UNflDf)RES5ET) 
 
 LETTER 
 
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 FRANK 
 ATMEL3T/INE. 
 /5WETTLNH/IM- 
 
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LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
By the same Author 
 
 MALAY SKETCHES 
 Second Edition 
 
 Cr. 8vo, 6s. 
 
UNADDRESSED 
 LETTERS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 FRANK <^1HELSTANE 
 SWETTENHAM, K.C.M.G. 
 
 JOHN LANE 
 
 THE BODLEY HEAD 
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK 
 
 MDCCCXCVIII 
 
GENERAL 
 
 All rig fits reserved 
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON <V Co 
 At the Ballantyne Press 
 
PREFACE 
 
 " T HAD a friend who loved me ; " but he has 
 
 A gone, and the "great gulf" is between us. 
 
 After his death I received a packet of manuscript 
 with these few words : 
 
 "What I have written may appeal to you because 
 of our friendship, and because, when you come to 
 read them, you will seek to grasp, in these apparent 
 confidences, an inner meaning that to the end will 
 elude you. If you think others, not the many but 
 the few, might find here any answer to their un- 
 uttered questionings, any fellowship of sympathy in 
 those experiences which are the milestones of our 
 lives, then use the letters as you will, but without 
 my name. I shall have gone, and the knowledge 
 of my name would make no one either wiser or 
 happier." 
 
 In the packet I found these letters. I cannot tell 
 whether there is any special order in which they 
 should be read there was nothing to guide me 
 
PREFACE 
 
 on that point. I do not know whether they are to 
 real or imaginary people, whether they were ever sent 
 or only written as an amusement, a relief to feeling, 
 or with a purpose the one to which they are now 
 put, for instance. One thing is certain, namely, that, 
 however taken, they are not all indited to the same 
 person; of that there seems to be convincing 
 internal evidence. 
 
 The writer was, by trade, a diplomatist; by 
 inclination, a sportsman with literary and artistic 
 tastes ; by force of circumstances he was a student 
 of many characters, and in some sense a cynic. 
 He was also a traveller not a great traveller, but 
 he knew a good deal of Europe, a little of America, 
 much of India and the further East. He spent some 
 time in this neighbourhood, and was much interested 
 in the country and its people. There is an Eastern 
 atmosphere about many of the letters, and he made 
 no secret of the fact that he was fascinated by the 
 glamour of the lands of sunshine. He died very 
 suddenly by misadventure, and, even to me, his 
 packet of letters came rather as a revelation. 
 
 Before determining to publish the letters, I showed 
 them to a friend on whose opinion I knew the writer 
 had set store. He said, "The critic will declare 
 there is too much scenery, too much sentiment. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Very likely he will be right for those whose lives 
 are passed in the streets of London, and the letters 
 will not interest so many readers as would stories 
 of blood and murder. Yet leave them. Love is in 
 the atmosphere day and night, and the scenery is 
 in true proportion to our lives here, where, after all, 
 sunsets are commoner than murders." Therefore 
 I have left them as they came to me, only using my 
 discretion to omit some of the letters altogether. 
 
 F. A. S. 
 
 February 12, 1898. 
 
 vii 
 
" Thus fare you well right hertely beloved 
 frende . . . and love me as you have ever 
 done, for I love you letter than ever I dyd." 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE HILL OF SOLITUDE I 
 
 II. OF WORSHIP 6 
 
 III. WEST AND EAST 13 
 
 IV. A CLEVER MONGOOSE 21 
 
 V. A BLUE DAY 33 
 
 VI. OF LOVE, IN FICTION 42 
 
 VII. THE JINGLING COIN 48 
 
 VIII. A STRANGE SUNSET 6 1 
 
 IX. OF LETTER-WRITING ...... 68 
 
 X. AT A FUNERAL 72 
 
 XI. OF CHANGE AND DECAY ...... 82 
 
 XII. DAUGHTERS AND DESPOTISM 96 
 
 XIII. HER FIANCE IO7 
 
 XIV. BY THE SEA 1 15 
 
 XV. AN ILLUMINATION 123 
 
 XVI. OF DEATH, IN FICTION I2Q 
 
 XVII. A HAND AT ECARTE 138 
 
 XVIII. THE GENTLE ART OF VEERING WITH THE WIND . 145 
 
 XIX. A REJOINDER 153 
 
 ix 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XX. OF IMPORTUNITY 159 
 
 XXI. OF COINCIDENCES l68 
 
 XXII. OF A COUNTRY-HOUSE CUSTOM . . . .175 
 
 XXIII. A MERE LIE .182 
 
 XXIV. TIGERS AND CROCODILES ..... IQI 
 XXV. A ROSE AND A MOTH 203 
 
 XXVI. A LOVE-PHILTRE 2CK) 
 
 XXVII. MOONSTRUCK 22O 
 
 xxvin. THE "DEVI" 229 
 
 XXIX. THE DEATH-CHAIN ...... 242 
 
 XXX. SCANDAL AND BANGLES 252 
 
 XXXI. THE REPREHENSIBLE HABIT OF MAKING COM- 
 PARISONS 259 
 
 XXXII. A CHALLENGE ....... 265 
 
 XXXIII. IN EXILE 270 
 
 XXXIV. OF LOVE NOT IN FICTION 284 
 
 XXXV. OF OBSESSION ....... 295 
 
 XXXVI. OF PARADISE LOST 303 
 
 XXXVII. "TO MARY, IN HEAVEN" ..... 307 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 THE HILL OF SOLITUDE 
 
 A^J hour ago I climbed the narrow, winding 
 path that circles the Hill of Solitude, and as 
 I gained the summit and sat upon that narrow 
 bench, facing the west, I may have fallen into a 
 trance, for there appeared to me an ever-changing 
 vision of unearthly beauty. 
 
 The sun was sinking into the sea, directly in a 
 line with the wide estuary that marks a distant 
 river's mouth. It was setting in a blaze of molten 
 gold, while all above and to the northward, the 
 background of sky glowed with that extraordinary, 
 clear pale-blue blent with green, that makes one 
 of the most striking features of the sunsets seen 
 from this hill. The clouds were fewer to-night, 
 the background wider and clearer, the colour more 
 
 1 A 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 intense, more transparent, as though the earnest 
 gazer might even discern some greater glory, 
 beyond and through the shining crystal of those 
 heavenly windows. 
 
 The calm surface of the sea beneath mirrored 
 the lights above, till sea and sky vied with each 
 other in a perfection of delicate translucent sheen. 
 Northwards a few grey-gold clouds lay against this 
 wondrous background, but in the south they were 
 banked in heavy masses, far down the sky to the 
 limits of vision. 
 
 Out of a deep forest-clad valley, immediately 
 behind the hill, a freshening breeze was driving 
 volumes of white mist across the northern spur ; 
 driving it, at racing speed, in whirling, tangled 
 wisps, across the water-holes that cluster around 
 the foot of the great range ; driving it over 
 the wide plain, out towards the glittering coast- 
 line. 
 
 But in a moment, as though by magic, the thick 
 banks of cloud in the south were barred with broad 
 shafts of brilliant rose dore'e ; the spaces of clear 
 sky, which, an instant before, were pale silver-blue, 
 became pale green, momentarily deepening in in- 
 tensity of tone. Close around the setting sun 
 the gold was turning to flame, and, as the glory 
 
THE HILL OF SOLITUDE 
 
 of magnificent colouring spread over all the south, 
 the clouds took every rainbow hue, as though 
 charged with a galaxy of living, palpitating radiance, 
 grand yet fateful, a God-painted picture of battle 
 and blazing cities, of routed hosts and desperate 
 pursuit. 
 
 Overhead, and filling the arc from zenith to the 
 outer edge of sun-coloured cloud, the sky was a deep 
 sapphire, half covered by soft, rounded clouds of 
 deeper sapphire still, only their edges tinged with 
 gleams of dull gold. 
 
 Another sweep of the magic wand, and, as the 
 patches of pale aquamarine deepened into emerald, 
 the heavier clouds became heliotrope, and a thick 
 heliotrope haze floated gently across the wide 
 plain, seawards. The fires of crimson light blazed 
 brighter in the gathering gloom of rising mist and 
 lowering cloud, but the sea shone with ever- 
 increasing clearness in the rapidly narrowing space 
 of yet unhidden view. 
 
 For a moment the mist disappeared, as suddenly 
 as it came ; the sapphire clouds took a deeper hue, 
 heliotrope turned to purple, the crimson lights were 
 softer but richer in colour, streaked with narrow 
 bands of gold, and dark arrowlike shafts shot from 
 the bow of Night. 
 
 3 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 
 
 Standing there, it was as though one were 
 vouchsafed, for a moment, a vision of the Heavenly 
 City which enshrines the glory of God. One 
 caught one's breath and shivered, as at the sound 
 of violins quivering under inspired fingers, or the 
 voices of boys singing in a cathedral choir. 
 
 All this while a solitary, ragged-edged cloud- 
 kite hung, almost motionless, in middle distance, 
 over the glittering waters of the river mouth. 
 This cloud gathered blackness and motion, spread 
 itself out, like a dark thick veil, and, as the mist, 
 now grey and cold, closed in, the last sparks 
 of the dying sunset were extinguished in the dis- 
 tant sea. 
 
 And then I was stumbling down the path in the 
 darkness, my eyes blinded by the glory of the 
 vision ; and as I groped through the gloom, and 
 heard the wail of the night-wind rushing from 
 those far-away mountains, across this lonely peak, 
 I began to wonder whether I had not been dreaming 
 dreams conjured up by the sadly-sweet associations 
 of the place. 
 
 The darkness deepened, and, as I reached the 
 dividing saddle and began to mount the opposite 
 hill, I heard the faint jingle of a dangling coin 
 striking metal, and I said to myself that such 
 
 4 
 
THE HILL OF SOLITUDE 
 
 associations, acting on the physical weariness re- 
 sulting from days of intolerable strain, followed by 
 nights of worse regret, were enough to account for 
 far stranger journeys in the land which lies beyond 
 the Gates of Ivory and Horn. 
 
II 
 
 OF WORSHIP 
 
 " r T n HIS life good as it can be is horribly 
 A difficult and complicated. I feel as though 
 I were walking in the dark, just stumbling along 
 and groping my way there seems to be no light to 
 guide me you are so far away, and there is ever 
 that wall between us, no higher than before, but 
 quite as impenetrable I wonder, I wonder, 
 I wonder what the future will bring to you, 
 to me." 
 
 " I think of you up there, among the soft white 
 clouds, watching the sun setting into the sea, while 
 the great blue hills are melting through twilight 
 into night. Oh ! there's nothing like that beauty 
 here, in the West, and I am sick for the East 
 and all her hot, passionate loveliness ; all her 
 colour and light ; all her breadth and grandeur ; 
 for her magnificent storms and life, life on a big 
 
 scale. Here everything is so small, so petty, so 
 
 6 
 
OF WORSHIP 
 
 trivial. I want, I want, I want, that's how I 
 feel ; I am lovesick and heartsick and sick for the 
 sun. Well, this life is nearly done, and in the 
 next I shall at least be worshipped." 
 
