 
 
 Dickinson. A VICAR'S WIFE. By EVELYN DICKINSON. 
 Crown 8v0. 6s. 
 
 Prowse. THE POISON OF ASPS. By R. ORTON PROWSE. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Taylor. THE KING'S FAVOURITE. By UNA TAYLOR. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Novel Series . 
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN will issue from time to time a Series O . r~) 
 of copyright Novels, by well-known Authors, handsomely ^)l 
 bound, at the above popular price of three shillings and six- 
 pence. The first volumes (ready) are : 
 
 1. THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. By F. MABEL ROBINSON. 
 
 2. JACQUETTA. By S. BARING GOULD, Author of ' Mehalah, 
 
 etc. 
 
 3. MY LAND OF BEULAH. By Mrs. LEITH ADAMS (Mrs. 
 
 De Courcy Laffan). 
 
 4. ELI'S CHILDREN. By G. MANVILLE FENN. 
 
 5. ARMINELL : A Social Romance. By S. BARING GOULD, 
 
 Author of ' Mehalah,' etc. 
 
 6. DERRICK VAUGHAN, NOVELIST. With Portrait of 
 
 Author. By EDNA LYALL, Author of ' Donovan,' etc. 
 
 7. DISENCHANTMENT. By F. MABEL ROBINSON. 
 
 8. DISARMED. By M. BETHAM EDWARDS. 
 
 9. JACK'S FATHER. By W. E. NORRIS. 
 
 10. MARGERY OF QUETHER. By S. BARING GOULD. 
 
 11. A LOST ILLUSION. By LESLIE KEITH. 
 
 12. A MARRIAGE AT SEA. By W. CLARK RUSSELL. 
 
 13. MR. BUTLER'S WARD. By F. MABEL ROBINSON. 
 
 14. URITH. By S. BARING GOULD. 
 
 15. HOVENDEN, V.C. By F. MABEL ROBINSON. 
 
 Other Volumes will be announced in due course.
 
 12 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 
 
 NEW TWO-SHILLING EDITIONS 
 
 Crown 8v0, Ornamental Boards. . 
 
 ARMINELL. By the Author of ' Mehalah.' 
 ELI'S CHILDREN. By G. MANVILLE FENN. 
 DISENCHANTMENT. By F. MABEL ROBINSON. 
 THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. By F. MABEL ROBINSON. 
 JACQUETTA. By the Author of c Mehalah.' 
 
 Picture Boards. 
 
 A DOUBLE KNOT. By G. MANVILLE FENN. 
 THE QUIET MRS. FLEMING. By RICHARD PRYCE. 
 JACK'S FATHER. By W. E. NORRIS. 
 A LOST ILLUSION. By LESLIE KEITH. 
 
 Books for Boys and Girls 
 
 Walford. A PINCH OF EXPERIENCE. By L. B. WAL- 
 FORD, Author of ' Mr. Smith.' Wiih Illustrations by GORDON 
 BROWNE. Crown %vo. 6s. 
 
 1 The clever authoress steers clear of namby-pamby, and invests her moral with a 
 fresh and striking dress. There is terseness and vivacity of style, and the illustra- 
 tions are admirable.' Anti-Jacobin. 
 
 Molesworth. THE RED GRANGE. By Mrs. MOLESWORTH, 
 Author of 'Carrots.' With Illustrations by GORDON BROWNE. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 'A volume in which girls will delight, and beautifully illustrated.' Pall Mall 
 Gazette. 
 
 Clark Russell. MASTER ROCKAFELLAR'S VOYAGE. By 
 W. CLARK RUSSELL, Author of ' The Wreck of the Grosvenor,' etc. 
 Illustrated by GORDON BROWNE. Crown 8vo. $s. 6d. 
 'Mr. Clark Russell's story of "Master Rockafellar's Voyage" will be among the 
 favourites of the Christmas books. There is a rattle and " go" all through it, and 
 its illustrations are charming in themselves, and very much above the average in 
 the way in which they are produced. Guardian. 
 
 Author of Mdle. Mori.' THE SECRET OF MADAME DE 
 Monluc. By the Author of 'The Atelier du Lys,' 'Mdle. Mori/ 
 Crown 8vo. $s. 6d. 
 'An exquisite literary cameo.' World.
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 13 
 
 Manville Fenn. SYD BELTON : Or, The Boy who would not 
 go to Sea. By G. MANVILLE FENN, Author of ' In the King's 
 Name,' etc. Illustrated by GORDON BROWNE. Crown Kvo. $s. 6d. 
 