 That is well, and if you are worshipped you 
 should not say " at least." What more can you 
 want ? Especially since, having all other things 
 and lacking worship, you would have nothing. 
 They were not meant for this application, but these 
 old Monkish lines are worth remembering : 
 
 " Qut Christum nescit^ nil scit, si castera nosrit. 
 Qui Christum noscit, sat scit, si ccetera nescit" 
 
 I hardly like to suggest it, but are you afraid 
 of the " worship," of its quality, or its lasting 
 properties ? Or, assured on these points, do you 
 think worship alone will prove unsatisfying ? I 
 wonder. 
 
 It is an attractive subject, and women disagree 
 as to how it should be treated. The fact is, that 
 they are seldom able to generalise ; they do not 
 take any great interest in generalities, and the 
 answer to an impersonal question must have a 
 personal application before it can be given. And 
 not that alone, for where, as in this case, and, 
 indeed, all those of greatest human interest, another 
 
 7 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 person, a special person, is concerned, then the 
 answer depends largely on that other person as 
 well. You can, perhaps, in your own mind, think 
 of some one or more from whom you would rather 
 have a little worship, than become an object of life- 
 long adoration to many others who have seemed 
 anxious to offer it. And that is not because their 
 all was less than the little of those with a larger 
 capacity for the worship of human beings, nor even 
 because their appreciation of your personal worth 
 is in any degree limited, or smaller by comparison 
 with that of others. Probably it is exactly the 
 reverse. But I will ask you, of your sweetness 
 and light, to give me knowledge. Would you 
 rather have the absolute, unsought worship of a 
 man, or would you win, perchance even from his 
 unwillingness, a devotion that, if it was not thrown 
 at you, was probably, when gained, not likely to 
 burn itself out in a blaze of ardent protestations ? 
 You will, of course, say that it depends on the 
 attitude assumed by the man, and I reply that it 
 does not, because the same man would never be 
 found ready to render his service in either of these 
 well disguises, if you will. It would be in 
 one or in the other. Therefore my question will 
 
 admit of the personal application, and you can go 
 
 8 
 
OF WORSHIP 
 
 through your acquaintances, admirers, friends (I 
 dare not say the other word), and tell me whether 
 you would be most attracted by the man who fell 
 at your feet and worshipped, giving of his ample 
 store without effort and without stint, or by the 
 man who, if he were a woman, would be called 
 difficile. This problem will give you no trouble 
 if, as I said before, you can work it out as a per- 
 sonal equation, and it is therefore only necessary 
 that you should have amongst your friends two 
 men of the required types. 
 
 In return for your anticipated answer, I will 
 give you this. There are many men who pay 
 their court to women, if not all in one breath, or 
 at one sitting, at least the phase is limited by a 
 definite period. That period is usually shorter or 
 longer in the inverse ratio of the violence of the 
 attack. The operations result in a decisive action, 
 where the man is either worsted or victorious. If 
 he gains his end, and persuades the lady to take 
 him for whatever he is worth, the ordinary type 
 of Englishman will very often consider that his 
 obligation towards her as an idolater, a lover, 
 whatever name you call the part by, is over when 
 the curtain comes down on the procession to the 
 altar or to the office of the Registrar, or, at any 
 
 9 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 rate, when the honeymoon has set and the duty- 
 moon rises to wax and wane for evermore. That 
 is the man to avoid ; and if the womanly instinct, 
 which is so useful and so little understanded of 
 men (until they learn to fear its unerring accuracy), 
 is only called upon in time, it will not mislead its 
 owner. 
 
 You know all this, you will say ; very likely, 
 but it is extraordinary how many thousands of 
 women, especially English women, there are who 
 are now eating out their hearts, because they 
 neglected either to ask this question of their in- 
 stincts or disregarded the answer. Probably it is 
 very seldom asked ; for a girl is hardly likely to 
 suppose that, after feeding her on love for a few 
 weeks, or months, the man will starve her of the 
 one thing needful, until death does at last part 
 them. He says he has not time for love-making, 
 and he acts as though he had not the inclination 
 either, though probably, somewhere in his system 
 he keeps the forces that once stirred him to ex- 
 pressions of affection that now seem as needless as 
 it would be to ask his servants for permission to 
 eat the dinner which he has paid for, and which 
 he can take or neglect, praise or find fault with, at 
 his own will and pleasure. 
 
 10 
 
OF WORSHIP 
 
 That is a very long homily, but it has grown 
 out of the point of the pen, possibly because I am 
 sitting here alone, "up in the soft white clouds," 
 as you say, or rather in the softer moonlight ; and 
 some of the littlenesses of life loom large, but not 
 over-large, considering their bearing on the lifelong 
 happiness, or misery, of men and women. 
 
 Yes, I am sitting exactly where you imagined. 
 It was on that sofa that you used to lie in the 
 evenings, when you were too feeble to sit up, and I 
 read to you out of a book of knowledge. But that 
 was years and years ago, and now you wonder. 
 Well, I too wonder, and there, it has just struck 
 I A.M. I will wonder no more, but look out at 
 the surpassing loveliness of this white night, and 
 then rest. 
 
 It is so strange, I have come back to tell you. 
 The soft white clouds are actually there motion- 
 less they cover everything, sea and plain and 
 valley, everything but the loftiest ridges of this 
 mountain. The moon rides high, turning to silver 
 the tops of the great billowy clouds, while it shines 
 full on this house and garden, casting deep shadows 
 from the fern-trees across the gravel, and, from 
 the eaves and pillars of the house, across the 
 
 verandah. The air is perfectly still now, though, 
 
 ii 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 some hours ago, it was blowing a gale and the 
 wind wailed as though mourning its own lost 
 soul. 
 
 It seemed then, as it tore round the corner of 
 the house, to be crying, " I come from the rice 
 swamps which have no dividing banks, from the 
 waters which contain no fish, where the apes cry 
 by night and the baboons drink as they hang from 
 the boughs ; a place where the chinchili resorts to 
 bathe, and where man's food is the Kemahang fern." 
 Some day I will tell you more about that place. 
 
 And the spirits of the storm that have passed 
 and left this death-like stillness, where are they 
 now ? They went seaward, westward, to you- 
 ward, but they will never reach you, and you will 
 not hear their message. 
 
 12 
 
Ill 
 
 WEST AND EAST 
 
 ONE night, in the early months of this year, I 
 sat at dinner next to a comparatively young 
 married woman, of the type that is superlatively 
 blonde in colour and somewhat over-ample in 
 figure. She was indifferently dressed, not very 
 well informed, but apparently anxious, by dint of 
 much questioning, to improve her knowledge where 
 possible. She was, I believe, a journalist. 
 
 Some one must have told her that I had been 
 in the East, and she, like most stay-at-home people, 
 evidently thought that those who go beyond the 
 shores of England can only be interested in, or 
 have an acquaintance with, the foreign country 
 wherein they have sojourned. Therefore the lady 
 fired at me a volley of questions, about the manners 
 and habits of the Malay people, whom she always 
 referred to as " savages." I ventured to say that 
 she must have a mistaken, or at any rate incom- 
 
 13 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 plete, knowledge of the race to speak of Malays as 
 savages, but she assured me that people who were 
 black, and not Christians, could only be as she 
 described them. I declined to accept that defini- 
 tion, and added that Malays are not black. I fancy 
 she did not believe me ; but she said it did not 
 matter, as they were not white and wore no clothes. 
 I am afraid I began to be almost irritated, for the 
 long waits between the courses deprived me of all 
 shelter from the rain of questions and inconsequent 
 remarks. 
 
 At last, I said, " It may surprise you to hear 
 that these savages would think, if they saw you 
 now, that you are very insufficiently clad ; " and I 
 added, to try and take the edge off a speech that 
 I felt was inexcusably rude, " they consider the 
 ordinary costume of white men so immodest as to 
 be almost indecent." lt Indeed," said the lady, who 
 only seemed to hear the last statement, " I have 
 often thought so too, but I am surprised that 
 savages, for I must call them savages, should mind 
 about such things." It was hopeless, and I asked 
 how soon the great American people might be ex- 
 pected to send a force to occupy London. 
 
 I have just been reminded of this conversation. 
 A few days ago, I wrote to a friend of mine, a 
 
 14 
 
WEST AND EAST 
 
 Malay Sultan, whom I have not seen for some 
 months, a letter inquiring how he was, and saying 
 I hoped soon to be able to visit him. Now comes 
 his answer ; and you, who are in sympathy with the 
 East, will be able to appreciate the missive of this 
 truculent savage. 
 
 In the cover there were three enclosures : a 
 formal letter of extreme politeness, written by a 
 scribe, the Arabic characters formed as precisely 
 and clearly as though they had been printed. 
 Secondly, a letter written in my friend's own hand, 
 also in the Arabic character, but the handwriting 
 is very difficult to decipher. And thirdly there is 
 another paper, headed " Hidden Secrets/' written 
 also in the Sultan's own hand. The following is 
 a translation of the beginning of the second letter. 
 At the top of the first page is written, "Our friend- 
 ship is sealed in the inmost recesses of my heart." 
 Then this : " I send this letter to my honoured and 
 renowned friend " (here follow my name, designa- 
 tion, and some conventional compliments). The 
 letter then continues : " You, my dear friend, are 
 never out of my thoughts, and they are always 
 wishing you well. I hear that you are coming to 
 see me, and for that reason my heart is exceeding 
 glad, as though the moon had fallen into my lap, 
 
 '5 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 or I had been given a cluster of flowers grown 
 in the garden called Benjerdna Sri, wide-opening 
 under the influence of the sun's warm rays. May 
 God the Most Mighty hasten our meeting, so that 
 I may assuage the thirst of longing in the happy 
 realisation of my affectionate and changeless regard. 
 At the moment of writing, by God's grace, and 
 thanks to your prayers, I and my family are in 
 good health, and this district is in the enjoyment 
 of peace ; but the river is in flood, and has risen 
 so high that I fear for the safety of the bridge." 
 
 There is more, but what I have quoted is 
 enough to show you the style. When the savage 
 has turned from his savagery he will write ft Dear 
 sir," and " Yours truly " ; his correspondence will 
 be type-written, in English, and the flaxen- haired 
 lady will remark with approval that the writer is 
 a business man and a Christian, and hardly black 
 at all. 
 
 Whilst the Malays are still in my mind, it may 
 interest you to know that they have a somewhat 
 original form of verse in four-line stanzas, each 
 stanza usually complete in itself, the second and 
 fourth lines rhyming. The last two lines convey 
 the sense, while the first two are only introduced 
 
 to get the rhythm, and often mean nothing at all. 
 
 16 
 
WEST AND EAST 
 
 Here are some specimens which may give you an 
 idea of these pantun, as they are called, though 
 in translating them I have made no attempt to 
 give the necessary "jingle." 
 
 " A climbing bean will gain the roof ; 
 
 The red hibiscus has no scent. 
 All eyes can see a house on fire ; 
 
 No smoke the burning heart betrays. 
 
 Hark ! the flutter of the death's-head moth ; 
 
 It flies behind the headman's house. 
 Before the Almighty created Adam, 
 
 Our destinies were already united. 
 
 This is the twenty-first night of the moon, 
 The night when women die in child-birth. 
 
 I am but as a captive song-bird, 
 A captive bird in the hand of the fowler. 
 
 If you must travel far up river, 
 
 Search for me in every village ; 
 If you must die, while I yet linger, 
 
 Wait for me at the Gate of Heaven." 
 
 One of the fascinations of letter-writing is that 
 one can wander at will from one subject to another, 
 as the butterflies flutter from flower to flower ; but 
 I suppose there is nearly always something that 
 suggests to the writer the sequence of thought, 
 though it might be difficult to explain exactly what 
 that something is. I think the reference in the 
 
 '7 B 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 above stanzas to Adam and the Gate of Heaven, 
 or Paradise, have suggested to me the snake, 
 
 " And even in Paradise devise the snake," 
 
 which reminds me that, last night, I said to the 
 ancient and worthy person to whom is entrusted 
 the care of this house 
 
 " Leave the drawing-room doors open while I 
 am at dinner : the room gets overheated." 
 
 Then he, " I not like leave open the doors, be- 
 cause plenty snakes." 
 
 " Snakes: where?" 
 
 " Outside, plenty snakes, leave doors open come 
 inside." 
 
 " What sort of snakes ? " 
 
 " Long snakes " (stretching out his arm to show 
 the length), " short snakes " (measuring off about 
 a foot with the other hand). 
 
 " Have you seen them ? " 
 
 " Yes, plenty." 
 
 This is cheerful news, and I inquire : " Where ? " 
 
 " In bedrooms." 
 
 " When ? " 
 
 "Sometimes daytime, sometimes night-time." 
 
 An even pleasanter prospect, but I am still 
 
 full of unbelief. 
 
 18 
 
WEST AND EAST 
 
 " Have you seen them yourself? " 
 
 " Yes, I kill." 
 
 " But when and how was it ? " 
 
 " One time master not here, lady staying here ; 
 daytime I kill one long snake, here, this room 
 night-time lady call me, I kill one short snake in 
 bedroom." 
 
 " Which bedroom ? " 
 
 " Master's bedroom." 
 
 That is not exactly reassuring, especially when 
 you like to leave your doors and windows open, 
 and sleep in the dark. I thank him, and he goes 
 away, having entirely destroyed my peace of mind. 
 The wicked old man ! I wish I could have seen 
 his face as he went out. Now I go delicately, 
 both "daytime" and " night-time," above all at 
 night-time, and I am haunted by the dread of the 
 " plenty long snake, plenty short snake." In one's 
 bedroom too, it is a gruesome idea. If I had gone 
 on questioning him, I dare say he would have told 
 me he killed a " plenty long snake " inside the bed, 
 trying to warm itself under the bed-clothes in this 
 absurdly cold place. I always thought this a 
 paradise, but without the snake. Alas ! how easily 
 one's cherished beliefs are destroyed. 
 
 It is past midnight ; the moon is full, and look- 
 19 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 ing down, resplendent in all her majesty, bathes 
 everything in a silver -radiance. I love to go and 
 stand in it ; but the verandahs are full of ferns, 
 roses and honeysuckle twine round the pillars, the 
 shadows are as dark as the lights are bright, and 
 everywhere there is excellent cover for the "long 
 snake" and the "short snake." Perhaps bed is 
 the safest place after all, and to-morrow well, 
 to-morrow I can send for a mongoose. 
 
 20 
 
IV 
 A CLEVER MONGOOSE 
 
 IN my last letter I told you how the ancient 
 who guards this Eden had complained of the 
 prevalence of snakes, and I, with an experience 
 which Adam does not appear to have possessed, 
 determined to send for a mongoose to deal with 
 the matter. Well, I saw nothing of the serpent, 
 did not even dream about him, and forgot all about 
 the mongoose. It is the thought of what I last 
 wrote to you that reminds me of an excellent story, 
 and a curious trick which I once witnessed, both 
 having to do with the mongoose. 
 
 First the story. A boy of twenty got into a 
 train one day, and found, already seated in the 
 carriage, a man of middle age, who had beside 
 him, on the floor, a closed basket. The train 
 started, and by-and-by the boy, feeling dull, looked 
 at his companion, and, to break the ice, said 
 
 " Is that your basket, sir ? " 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 To which the stranger, who did not at all relish 
 the idea of being dragged into a conversation with 
 a strange youth, replied, "Yes, it is," slightly 
 stammering as he said it. 
 
 A pause, then the boy, " I beg your pardon, 
 but is there some beast in it ? " 
 
 The man, annoyed, "Ye es, there's a m 
 mongoose in it." 
 
 The boy had no idea what a mongoose was, but 
 he had the curiosity of youth and was unabashed, 
 so he said, " May I ask what the mongoose is 
 for ? " 
 
 The man, decidedly irritated, and wishing to 
 silence his companion, " G got a f friend that 
 sees snakes, t taking the m mongoose to catch 
 'em." 
 
 The boy concluded the stranger was mad, and 
 wishing to pacify him, said 
 
 "Yes, but the snakes are not really there, are 
 they ? " 
 
 The man, " No, n neither is the m mon- 
 goose." 
 
 Now as to my experience. Some years ago 
 I was in Calcutta, and, walking in the street one 
 day, I was accosted by a man carrying a bag and 
 leading a mongoose by a string. He said, " I 
 
 22 
 
A CLEVER MONGOOSE 
 
 Madras man, master want to see plenty trick, I 
 very good conjurer," and he produced a sheaf of 
 more or less grimy credentials, in which it was 
 stated, by a number of reputable people, that he 
 was a conjurer of unusual skill. When I had 
 looked at some of the papers, he said, " I come 
 master's house, do trick, this very clever mongoose, 
 I bring him show master." 
 
 I was quite willing, so I gave him my address 
 and told him to come whenever he liked. 
 
 Some days later the conjurer was announced, 
 and there happened to 'be in my rooms at the time 
 a German dealer in Japanese curios, who had seen 
 rather more than usual during a sixteen years' resi- 
 dence in Japan and the Farthest East. He was 
 an extremely amusing old person, and glad of the 
 opportunity of seeing the conjurer, who was duly 
 admitted to our presence with his bag of pro- 
 perties. The very clever mongoose came in last, 
 at the end of his string. 
 
 The conjurer certainly justified his reputation, 
 and performed some extremely clever tricks, while 
 the mongoose sat by with a blase expression, taking 
 very little interest in the proceedings. When the 
 conjurer had come to the end of his programme, 
 or thought he had done enough, he offered to sell 
 
 23 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 the secret of an}' trick I liked to buy, and, taking 
 him at his word, I was shown several tricks, the 
 extreme simplicity of the deceit, when once you 
 knew it, being rather aggravating. 
 
 In the interest of watching the performance and 
 the subsequent explanations, I had forgotten the 
 mongoose, and the conjurer was already pushing 
 his paraphernalia into the sack, when I said, " But 
 the mongoose, the clever mongoose, where is his 
 trick ? " 
 
 The conjurer sat down again, pulled the mon- 
 goose towards him, and tied the end of his string 
 to a chair leg, giving the little beast plenty of rope 
 on which to play. Then the man pushed round in 
 front of him an earthenware chatty or water-vessel, 
 which had hitherto stood on the floor, a piece of 
 dirty cloth being tied over its mouth. Next the 
 conjurer thrust his hand into the sack, and pulled 
 out one of the trumpet- mouthed pipes on which 
 Indians play weird and discordant airs. 
 
 Now I want you to remember that this was my 
 room, that the man's stock-in-trade was contained 
 in the sack which he had pushed on one side, that 
 the pieces in the game were the mongoose, the 
 chatty (or what it contained), and the pipe, while 
 
 the lynx-eyed curio-dealer and I sat as close as 
 
 24 
 
A CLEVER MONGOOSE 
 
 we pleased to see fair play. I am obliged to tell 
 you that ; of what happened I attempt no explana- 
 tion, I only relate exactly what I saw. 
 
 The stage being arranged as I have described, 
 the conjurer drew the chatty towards him, and 
 said, " Got here one very good snake, catch him 
 in field this morning ; " at the same time he untied 
 the cloth, and with a jerk threw on the floor an 
 exceedingly lively snake, about three feet long. 
 From the look of it, I should say it was not 
 venomous. The conjurer had thrown the snake 
 close to the mongoose, who jumped out of its way 
 with surprising agility, while the conjurer kept 
 driving it towards the little beast. Neither snake 
 nor mongoose seemed to relish the situation, and 
 to force the game the conjurer seized the snake by 
 the tail, and, swinging it thereby, tried, two or 
 three times, to hit the mongoose with it. This 
 seemed to rouse both beast and reptile, and the 
 mongoose, making a lightning-like movement, seized 
 the snake by the head, shook it for a second or 
 two, dragging it over the matting, and then dropped 
 it on the floor. The instant the snake showed 
 fight the conjurer had let it go, and the mongoose 
 did the rest. 
 
 Where the snake had been dragged, the floor 
 25 
 
 - 
 / 
 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 was smeared with blood, and now the creature lay, 
 giving a few spasmodic twitches of its body, and 
 then was still. The conjurer pulled it towards 
 him, held it up by the tail, and said laconically, 
 " Snake dead." The mongoose meanwhile sat 
 quietly licking its paw as though nothing particular 
 had happened. 
 
 As the man held it up I looked very carefully at 
 the snake ; one eye was bulging out, by reason of 
 a bite just over it ; the head and neck were covered 
 with blood, and as far as my judgment went, the 
 thing was dead as Herod. The conjurer dropped 
 the snake on the floor, where it fell limply, as any 
 dead thing would, then he put it on its back and 
 coiled it up, head inwards, saying again, " You see, 
 snake dead." 
 
 He left the thing lying there, and searched in 
 his sack till he found what appeared to be a very 
 small piece of wood, it was, in fact, exactly like a 
 wooden match. The sack, all this time, was at 
 his side, but not close to him, while the snake was 
 straight in front of him, under our noses. Break- 
 ing off a very small piece of the wood, he gave it 
 to the mongoose, which began to eat it, apparently 
 as a matter of duty. At the same time the con- 
 jurer took an even smaller bit of the same stuff, 
 
 26 
 
A CLEVER MONGOOSE 
 
 and opening the snake's mouth, pushed the stick, 
 or whatever it was, inside, and then shut the mouth 
 again. This transaction would, I think, have con- 
 vinced any one who saw it that there was no life 
 in the snake. 
 
 The conjurer now took up his pipe, and made it 
 squeal some high discordant notes. Then taking 
 it from his lips, he said in Hindustani, as he touched 
 the snake's tail with the pipe, " Put out your 
 tail," and the creature's tail moved slowly outwards, 
 a little way from the rest of the coiled body. The 
 conjurer skirled another stave on his pipe, and as 
 he lowered the instrument with his left hand, he 
 exclaimed, " Snake all right now," and stretched 
 out his right hand at the same instant, to seize 
 the reptile by the tail. Either as he touched it, 
 or just before, the snake with one movement was 
 up, wriggling and twisting, apparently more alive 
 than when first taken out of the chatty. While the 
 conjurer thrust it back into the vessel there was 
 plenty of time to remark that, miraculous as the 
 resurrection appeared to be, the creature's eye still 
 protruded through the blood which oozed from the 
 hole in its head. 
 
 As he tied the rag over the top of the chatty, 
 the conjurer said, with a smile, " Very clever mon- 
 27 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 goose/' gathered up his sack, took the string of his 
 clever assistant in his left hand, raised his right to 
 his forehead, and with a low bow, and a respectful 
 " Salaam, Sahib," had left the room before I had 
 quite grasped the situation. 
 
 I looked at the dealer in curios, and, as with Bill 
 Nye, " he gazed upon me," but in our few minutes' 
 conversation, before he left, he could throw no light 
 on the mystery, and we agreed that our philosophy 
 was distinctly at fault. 
 