 ' Who among the young story-reading public will not rejoice at the sight of the old 
 combination, so often proved admirable a story by Manville Fenn, illustrated 
 by Gordon Browne ! The story, too, is one of the good old sort, full of life and 
 vigour, breeziness and fun. Journal of Education. 
 
 Parr. DUMPS. By Mrs. PARR, Author of 'Adam and Eve,' 
 ' Dorothy Fox,' etc. Illustrated by W. PARKINSON. Crown %vo. 
 y. 6d. 
 
 'One of the prettiest stories which even this clever writer has given the world for a 
 long time.' World. 
 
 Meade. A GIRL OF THE PEOPLE. By L. T. MEADE, 
 Author of ' Scamp and I, 'etc. Illustrated by R. BARNES. Crown 
 %-vo. 35. 6d. 
 'An excellent story. Vivid portraiture of character, and broad and wholesome 
 
 lessons about life.' Spectator. 
 'One of Mrs. Meade's most fascinating books.' Daily News. 
 
 Meade. HEPSY GIPSY. By L. T. MEADE. Illustrated by 
 EVERARD HOPKINS. Crown Svj, 2s. 6d. 
 
 ' Mrs. Meade has not often done better work than this.' Spectator. 
 
 Meade. THE HONOURABLE MISS : A Tale of a Country 
 Town. By L. T. MEADE, Author of ' Scamp and I,' ' A Girl of the 
 People,' etc. With Illustrations by EVERARD HOPKINS. Crown 
 %vo, 35. dd. 
 
 Adams. MY LAND OF BEULAH. By MRS. LEITH ADAMS. 
 With a Frontispiece by GORDON BROWNE. Crown 8vo, y. 6d. 
 
 English Leaders of Religion 
 
 Edited by A. M. M. STEDMAN, M. A. With Portrait, crown Svo, 2s. 6d. 
 
 A series of short biographies, free from party bias, of the 
 most prominent leaders of religious life and thought in this 
 and the last century. 
 
 The following are already arranged 
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN. By R. H. HUTTON. [Ready. 
 
 ' Few who read this book will fail to be struck by the wonderful insight it displays 
 into the nature of the Cardinal's genius and the spirit of his life." WILFRID 
 WARD, in the Tablet. 
 
 1 Full of knowledge, excellent in method, and intelligent in criticism. We regard it 
 as wholly admirable." Academy.
 
 14 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. By J. H. OVERTON, M.A. [Ready. 
 
 1 It is well done : the story is clearly told, proportion is duly observed, and there is 
 no lack either of discrimination or of sympathy.' Manchester Guardian. 
 
 BISHOP WILBERFORCE. By G. W. DANIEL, M.A. [Ready. 
 CHARLES SIMEON. By H. C. G. MOULE, M.A. [Ready. 
 JOHN KEBLE. By W. LOCK, M.A. [Nov. 
 
 F. D. MAURICE. By COLONEL F. MAURICE, R.E. 
 THOMAS CHALMERS. By Mrs. OLIPHANT. 
 CARDINAL MANNING. By A. W. HUTTON, M.A. [Ready. 
 Other volumes will be announced in due course. 
 
 University Extension Series 
 
 A series of books on historical, literary, and scientific subjects, suitable 
 for extension students and home reading circles. Each volume will be 
 complete in itself, and the subjects will be treated by competent writers 
 in a broad and philosophic spirit. 
 
 Edited byj. E. SYMES, M.A., 
 Principal of University College, Nottingham. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 The following volumes are ready : 
 THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By H. DE 
 B. GIBBINS, M.A., late Scholar of Wadham College, Oxon., Cobden 
 Prizeman. Second Edition. With Maps and Plans. [Ready. 
 
 'A compact and clear story of our industrial development. A study of this concise 
 but luminous book cannot fail to give the reader a clear insight into the principal 
 phenomena of our industrial history. The editor and publishers are to be congra- 
 tulated on this first volume of their venture, and we shall look with expectant 
 interest for the succeeding volumes of the series. ' University Extension Journal. 
 
 A HISTORY OF ENGLISH POLITICAL ECONOMY. By 
 L. L. PRICE, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxon. 
 