 That evening I related what had taken place to 
 half-a-dozen men, all of whom had lived in India 
 for some years, and I asked if any of them had 
 seen and could explain the phenomenon. 
 
 No one had seen it, some had heard of it, all 
 plainly doubted my story. One suggested that a 
 new snake had been substituted for that killed by 
 the mongoose, and another thought that there was 
 no real snake at all, only a wooden make-believe. 
 That rather exasperated me, and I said I was well 
 enough acquainted with snakes to be able to distin- 
 guish them from chair-legs. As the company was 
 decidedly sceptical, and inclined to be facetious at 
 my expense, I said I would send for the man again, 
 and they could tell me how the thing was done 
 
 when they had seen it. 
 
 28 
 
A CLEVER MONGOOSE 
 
 I sent, and it so happened that the conjurer 
 came on a Sunday, when I was sitting in the hall, 
 on the ground-floor of the house where I was stay- 
 ing. The conjurer was already squatted on the 
 white marble flags, with his sack and his chatty 
 (the mongoose's string held under his foot), when 
 my friends, the unbelievers, or some of them, re- 
 turned from church, and joined me to watch the 
 proceedings. I will not weary you by going 
 through it all again. What took place then was 
 an exact repetition of what occurred in my room, 
 except that this time the man had a larger chatty^ 
 which contained several snakes, and when he had 
 taken out one, and the mongoose had consented to 
 lay hold of it, he worried the creature as a terrier 
 does a rat, and, pulling his string away from under 
 his master's foot, he carried the snake into the 
 corner of the room, whither the conjurer pursued 
 him and deprived him of his prey. The result of 
 the encounter was that the marble was smeared 
 with streaks of blood that effectually disposed of 
 the wooden-snake theory. That little incident was 
 certainly not planned by the conjurer ; but when 
 the victim had been duly coiled on the floor and 
 the bit of stick placed (like the coin with which to 
 
 fee Charon) within its mouth, then, to my surprise, 
 
 29 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 the conjurer re-opened the chatty, took out another 
 snake, which in its turn was apparently killed by 
 the mongoose, and this one was coiled up and laid 
 on the floor beside the first victim. Then, whilst 
 the first corpse was duly resuscitated, according to 
 the approved methods I have already described, the 
 second lay on the floor, without a sign of life, and 
 it was only when No. I had been " resurrectioned," 
 and put back in the vessel, that the conjurer took 
 up the case of No. 2, and, with him, repeated the 
 miracle. 
 
 This time I was so entertained by the manifest 
 and expressed astonishment of the whilom scoffers, 
 that again the conjurer had gone before I had an 
 opportunity of buying this secret, if indeed he would 
 have sold it. I never saw the man again. 
 
 There is the story, and, even as it stands, I think 
 you will admit that the explanation is not exactly 
 apparent on the surface. I can assure you, how- 
 ever, that wherever the deception (and I diligently, 
 but unsuccessfully, sought to find it), the perform- 
 ance was the most remarkable I have ever wit- 
 nessed in any country. To see a creature, full of 
 life, and a snake, at close quarters, is apt to 
 impress you with its vitality, to see it killed, just 
 under your eyes, to watch its last convulsive 
 
 30 
 
A CLEVER MONGOOSE 
 
 struggles, to feel it in your hands, and gaze at 
 it as it lies, limp and dead, for a space of minutes ; 
 then heigh, presto ! and the thing is wriggling 
 about as lively as ever. It is a very curious trick 
 if trick it is. 
 
 That, however, is not quite all. 
 
 A month or two later I was sitting in the veran- 
 dah of an hotel in Agra. A number of American 
 globe-trotters occupied most of the other chairs, or 
 stood about the porch, where I noticed there was a 
 little knot of people gathered together. I was 
 idly staring into the street when the words, " Very 
 clever little mongoose," suddenly attracted my 
 attention, and I realised that two Indian conjurers 
 were amusing the party in the porch. I went at 
 once to the spot, and found the mongoose-snake 
 trick was just beginning. I watched it with great 
 attention, and I noticed that the mongoose only 
 seemed to give the snake one single nip, and there 
 was very little blood drawn. The business pro- 
 ceeded merrily, and in all respects in accordance 
 with what I had already seen, until, at the con- 
 clusion of the sort of Salvation-Army resurrection- 
 march, the juggler declared that the snake was 
 quite alive and well but he was not, he was 
 dead, dead as Bahram the Great Hunter. No 
 
 31 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 piping or tickling or pulling of his tail could 
 awaken the very faintest response from that limp 
 carcass, and the conjurers shuffled their things 
 together with downcast faces, and departed in 
 what the spectators called " a frost." To them, no 
 doubt, the game was absolutely meaningless ; to 
 me it seemed that the mongoose had " exceeded 
 his instructions." 
 
A BLUE DAY 
 
 THERE is a green hill," you know it well ; it 
 is not very "far away," perhaps a little over 
 a mile, but then that mile is not quite like other 
 miles. For one thing it takes you up 500 feet, 
 and as that is the last pull to reach the highest 
 point of this range (the summit of a mountain 
 over 5000 feet in height), the climb is steep. 
 Indeed, one begins by going down some rough 
 stone steps, between two immense granite boulders ; 
 then you make a half-circuit of the hill by a path 
 cut on the level, and thence descend for at least 
 250 feet, till you are on the narrow saddle which 
 joins this peak to the rest of the range. Really, 
 therefore, in a distance of little over half a mile 
 there is an ascent of 750 feet. 
 
 And what a path it is that brings you here ! 
 For I am now on the summit, though several times 
 on the way I was sorely tempted to sit down and 
 
 33 c 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 put on paper the picture of that road as it lay 
 before my eyes. It is a narrow jungle track, 
 originally made by the rhinoceros, the bison, and 
 the elephant, and now simply kept clear of falling 
 trees. It is exceeding steep, as I have said, and 
 you may remember. It begins by following the 
 stony bed of a mountain stream, dry in fine 
 weather, but full of water after half-an-hour's 
 tropical rain. Where the path is not covered by 
 roots or stones, it is of a chocolate colour ; but, in 
 the main, it is overspread by a network of gnarled 
 and knotted tree-roots, which, in the lapse of ages, 
 have become so interlaced that they hide the soil. 
 These roots, the stones round which they are often 
 twined, and the banks on either side, are covered 
 by mosses in infinite variety, so that when you 
 look upwards the path stands like a moss-grown 
 cleft in the wood. 
 
 The forest through which this track leads is 
 a mass of dwarfed trees, of palms, shrubs, and 
 creepers. Every tree, without exception, is clothed 
 with moss, wherever there is room to cling on 
 branch or stem, while often there are great fat 
 tufts of it growing in and round the forks, or at 
 any other place with convenient holding. The 
 trees are moss-grown, but that is only where the 
 
 34 
 
A BLUE DAY 
 
 innumerable creepers, ferns, and orchids leave any 
 space to cover. The way in which these things 
 climb up, embrace, and hang to every tree or stick 
 that will give them a footing is simply marvellous. 
 Even the great granite boulders are hidden by this 
 wealth of irresistible vegetation. Through the 
 green foliage blaze vivid patches of scarlet, marking 
 the dazzling blossoms of a rhododendron that may 
 be seen in all directions, but usually perched high 
 on some convenient tree. Then there is the 
 wonderful magnolia with its creamy petals ; the 
 jungle apple-blossom, whose white flowers are now 
 turning to crimson berries ; the forest lilac, graceful 
 in form, and a warm heliotrope in colour. These 
 first catch the eye, but, by-and-by, one realises 
 that there are orchids everywhere, and that, if the 
 blossoms are not great in size or wonderful in 
 colour, they are still charming in form, and painted 
 in delicate soft tones of lilac and brown, orange 
 and lemon, while one, with strings of large, pale, 
 apple-green blossoms, is as lovely as it is bizarre. 
 
 As for palms, the forest is full of them, in every 
 size, colour, and shape ; and wherever the sunlight 
 can break through the foliage will be found the 
 graceful fronds of the giant tree-fern. Lastly, the 
 ground is carpeted with an extravagant luxuriance 
 
 35 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 of ferns and flowers and " creeping things innumer- 
 able, both small and great." The wasteful abund- 
 ance of it all is what first strikes one, and then 
 you begin to see the beauty of the details. Masses 
 of lycopodium, ringing all the changes through 
 wonderful metallic-blue to dark and light green, 
 and then to russet brown ; there are Malay prim- 
 roses, yellow and blue, and a most delightful little 
 pale-violet trumpet, with crinkled lip, gazing towards 
 the light from the highest point of its delicate stem. 
 On either side of this path one sees a dozen jungle 
 flowers in different shades of blue or lilac ; it seems 
 to be the prevailing colour for the small flowers, 
 as scarlet and yellow are for the great masses of 
 more striking blossom. And then there are birds 
 oh yes, there are birds, but they are strange, like 
 their surroundings. At the foot of this hill I came 
 suddenly on a great black-and-white hornbill, which, 
 seeing me, slowly got up and flew away with the 
 noise of a train passing at a distance. High up 
 the path was a collection of small birds, flitting and 
 twittering amongst the leaves. There were hardly 
 two of the same plumage, but most of them carried 
 their tails spread out like fans, and many had pro- 
 nounced tufts of feathers on their heads. The 
 birds at this height are usually silent, and, when 
 
 36 
 
A BLUE DAY 
 
 they make any sound at all, they do not seem to 
 sing but to call ; and from the jungle all round, far 
 and near, loud and faint, will be heard similar 
 answering calls. I was surprised to hear, suddenly, 
 some bars of song, close by me, and I waited for 
 a long time, peering earnestly into the tree from 
 which the sound came ; but I saw nothing and 
 heard nothing beyond the perpetual double note 
 (short and long, with the accent on the latter) of 
 a bird that must be the bore and outcast of the 
 forest. 
 
 Coming out into the clearing which crowns the 
 hill, I passed several kinds of graceful grasses, ten 
 or twelve feet high, and the flight of steps which 
 leads to the actual summit is cut through a mass 
 of bracken, over and through which hang the 
 strange, delicately painted cups of the nepenthes, 
 the stems of the bracken rising from a bed made 
 rosy by the countless blossoms of a three-pointed 
 pale-pink starwort. 
 
 In the jungle one could only see the things 
 within reach, but, once on the peak, one has only 
 eyes for the grandeur and magnificence of an un- 
 equalled spectacle. 
 
 The view seems limitless, it is complete in every 
 direction, unbarred by any obstruction, natural or 
 
 37 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 artificial. First I look eastwards to those great 
 ranges of unexplored mountains, rising tier after 
 tier, their outlines clear as cut cameos against the 
 grey-blue sky. Betwixt them and my point of 
 sight flows a great river, and though it is ten or 
 twelve miles distant as the crow flies, I can see 
 that it is brown with flood-water, and, in some 
 places, overflowing its banks. Nearer lie the 
 green rice-fields and orchards, and, nearer still, 
 the spurs of the great range on whose highest 
 point I stand. 
 
 Then northward, that is the view that is usually 
 shut out from me. It is only hill and dale, river 
 and plain, but it is grand by reason of its extent, 
 beautiful in colour and form, intensely attractive 
 in the vastness of those miles of mysterious jungle, 
 untrodden, save by the feet of wild beasts ; endless 
 successions of mountain and valley, peak and spur, 
 immovable and eternal. You know there are grey 
 days and golden days ; as there are crimson and 
 heliotrope evenings, white, and, alas ! also black 
 nights well, this is a blue day. There is sun- 
 light, but it is not in your eyes, it only gives light 
 without shedding its own colour on the landscape. 
 The atmosphere seems to be blue ; the sky is blue, 
 except on the horizon, where it pales into a clear 
 
 38 
 
A BLUE DAY 
 
 grey. Blue forest-clad hills rise, in the middle 
 distance, from an azure plain, and the distant 
 mountains are sapphire, deep sapphire. The effect 
 is strange and uncommon, but supremely beautiful. 
 
 Westward, a deep valley runs down from this 
 range into the flat, forest- covered plains, till, near- 
 ing the coast, great patches of light mark fields of 
 sugar-canes and thousands upon thousands of acres 
 of rice. Then the sea, the sea dotted by distant 
 islands, the nearest thirty miles away, the farthest 
 perhaps fifty. The morning heat is drawing a veil 
 of haze across the distance ; on a clear evening a 
 great island, eighty miles away to the northward, 
 is clearly visible. 
 
 I turn to the south, and straight before me rises 
 the grand blue peak of a mountain, 6000 feet high, 
 and not more than six miles away. It is the 
 highest point of a gigantic mass of hill that seems 
 to fill the great space between the flooded river and 
 the bright calm sea. Looking across the eastern 
 shoulder of the mountain, the eye wanders over a 
 wide plain, lost far away to the south in cloud- 
 wrapt distance. Beyond the western slopes lies 
 the calm mirror of a summer sea, whereon many 
 islands seem to float. The coast-line is broken, 
 picturesque and beautiful, by reason of its many 
 
 39 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 indentations and the line of bold hills which, rising 
 sheer out of the water, seem to guard the shore. 
 
 Due west I see across the deep valley into my 
 friend's house, where it crowns the ridge, and then 
 beyond to that vast plain which, in its miles and 
 miles of forest-covered flatness, broken by great 
 river-mouths, long vistas of deep lagoons, and a 
 group of shining pools scattered over its surface, 
 forms one of the strangest features in this match- 
 less panorama of mountain, river and plain, sea, 
 sky, and ever-changing cloud-effects. 
 
 There is an empty one-roomed hut of brown 
 palm-leaves on this most lonely peak. One pushes 
 the mat window upwards and supports it on a 
 stick, beneath the window is a primitive seat or 
 couch. That is where I have been sitting, a cool 
 breeze blowing softly through the wide open 
 windows. I could not stay there any longer, the 
 place seemed full of memories of another day, 
 when there was no need, and no inclination, to look 
 outside to see the beauty of the world and the 
 divine perfection of the Creator's genius. And then 
 I heard something, it must have been fancy, but 
 there was a faint but distinct jingle of metal. 
 
 It is better out here, sitting on a moss-grown 
 boulder in the pleasant warmth of the sun. The 
 
 40 
 
A BLUE DAY 
 
 swifts are circling the hill, and they flash past me 
 with the hiss of a sword cleaving the air. I look 
 down on the tops of all these stunted trees, heavy 
 with their burden of creepers and mosses straining 
 towards the light. A great bunch of pitcher-plants 
 is hanging in front of me, pitcher-plants a foot 
 long, scarlet and yellow, green and purple, in all 
 the stages of their growth, their lids standing 
 tilted upwards, leaving the pitcher open to be 
 filled by any passing shower. But my eyes travel 
 across all the intervening miles to rest upon the 
 sea, the sea which is now of a quite indescrib- 
 able blue, basking under a sky of the same colour. 
 Out there, westward, if I could only pierce the 
 
 distance, I should see 
 
 Ah ! the great white clouds are rising and warn- 
 ing me to go. Good-bye ! good-bye ! for you the 
 missing words are as plain as these. 
 
VI 
 OF LOVE, IN FICTION 
 
 I HAVE been reading "Casa Braccio," and I must 
 talk to you about it. Of course I do not know 
 whether you have read it or not, so if I bore you 
 forgive me. I was much interested in Part I., 
 rather disappointed with Part II., and it struck me 
 that Mr. Crawford showed signs in Part III. of 
 weariness with the characters of his own creation. 
 There are nine people who play important parts in 
 the story, and the author kills six of them. The 
 first, an abbess, dies naturally but conveniently ; 
 the second, an innkeeper's daughter, dies suddenly, 
 by misadventure ; the third, a nun, dies, one is 
 not told how, when, or where but she dies. This 
 is disappointing, because she promised to be a very 
 interesting character. Then the fourth, daughter 
 of No. 3, commits suicide, because, having run 
 away from her husband, and got tired of the other 
 
 man, the husband declines to have her back. The 
 
 42 
 
fu N I 
 
 V; 
 
 V 
 
 ; 
 OF LOVE, IN FICTION 
 
 fifth, a most uninteresting and weak-kneed indi- 
 vidual, is an artist, husband of No. 4, and he dies, 
 apparently to make himself disagreeable ; while 
 the sixth, the original cause of all the trouble, is 
 murdered by the innkeeper, who has been hunting 
 him, like a good Christian, for twenty years, deter- 
 mined to kill him when found, under the mistaken 
 impression that he eloped with, and disposed of, 
 his daughter, No. 2. 
 
 No one can deny that the author has dealt out 
 destruction with impartiality, and it is rather 
 strange, for Mr. Crawford often likes to use his 
 characters for two or even three books ; that is 
 why, I think, he got a little tired with these par- 
 ticular people, and determined to bury them. Out 
 of this lot he has kept only three for future vivi- 
 section and ultimate extinction. 
 
 I trust that, if you have not read the .book 
 already, you will be induced, by what I have told 
 you, to get " Casa Braccio," for you will find many 
 interesting human problems discussed in it, and 
 many others suggested for the consideration of the 
 reader. Here, for instance, is a text which may 
 well give you pause, " The widowhood of the un- 
 satisfied is hell, compared with the bereavement 
 of complete possession." 
 
 43 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 Now what do you say to that ? For I am sure 
 the somewhat bald, if not positively repellent, look 
 and sound of the words, will not deter you from 
 considering the truth or falseness of the statement. 
 I do not altogether like the theory ; and one may 
 even be permitted to differ from the conclusion con- 
 tained in the text. But the reason why this sen- 
 tence arrested my attention is because you quote, 
 " L 'absence ni le temps ne sont rien quand on aime," 
 and later, you appeal to the East as a place of 
 broader views, of deeper feeling, of longer, wider 
 experience than the West. You appeal to the 
 East, and this is what a Persian poet says : 
 
 " All that is by nature twain, 
 Fears and suffers by the pain 
 Of separation Love is only perfect, 
 When itself transcends itself, 
 And one with that it loves 
 In Undivided Being blends." 
 
 Now, how do you reconcile the Western with the 
 Eastern statement, and will either support the "Casa 
 Braccio " theory ? You tell me that time and 
 absence count for nothing as between lovers ; the 
 Persian says that separation, under these circum- 
 stances, is the one calamity most to be dreaded, 
 and that love cannot be perfect without union. 
 
 44 
 
OF LOVE, IN FICTION 
 
 The French writer evidently believed that "Absence 
 makes the heart grow fonder," while the Eastern, 
 without saying, "Out of sight, out of mind," clearly 
 thought that love in absence is a very poor sub- 
 stitute for the passion which sees, hears, and touches 
 the object of its adoration. Undoubtedly the Eastern 
 expressed the feeling, not only of his own country- 
 men, but of all other Orientals, and probably of 
 Western lovers as well ; but if the separation is a 
 matter of necessity, then the Western character, the 
 feeling of loyalty towards and faith in the object 
 of our love, helps us to the belief that " Partings 
 and tears and absence" none need fear, provided 
 the regard is mutual. It is a good creed, and the 
 only one to uphold, but we are not so blind that we 
 cannot see how often it fails to secure even fidelity ; 
 while who would deny the Persian's contention 
 that the bond cannot be perfect in absence ? 
 
 "The widowhood of the unsatisfied is hell, com- 
 pared with the bereavement of complete possession." 
 
 No, certainly, it does not look well. It is hardly 
 worth while to inquire into the bereavement of a 
 complete possession that was not only satisfied 
 but satiated; therefore the comparison must be be- 
 tween perfect love realised, and love that is only not 
 perfected because unrealised. If that is so, then 
 
 45 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 the text appears to be false in theory, for, inas- 
 much as nothing earthly can be more perfect than 
 that realisation of mutual affection which the same 
 Persian describes as 
 
 " She and I no more, 
 But in one Undivided Being blended," 
 
 so the severance of that union by death must be 
 the greatest of human ills. 
 
 tl The widowhood of the unsatisfied " admits of 
 so many special constructions, each of which would 
 accentuate the despair of the unsatisfied, that it 
 makes the consideration rather difficult, but, in any 
 case, the magnitude of the loss must be imagina- 
 tive. It is only, therefore, by supposing that no 
 realisation could be so perfect as to equal the ideal 
 of imagination, that the theory of the text could be 
 established. If that be granted, and it were also 
 admitted that the widowhood of this unsatisfied 
 imagination were as hell, compared with "the 
 bereavement of complete possession," that would 
 merely show that " complete possession " is worth 
 very little, and no one need grieve because their 
 longings after a purely imaginary heaven had been 
 widowed before being wedded to the hell of such a 
 disappointing possession. 
 
 46 
 
OF LOVE, IN FICTION 
 
 In any case, I think one is forced to the conclu- 
 sion that the man (and one must assume it to be 
 a man, in spite of the word " widowhood ") who 
 should thus express his feelings would never agree 
 that " L'absence ni le temps ne sont rien quand on 
 aime; " that is, of course, supposing he has not got 
 beyond the protesting and unsatisfied stage. Once 
 arrived, he would doubtless subscribe to the phrase 
 with virtuous stolidity. Personally I think, as you 
 probably do, that these words of De Musset give 
 a most charming description of the best form of 
 that true friendship which time cannot weaken nor 
 absence change. For friends it is admirable, for 
 lovers, no. 
 
 I have not sought out this riddle for the purpose 
 of airing my own views, but to draw from you an 
 expression of yours. You say my letters are the 
 most tantalising in the world, as I never tell you 
 anything you want to know ; just leading up to 
 what most interests you, and then breaking off to 
 something else. If there is nothing in this letter 
 to interest you, at least I have kept to one subject, 
 and I have discussed it as though I were express- 
 ing a real opinion ! One can hardly do more than 
 that. You see, if I gave you no opportunity of 
 scolding me, you might never write ! 
 
 47 
 
VII 
 THE JINGLING COIN 
 
 YOU ask me the meaning of the jingling coin. 
 It was a tale I heard that impressed me, and 
 sometimes comes back with a strange fascination. 
 Did I never tell you ? Well, here it is. 
 
 I was in India, staying at a hill station, no 
 matter where. I met there a man who for years 
 had spent his holidays in the place, and, walking 
 with him one day up a narrow mountain-path to 
 the top of a hill, whence there was a magnifi- 
 cent view of the Himalayan snows, we passed a 
 small stone slab on which was cut a date. The 
 stone was at a spot where, from the path, was a 
 sheer fall of several hundreds of feet, and as we 
 passed it my companion said " Look at that. I 
 will tell you what it means when we get to the 
 top." 
 
 As we lay on the grass and feasted our eyes 
 
 upon the incomparable spectacle, before which 
 
 4 8 
 
THE JINGLING COIN 
 
 earthly lives and troubles seemed so insignificant, 
 my companion told his tale. I now repeat it, as 
 nearly as I can remember, in his own words. 
 