 PROBLEMS OF POVERTY : An Inquiry into the Industrial 
 Conditions of the Poor. By J. A. HOBSON, M.A. 
 
 VICTORIAN POETS. By A. SHARP. 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. By J. E. SYMES, M.A. 
 
 2/6
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 15 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. By F. S. GRANGER, M.A., Lecturer in Philo- 
 sophy at University College, Nottingham. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF PLANT LIFE : Lower Forms. By 
 G. MASSEE, Kew Gardens. With Illustrations. 
 
 AIR AND WATER. Professor V. B. LEWES, M.A. Illustrated. 
 
 THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE AND HEALTH. By C. W. 
 KIMMINS, M.A. Camb. Illustrated. 
 
 THE MECHANICS OF DAILY LIFE. By V. P. SELLS, M.A. 
 
 Illustrated. 
 ENGLISH SOCIAL REFORMERS. H. DE B. GIBBINS, M.A. 
 
 ENGLISH TRADE AND FINANCE IN THE SEVEN- 
 TEENTH CENTURY. By W. A. S. HEWINS, B.A. 
 
 The following volumes are in preparation ; 
 
 NAPOLEON. By E. L. S. HORSBURGH, M.A. Camb., U. E. 
 Lecturer in History. 
 
 ENGLISH POLITICAL HISTORY. By T. J. LAWRENCE, 
 M.A., late Fellow and Tutor of Downing College, Cambridge, U. E. 
 Lecturer in History. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. By J. SOLOMON, 
 M.A. Oxon., late Lecturer in Philosophy at University College, 
 Nottingham. 
 
 THE EARTH : An Introduction to Physiography. By E. W. 
 
 SMALL, M.A. 
 
 2/6 
 
 Social Questions of To-day 
 
 Edited by H. DE B. GIBBINS, M.A. 
 
 Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. 
 
 A series of volumes upon those topics of social, economic, 
 and industrial interest that are at the present moment fore- 
 most in the public mind. Each volume of the series will be written 
 by an author who is an acknowledged authority upon the subject 
 with which he deals. 
 
 The following Volumes of the Series are ready : 
 
 TRADE UNIONISM NEW AND OLD. By G. HOWELL, 
 M.P., Author of ' The Conflicts of Capital and Labour.
 
 16 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 
 
 THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT TO-DAY. By G. J. 
 
 HOLYOAKE, Author of ' The History of Co-operation.' 
 
 MUTUAL THRIFT. By Rev. J. FROME WILKINSON, M.A., 
 Author of ' The Friendly Society Movement.' 
 
 PROBLEMS OF POVERTY : An Inquiry into the Industrial 
 Conditions of the Poor. By J. A. HOBSON, M.A. 
 
 THE COMMERCE OF NATIONS. By C. F. BASTABLE, 
 M. A., Professor of Economics at Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 THE ALIEN INVASION. By W. H. WILKINS, B.A., Secretary 
 to the Society for Preventing the Immigration of Destitute Aliens. 
 
 THE RURAL EXODUS. By P. ANDERSON GRAHAM. 
 LAND NATIONALIZATION. By HAROLD Cox, B.A. 
 
 A SHORTER WORKING DAY. By H. DE B. GIBBINS 
 (Editor), and R. A. HADFIELD, of the Hecla Works, Sheffield. 
 
 The following Volumes are in preparation : 
 
 ENGLISH SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. By HUBERT BLAND 
 
 one of the Authors of ' Fabian Essays. ' 
 
 POVERTY AND PAUPERISM. By Rev. L. R. PHELPS, M.A., 
 Fellow o r Oriel College, Oxford. 
 
 ENGLISH LAND AND ENGLISH MEN. By Rev. C. W. 
 STUBBS, M.A., Author of ' The Labourers and the Land.' 
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. By Rev. J 
 CARTER, M.A., of Pusey House, Oxford. 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. By J. R. DIGGLE, 
 M.A., Chairman of the London School Board. 
 
 WOMEN'S WORK. By LADY DILKE, Miss BEILLEY, and 
 Miss ABRAHAM. 
 
 RAILWAY PROBLEMS PRESENT AND FUTURE. By 
 R. W. BARNETT, M.A., Editor of the 'Railway Times.' 
 
 Vruued by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty, 
 at the Edinburgh University Press.
 
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