 "If I tell you this story," he said, "you must 
 not ask me how I know the details, or seek for 
 any particulars beyond what I give you. 
 
 " During one of my many visits to this place, I 
 met a man whom I had seen before and heard a 
 good deal about, for he was one of those people 
 who concern themselves with no one's business 
 but their own, and, therefore, their affairs seem to 
 have a special attraction for the Philistine. He 
 knew that rumour was busy with his name, but 
 beyond the fact that he became more reserved than 
 nature had already made him, the gossip, which 
 was always founded on imagination, sometimes on 
 jealousy, and even malice, seemed to make no 
 impression whatever. That may have been the 
 result of a strong character, but partly, no doubt, 
 it was due to the fact that all his public life had 
 been lived under the fierce light of a criticism that 
 was, in a way, the measure of his success. His 
 friends (and he was fortunate in the possession of 
 particularly loyal friends of both sexes) realised 
 that if, even to them, this man showed little of his 
 real self, he sometimes writhed under calumnies of 
 49 D 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 which no one knew the authorship, and the exist- 
 ence of which only reached him rarely, through his 
 most intimate friends. For his own reasons he 
 kept his own counsel, and I doubt whether any 
 one knew as much of the real man as I did. A few 
 months before the time I speak of he had made 
 the acquaintance of a girl, or, perhaps I ought to 
 say, a woman, for she was married, who was, with 
 her mother, visiting India. When first the man 
 met this girl he was amazed, and, to some extent, 
 carried away by her extraordinary beauty. But 
 his work took him elsewhere, and, beyond that first 
 impression, which had so powerfully affected him, 
 there was neither time nor opportunity to ascertain 
 whether the lovely exterior was the casket to a 
 priceless jewel, or only the beautiful form harbour- 
 ing a mindless, soulless, disappointment. She had 
 heard of the man, and while unwilling to be pre- 
 judiced by gossip, she was on her guard, and 
 rather afraid of a cynicism which her quick intelli- 
 gence had noted at their first meeting. Otherwise 
 she was, womanlike and generous, curious to 
 see, and to judge for herself, what manner of man 
 this was, against whom more than one indiscreet 
 acquaintance had already warned her. 
 
 11 Some time elapsed, and then these two found 
 50 
 
THE JINGLING COIN 
 
 themselves staying in the same house. The man 
 realised the attractions of the woman's glorious 
 beauty, and he honestly determined that he would 
 neither think, nor look, nor utter any feeling beyond 
 that of ordinary friendship. This resolve he as 
 honestly kept, and, though accident threw in his 
 way every kind of opportunity, and he was con- 
 stantly alone with the girl, he made no attempt to 
 read her character, to seek her confidence, or to 
 obtain her friendship ; indeed, he charged himself 
 with having been somewhat neglectful in those 
 attentions which make the courtesy of man to 
 woman, and, when they parted, he questioned 
 whether any man had ever been so much in this 
 woman's society without saying a word that might 
 not have been shouted in the market-place. Some- 
 how the man had an intuitive feeling that gossip 
 had supplied the girl with a not too friendly sketch 
 of him, and he, for once, abandoned the cynicism 
 that, had he cared less, might have prompted him 
 to convey any impression of himself, so long as 
 it should not be the true one. To her this visit 
 said nothing beyond the fact that the man, as 
 she found him, was quite unlike his picture, as 
 painted by professed friends, and that the reality 
 interested her. 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 "The three Fateful Sisters, who weave the 
 destinies of men and women into such strange 
 tangles, threw these two across each other's paths, 
 until the man, at least, sought to aid Fortune, 
 in providing opportunities for meeting one whose 
 attractive personality appealed so greatly to his 
 artistic sense. Chance helped him, and, again 
 catching together the threads of these lives, Destiny 
 twisted them into a single strand. One brief day, 
 or less, is enough to make a bond that only death 
 can sever, and for this man and woman there were 
 days and days when, in spite of resistance, their 
 lives were gradually drawn so close together that 
 at last the rivets were as strong as they were 
 invisible. 
 
 "The triumphant beauty of the woman, rare and 
 disturbing though it was, would not alone have 
 overcome him, but, as the days went by, and they 
 were brought more and more into each other's 
 society, she gradually let him see the greater 
 beauty of her soul ; and small wonder if he found 
 the combined attractions irresistible. She was so 
 young that I have called her a girl, and yet she 
 had seen as much of life as many women twice her 
 age. Her beauty and charm of manner had brought 
 her hosts of admirers, but still she was completely 
 
 52 
 
THE JINGLING COIN 
 
 unspoilt, and devoid of either coquetry or self-con- 
 sciousness. A lovely face, lighted by the winning 
 expression of an intelligent mind and a warm, 
 loving nature ; a graceful, willowy figure, whose 
 lissom movements showed a quite uncommon 
 strength and power of endurance ; these outward 
 attractions, united to quick discernment, absolute 
 honesty of speech and intention, a bright energy, 
 perfectly unaffected manners, and a courage of the 
 highest order, moral as well as physical, fascinated 
 a man, the business of whose life had been to 
 study his fellow-creatures. He felt certain that 
 he saw here 
 
 " ' La main qui ne trahit, la bouche qui ne ment.' 
 
 " His experience had given him a horror of 
 weakness in every form, and here, he realised, 
 was a woman who was only capable of great 
 thoughts and great deeds, obeying the dictates of 
 her own heart and mind, not the suggestions of 
 the weaker brethren. If she fell, it would be as 
 an angel might fall, through love of one of the 
 sons of men. 
 
 "Her shy reserve slowly gave way to confidence, 
 and, in the sympathy of closer friendship, she let 
 him see beauties of soul of which he would have 
 
 53 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 deemed it sacrilege to speak to another. What 
 drew her to him I cannot tell ; perhaps his pro- 
 found reverence for, and admiration of, her sex, his 
 complete understanding of herself, or perhaps some 
 quality of his own. I had not her confidence, so 
 cannot say ; but there were men who recognised 
 his fascination, due in part, no doubt, to his com- 
 pelling will. Perhaps she was simply carried away 
 by the man's overpowering love, which at last 
 declared itself. They realised the hopelessness of 
 the position, and yet they both took comfort from 
 their mutual love and trust in each other's unchang- 
 ing faith. That was all they had to look forward 
 to, that and Fate. 
 
 "With that poor prospect before them he gave 
 her, on a day, a gold coin, ' for luck,' he said an 
 ancient Indian coin of some forgotten dynasty, and 
 she hung it on a bangle and said laughingly, that 
 if ever she were likely to forget him the jingle of 
 the coin would be a ceaseless reminder of the giver. 
 And so the thing lived there day and night, and, 
 when she moved, it made little musical sounds, 
 singing its story to her willing ears, as it struck 
 against the bangle from which it hung. 
 
 "Then they came here, he to his work, she to 
 see the snows and some friends, before leaving 
 
 54 
 
THE JINGLING COIN 
 
 India for Japan, or California, or some other stage 
 of the voyage which brings no rest to the troubled 
 soul. One day they had ridden up here, and were 
 returning down the hill. It was afternoon, and 
 she was riding in front, he behind, the syces 
 following. The path is narrow, as you saw, 
 and very steep. She dropped something, stopped, 
 and called a syce to pick it up. Her horse was 
 impatient, got his head round, and, as the syce 
 approached, backed over the edge of the road. 
 The thing was done in an instant, the horse was 
 over the side, down on his belly, terror-struck and 
 struggling in the loose earth. The man had only 
 time to shout, ' Get off ! get off ! ' but she could 
 not get off, the horse had fallen on his off side, 
 and, as the man threw himself on the road, her 
 horse rolled slowly right over her, with a horrible 
 crunching noise, then faster, over her again, and 
 then horse and rider disappeared, and, crashing 
 through the undergrowth, banging against great 
 granite boulders, fell with a horrible thud, far down 
 the height. 
 
 "He had never seen her face ; she had her 
 back towards him, and she never uttered a 
 sound. 
 
 " The road makes a long detour, and then comes 
 55 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 back, several hundred feet lower down, to a spot 
 almost directly underneath the point where the 
 accident happened. A little way in from there 
 the man saw the horse lying perfectly still, with 
 its neck broken. Higher up the bank he found 
 the woman, moaning a little, but quite unconscious, 
 crushed and torn, you have seen the place and 
 you can guess. She only lived a few minutes. 
 
 " When at last the man awoke out of his stupor, 
 to lift her up and carry her down to the path, he 
 noticed that the bangle and the coin had both 
 gone, wrenched off in that wild plunge through 
 trees and stones into eternity or oblivion. 
 
 "The man waited there, while one of the syces 
 went for help and a litter, and it was only after 
 they had carried her home that I saw him. I 
 could hardly recognise him. There were times 
 when I had thought him the saddest-looking man I 
 had ever seen, but this was different. There was 
 a grey, drawn setness on his face, and something 
 in his eyes I did not care to look at. He and I 
 were living in the same house, and in the evening 
 he told me briefly what had happened, and several 
 times, both while he spoke and afterwards, I saw 
 him throw up his head and listen intently. I 
 asked him what it was, and he said, ' Nothing, I 
 
 56 
 
THE JINGLING COIN 
 
 thought I heard something.' Later, he started 
 suddenly, and said 
 
 " ' Did you hear that ? ' 
 
 " < Hear what ? ' I asked. 
 
 " ' A faint jingling noise,' he replied. ' You must 
 have heard it ; did you do it ? ' 
 
 " But I had heard nothing, and I said so. 
 
 " He got up and looked about to see if any one 
 was moving, and then came back and sat down 
 again. I tried to make him go to bed, but he 
 would not, and I left him there at last. 
 
 "They buried her the next evening, and all the 
 English in the station were there. The man and 
 I stood on the outskirts of the people, and we 
 lingered till they had gone, and then watched the 
 grave-diggers finish the filling of the grave, put 
 on the sods, and finally leave the place. As they 
 built up the earth, and shaped it into the form of 
 a roof to cover that narrow dwelling, the man 
 winced under every blow of the spades, as though 
 he were receiving them on his own body. There 
 was nothing to say, and we said nothing, but more 
 than once I noticed the man in that listening atti- 
 tude, and I began to be alarmed about him. I got 
 him home, and except for that look, which had 
 not left his face, and the intentness with which I 
 
 57 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 sometimes caught him listening, there was nothing 
 strange in his manner ; only he hardly spoke at all. 
 On subsequent evenings for the next fortnight he 
 talked more than usual about himself, and as I 
 knew that he often spent a good deal of time in, 
 or looking on to, the cemetery, I was not surprised 
 to hear him say that he thought it a particularly 
 attractive graveyard, and one where it would be 
 pleasant to lie, if one had to be put away some- 
 where. It is on the hill, you know, by the church, 
 and one can see the eternal snows across that blue 
 valley which divides us from the highlands of 
 Sikkim. He was insistent, and made me remark 
 that, as far as he was concerned, there could be 
 no better place to lie than in this God's Acre. 
 
 tl Once or twice, again, he asked me if I did not 
 hear a jingle, and constantly, especially in the quiet 
 of evening, I saw him start and listen, till some- 
 times I really began to think I heard the noise he 
 described. 
 
 " A few evenings later, but less than a month 
 after the accident, I went to bed, leaving him 
 cleaning a revolver which he thought a deal of, 
 and certainly he could shoot very straight with it. 
 I was sitting half-undressed, when I heard a loud 
 report, and you may imagine the feelings with 
 
 58 
 
THE JINGLING COIN 
 
 which I ran to the room where I had left him. 
 He was sitting at the table, with his left hand 
 raised, as though to reach his heart, and his right 
 straight down by his side, the revolver on the floor 
 beneath it. He was dead, shot through the heart ; 
 but his head was slightly thrown back, his eyes 
 wide open, and in them that look of listening 
 expectancy I had seen so often of late. At the 
 corners of his mouth there seemed to be the 
 shadow of the faintest smile. 
 
 " At the inquest I explained that I left him 
 cleaning the pistol, and that, as it had a hair- 
 trigger, no doubt it had gone off by misadventure. 
 When each of the jurors had, in turn, raised the 
 hammer, and found it was hardly necessary to 
 touch the trigger in order to fire the weapon, 
 they unanimously returned a verdict of ' accidental 
 death.' " 
 
 " It is curious," concluded my companion, *' but 
 I sometimes think / hear the jingle of that coin, 
 especially if I am alone on this hill, or sitting by 
 myself at night in the house where that sad acci- 
 dent happened." He put a slight stress on the 
 word " accident," that was not lost on me. 
 
 As we passed the stone, on our way down the 
 hill, I seemed to see that horse blunder backwards 
 
 59 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 over the edge of the path, to hear the slow, 
 crunching roll, and then the crash and ghastly 
 thud, far down below ; and, as an involuntary 
 shudder crept slowly down my back, I thought / 
 heard the faint jingle of that ill-omened piece of 
 gold. 
 
 60 
 
VIII 
 A STRANGE SUNSET 
 
 YOU will think I am eternally babbling of 
 sunsets, but no one, with a spark of feeling, 
 could be here and not be moved to the depths of 
 his nature by the matchless, the ever-changing 
 beauty of the wonderful pictures that are so con- 
 stantly before his eyes. People who are utterly 
 commonplace, whose instincts seem, in some re- 
 spects, to approach those of the beasts, when they 
 come here are amazed into new sensations, and, 
 in unaccustomed words, voice the expression of 
 their admiration. If I weary you, pardon me, and 
 remember that you are the only victim of my 
 exaltation. 
 
 One looks for a sunset in the west, does one 
 not ? and that is the direction in which to find it 
 here as elsewhere ; but to-night the marvellous 
 effects of the setting sun were, for a time, con- 
 fined almost entirely to the east, or, to be strictly 
 
 61 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 accurate, rather to the south of east. Facing that 
 direction one looks across a remarkable ridge, 
 entirely covered by giant forest trees. The ridge 
 dips in a sort of crescent from about 4500 feet in 
 height at one extremity to 3000 feet at the other, 
 and extends for a distance of perhaps two miles 
 between the horns. Beyond and below the ridge 
 lies a great, fertile valley, watered by a stately 
 river, along the opposite bank of which runs a 
 range of hills, varying in height from 2000 to 
 3000 feet. Behind these hills there is another 
 valley, another range, and then a succession of 
 ever-loftier mountains, forming the main chain. 
 
 The sun had disappeared behind a thick bank 
 of grey clouds, . and the only evidence of his pre- 
 sence was in the lambent edges of these clouds, 
 which here and there glittered like molten metal. 
 The western sky was, except for this bank, extra- 
 ordinarily clear and cloudless, of a pale translucent 
 blue, flecked here and there by tiny cloud-boats, 
 airy and delicate, moving very slowly across the 
 empyrean. I noticed this because what I saw in 
 the east was so remarkable that I noted every 
 detail. 
 
 Against a background the colour of a hedge- 
 sparrow's egg in the south, and blue without the 
 
 62 
 
A STRANGE SUNSET 
 
 green in the east, stood one white cloud, like a 
 huge plume, with its base resting on the many 
 ranges across the river, while it seemed to lean 
 towards me, the top of the plume being almost 
 over my head. At first the plume shone, from 
 base to top, with a golden effulgence ; but this 
 gradually gave place to that lovely tint which I 
 can only describe as rose dore'e, the warm colour 
 momentarily intensifying in tone until it suffused 
 the entire cloud with such a roseate blush that 
 all the hills beneath, and all the fast-darkening 
 plain, blushed in response. 
 
 For twenty minutes that glowing plume of 
 softly rounded, feathery cloud stood framed against 
 its wondrous blue-green background, the rosy 
 colour of the cloud deepening as the land beneath 
 it gathered blackness. Then, almost impercep- 
 tibly, the glow flickered and died, leaving only 
 an immense grey-white cloud hanging over the 
 night-shrouded plain. 
 
 The sun, I knew, had long sunk beneath the 
 horizon. Though I could see nothing behind that 
 thick curtain of cloud, I waited, for the after-glow, 
 seen from this height, is often more wonderful 
 than the actual sunset. Five minutes of dull 
 greyness, and then the whole western sky, for 
 
 63 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 a space above the horizon, was overspread with 
 pale gold, while countless shafts of brighter light 
 radiated, as from the hub of the Sun-God's chariot- 
 wheel, across the gilded space, into the blue 
 heights above. In the midst of this pale golden 
 sheen there appeared, almost due west, and low 
 down in the sky, a silver crescent, fine as a 
 thread, curved upwards like the lip of a cup of 
 which bowl and stem were invisible. It was the 
 new-born moon. 
 
 Gradually all sunlight failed, and close above 
 the long, narrow bank of dark clouds, clearly 
 etched against their grey background, hung a now 
 golden crescent, into which seemed to be falling a 
 solitary star of surpassing brilliance. 
 
 To stand alone here in the presence of Nature, 
 to witness the marvels of sunrise or sunset, the 
 strange influence of nights of ravishing moonlight 
 and days of quickening heat, impresses one with 
 the conviction that if Oriental language is couched 
 in terms that sound extravagant to Western ears, 
 the reason is not far to seek. Nature revels 
 here ; one can really see things grow, where the 
 sun shines every day as it never shines in lands 
 of cold and fog. Natural phenomena are on a 
 
 grander scale ; the lightning is more vivid, the 
 
 6 4 
 
A STRANGE SUNSET 
 
 thunder more deafening, the rain a deluge against 
 which the feeble artifices of man offer no pro- 
 tection. The moonlight is brighter, the shadows 
 deeper, the darkness blacker than in northern 
 climes. So the vegetation covers the earth, climbs 
 on to the rocks, and disputes possession even with 
 the waters of the sea. The blossoms are as 
 brilliant in colour as they are profuse in quantity, 
 and two men will stagger under the weight of a 
 single fruit. As for thorns, they are long as nails, 
 stiff as steel, and sharp as needles. The beasts 
 of the forest are mighty, the birds of the air are 
 of wonderful plumage, the denizens of the deep 
 are many, and huge, and strange. In the lower 
 forms of life it is just the same ; the lizards, the 
 beetles, the ants, the moths and butterflies, the 
 frogs and the snakes, they are great in size and 
 legion in number. Even the insects, however 
 small, are in myriads. 
 
 Only man stagnates, propagates feebly, loses 
 arts, falls a prey to pestilence, to new diseases, to 
 imported vices, dies, while every creature and 
 every plant around him is struggling in the cease- 
 less renewal of life. Man dies, possibly because 
 exultant nature leaves him so little to do to sup- 
 port his own existence ; but it is not strange that, 
 
 6 > E 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 when he goes beyond the ordinary avocations of 
 daily life, and takes himself at all seriously, his 
 language should partake somewhat of the colour 
 of his surroundings. Nor, perhaps, is it altogether 
 surprising that, living with the tiger and the croco- 
 dile, the cobra and the stinging-ray, the scorpion 
 and the centipede, he should have acquired some 
 of their bloodthirstiness and venom, rather than 
 have sought an example in the gentleness of the 
 dove, a bird much fancied by Eastern peoples for 
 the sweetness of its note and the excellence of 
 its fighting qualities. 
 
 I suppose it is the appalling difficulties of 
 making a passage through the jungle that have 
 given the elephant and rhinoceros their strength 
 and courage ; but for the people, who are never 
 really cold, and seldom hungry, there is little 
 inducement to exertion. They can lie under the 
 fruit trees, and idly watch the grey, gossamer- 
 winged butterflies floating dreamily across a sunlit 
 glade ; they drowse and sleep to the music of the 
 waters, as the whispering river slips gently towards 
 a summer sea. 
 
 And it is all so comfortable. There is Death, 
 but that is predestined, the one thing certain in 
 
 so much that is too hard for the finite mind. 
 
 66 
 
A STRANGE SUNSET 
 
 There is also Hell, but of all those who speak so 
 glibly of it, none ever believes that the same 
 Power which created him, to live for a moment 
 in trouble on the earth, will condemn him to an 
 eternity of awful punishment. It is Paradise for 
 which each man, in his own mind, is destined ; a 
 Paradise where he will be rewarded for all his 
 earthly disappointments by some such pleasant 
 material advantages as he can picture to himself, 
 while he lies on the river bank and gradually 
 sinks into a delightful slumber, lulled by the rest- 
 ful rippling of the passing stream. And he will 
 dream dream of that Celestial Being of whom 
 it is related that " his face shone golden, like 
 that of a god, so that many lizards fell, dazzled, 
 from the walls, and the cockroaches in the thatch 
 fought to bask in the light of his countenance." 
 
 Oriental imagery, but a quaintly pretty idea, 
 the creatures struggling to sit in the light shed by 
 that radiant face. 
 
IX 
 OF LETTER- WRITING 
 
 SO you prefer the unaddressed letters, such 
 as you have seen, to those which you receive 
 from me in a cover, whereon are duly inscribed 
 your name, style, and titles, and you ask me 
 whether some of the letters are not really written 
 to you. They are written to " Mary, in heaven," 
 or to you, if you please, or to any one to whom 
 they appeal. The reason why you prefer them to 
 the epistles I address to you is because they are 
 unconstrained (too much so, you might think, if 
 you saw them all), while, in writing to you, I am 
 under constraint, and, directly I feel it, I have to 
 be careful what I say, and beat about for some 
 safe subject ; and, as I abhor gossip and cannot 
 write about my neighbour's cat, I become unnatural, 
 stilted, stupid, boring. With Mary it is different, 
 for she is in heaven, where there are no marriages, 
 
 and, therefore, I imagine, no husbands. As for 
 
 68 
 
OF LETTER-WRITING 
 
 lovers, I do not mind them, for they have no 
 special privileges ; at any rate, they have no right 
 to interfere with me. The idea that what I write 
 for your eye may be read by some one for whom 
 it was not intended, hampers the pen and takes 
 away more than half the pleasure of writing. 
 
 If you answer, " You ought not to want to write 
 anything to me that may not be read by the 
 master over my shoulder, or by the maid in the 
 kitchen," I say that I do not wish to interfere 
 with the circulation of the Family Herald; and, for 
 the rest, when you honour me with a letter, is it 
 to be shown to any one who wishes to know what 
 a really charming and interesting letter is like ? 
 I am blessed with some really delightful correspon- 
 dents, of whom I would say you are the chief, 
 did I not fear to offend some others ; but I cannot 
 help noticing, sometimes with amusement and some- 
 times with painful regret, that the character of their 
 letters has a way of changing that, between first 
 and last, may be compared to looking at the land- 
 scape through one end of a telescope and then 
 through the other. When I see the field of vision 
 narrowing to something like vanishing-point, until, 
 in fact, the features of interest are no longer visible, 
 I feel that I too must put on a minifying-glass, 
 
 69 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 before I attempt to describe to you ray surround- 
 ings, my thoughts, my hopes and fears. Worst 
 of all, I can no longer ask you freely how life is 
 treating you ; for if I do, I get no answer, or you 
 tell me that the winter has been one of unexampled 
 severity, or the political party in power seems to 
 be losing ground and missing its opportunities. 
 Individuals and parties have been losing oppor- 
 tunities since the days when Joseph lost his coat ; 
 always regretting them and always doing it again, 
 because every party and every individual scorns to 
 profit by the experience of another. That, you will 
 tell me, is a platitude beneath a child's notice. I 
 agree with you, and I only mention it in support of 
 my contention that it is better to write what you 
 see, or hear, or imagine, or believe, to no one at 
 all, than to write " delicately," with the knowledge 
 that there is a possible Samuel waiting somewhere 
 about, if not to hew you in pieces, to put incon- 
 venient questions to your friends, and give them 
 the trouble of making explanations which are none 
 the less aggravating because they are needless. 
 As a man, I may say that the effort to avoid 
 writing to women everything that can, by a sus- 
 picious mind, be twisted into something mildly 
 
 compromising, is more than I am capable of. The 
 
 70 
 
OF LETTER-WRITING 
 
 thought that one may innocently get a friend into 
 trouble is not amusing, so pray dismiss from your 
 mind the idea that any of these letters are written 
 to you. They are not ; and if they ever recall 
 scenes, or suggest situations that seem familiar, 
 that is merely an accident. Pure, undiluted fable 
 is, I fancy, very rare indeed ; but travellers are 
 supposed to be responsible for the most of it, and 
 I am a traveller. On the other hand, almost all 
 fiction is founded on fact, but you know how small 
 a divergence from the latter is sufficient to make the 
 former. If my fiction looks like fact, I am grati- 
 fied ; if, at the same time, it has awakened your 
 interest (and you say it has), that is more than I 
 ever hoped to achieve. A wanderer's life in often 
 beautiful, sometimes strange, surroundings ; a near 
 insight into the fortunes of men and women of 
 widely differing race, colour, and creed ; and the 
 difficulty of writing freely and fearlessly to those 
 who, like yourself, would give me their sympathy and 
 kindly interest these are mainly responsible for 
 the Letters. As to the other contributing causes, 
 it will amuse you more to exercise your imagina- 
 tion in lively speculations than to hear the dull 
 truth from me. Besides, if I told you the truth it 
 would only mislead, for you would not believe it. 
 
X 
 AT A FUNERAL 
 
 DO you remember how Matthew Arnold, in his 
 Essay on ll Pagan and Mediaeval Religious 
 Sentiment," translates a scene from the fifteenth 
 Idyll of Theocritus, giving the experiences of two 
 Syracusan visitors at the feast of Adonis at Alex- 
 andria, about three hundred years before the Chris- 
 tian era? The description is wonderfully fresh 
 and realistic, and it came back to me with strange 
 insistence last night when my host detailed to me 
 his experiences at a Malay funeral. I fear the 
 effect will all be lost when I try to repeat what I 
 heard but you are indulgent, and you will pardon 
 my clumsy periods for the sake of my desire to 
 interest you. My only chance of conveying any 
 idea of the impression made on me is to assume 
 the role of narrator at first hand, and to try, as 
 far as I may, to speak in my host's words. 
 
 " I was travelling," he said, " and on the point 
 72 
 
AT A FUNERAL 
 
 of starting for a place where lived a Malay raja 
 who was a great friend of mine, when I heard 
 accidentally that his son had just died. That 
 evening I reached the station where my friend 
 lived. I saw him, and learned that his son, a 
 mere lad, would be buried the next day. It is 
 needless to say why he died, it is not a pretty 
 tale. He had visited, perhaps eighteen months 
 earlier, a British possession where the screams of 
 Exeter Hall had drowned the curses of the people 
 of the land, and this wretched boy returned to 
 his country to suffer eighteen months of torture, 
 agonising, loathsome corruption, in comparison 
 with which death on the cross would be a joyous 
 festival. That is nothing, he was dead ; and, 
 while his and many another life cry to deaf ears, 
 the momentary concern of his family and his 
 friends was to bury him decently. My arrival was 
 regarded as a fortuitous circumstance, and I was 
 bidden to take part in the function. 
 
 11 It was early afternoon when I found myself, 
 with the father, standing at the window of a long 
 room, full of women, watching till the body should 
 be carried to a great catafalque that stood at the 
 door to receive it. As we waited there, the man 
 beside me, a man of unusually tender feeling, 
 
 73 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 showed no emotion. He simply said, ' I am not 
 sorry ; it is better to die than to live like that ; he 
 has peace at last.' 
 
 " There was a sound of heavy feet staggering 
 over the grass under the weight of a great load, 
 and the coffin was borne past our window towards 
 the door. As we walked down the room a multi- 
 tude of women and children pressed after us, and 
 while a crowd of men lifted the body into its place 
 on the catafalque, a girl close by us burst into a 
 perfect passion of weeping, intermingled with de- 
 spairing cries, and expressions of affection for 
 the dead, whom she would never see again. The 
 raja pulled me by the sleeve, saying, ' Come out- 
 side, I cannot bear this,' and I saw the tears were 
 slowly coursing down his face as we passed the 
 heart-broken child, who, in the abandonment of 
 her grief, had thrown herself into the arms of 
 another girl, and was weeping hysterically on 
 her breast. The mourner was the dead boy's only 
 sister. 
 
 " Meanwhile, the coffin had been placed on the 
 huge wooden bier, and this was now being raised 
 on the shoulders of a hundred men, with at least 
 another hundred crowded round to take turns in 
 carrying it to the place of burial. At this moment 
 
 74 
 
AT A FUNERAL 
 
 the procession moved off, and anything more unlike 
 a funeral, as you and I know it, would be hard to 
 imagine. A band of musicians, Spanish mestizos, 
 in military uniforms, headed the cortege, playing a 
 wild Spanish lament, that seemed to sob and wail 
 and proclaim, by every trick of sound, the passing 
 of the dead. Immediately behind them followed 
 a company of stalwart Indian soldiers with arms 
 reversed. Then a posse of priests and holy men 
 chanting prayers. Next we came, and behind us 
 a row of boys carrying their dead master's clothes, 
 a very pathetic spectacle. After them the great 
 bier, vast in size, curious in form, and gay with 
 colour, but so unwieldy that it seemed to take 
 its own direction and make straight for the 
 place of burial, regardless of roads and ditches, 
 shrubs and flowers, or the shouts and cries of 
 its bearers and those who were attempting to 
 direct their steps. Last of all, a crowd of men 
 and boys, friends, retainers, chiefs, sightseers, 
 idlers, gossips and beggars, a very heterogeneous 
 throng. 
 
 11 The road to the burial-ground wound down 
 one hill and up another, and the band, the escort, 
 the priests, and the mourners followed it. But the 
 catafalque pursued its own devious course in its 
 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 own blundering fashion, and, by-and-by, was set 
 down on a high bluff, o'erlooking a great shining 
 river, with palm-clad banks, backed by a space of 
 level ground shut in by lofty blue hills. The coffin 
 was then lifted from out the bier and placed upon 
 the ground. 
 
 " I stood by the ready-dug grave and waited ; 
 while the father of the dead boy moved away a 
 few yards, and an aged chief called out, ' Now, all 
 you praying people, come and pray.' 
 
 " The raja, the priests, and the holy men 
 gathered round the body, and after several had 
 been invited to take up the word and modestly 
 declined in favour of some better qualified speaker, 
 a voice began to intone, while, from time to time, 
 the rest of the company said ' Amin.' 
 
 "Just then it began to rain a little, and those 
 who had no umbrellas ran for protection to the 
 catafalque and sheltered themselves under its over- 
 hanging eaves, while a lively interchange of badi- 
 nage passed between those who, for the moment, 
 had nothing to do. This was the sort of conversa- 
 tion that reached my ears. 
 
 " ' Now, then, all you people, come and pray.' 
 
 " ' Why don't you pray yourself ? ' 
 
 lt ' We did all our praying yesterday ; I don't 
 76 
 
AT A FUNERAL 
 
 believe you have done any. Now is the time, 
 with all these holy men here.' 
 
 " ' I dare say ; but you don't suppose I'm going 
 out into the rain to pray : I'm not a priest.' 
 
 " ' No one thought you were ; but that is no 
 reason why you should not pray.' 
 
 " ' Never mind about me, tell these other people ; 
 but you need not bother now, for they've got it 
 over.' 
 
 "And all the time the monotonous voice of 
 the priest muttered the guttural Arabic words, as 
 though these frivolous talkers were a mile off, 
 instead of within a few feet of him and those who 
 stood round the coffin. 
 
 " No one could have helped being struck by the 
 curious incongruity of the scene at that moment. 
 I stood in a place of graves, with an open sepulchre 
 at my feet. The stage was one of extraordinary 
 beauty, the players singularly picturesque. That 
 high bluff, above the glistening river, circled by 
 forest-clad hills of varying height, one needle-like 
 point rising to at least 6000 feet. Many old 
 graves lay beneath the shadow of graceful, wide- 
 spreading trees, which carried a perfect blaze of 
 crimson blossoms, lying in huge masses over dark 
 green leaves, as though spread there for effect. 
 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 Groups of brown men, clad in garments of bright 
 but harmoniously toned colours, stood all about 
 the hill. On the very edge of the bluff, towards 
 the river, was the gaily caparisoned, quaintly con- 
 structed catafalque; a number of men and boys 
 sitting in it and round its edge, smoking, laughing, 
 and talking. Within a dozen feet of them, the 
 closely packed crowd of priests and holy men pray- 
 ing round the coffin. The band and the guard 
 had been told to march off, and they were wending 
 their way round a hillside in middle distance ; 
 while the strains of a quick step, the monotone of 
 rapidly uttered prayer, the conversation and laughter 
 of the idlers, crossed and re-crossed each other in 
 a manner that to me was distinctly bizarre. Seen 
 against that background and lighted by the fiery 
 rays of a dying Eastern sun, the scarlet uniforms 
 of the bandsmen, the dark blue of the escort, the 
 long white coats of the priests, and the many- 
 coloured garments of the two or three hundred 
 spectators scattered about the graves, completed a 
 picture not easily forgotten. 
 
 "Just then a move was made to the sepulchre, 
 and two ropes were stretched across it, while some 
 men began to lift the coffin. 
 
 " ' What are you doing ? ' said the uncle of the 
 78 
 
AT A FUNERAL 
 
 dead boy. ' If you put him in like that how will 
 his head lie ? ' 
 
 "The bearers immediately let the coffin down, 
 and another man in authority said, ' Well, after 
 all, how should his head lie ? ' 
 
 " ' Towards the west/ said the uncle. 
 
 " ' No, it should not/ replied the other ; ' it 
 should be to the north, and then he looks towards 
 the west.' 
 
 "Several people here joined in the argument, 
 and it was eventually decided that the head must 
 be towards the north ; and then, as the body was 
 lying on its right side, the face would look towards 
 Mecca. 
 
 " ' Well, who knows at which end of the box 
 his head is ? ' 
 
 "Various guesses were hazarded, but the uncle 
 said that would never do, and he would see for 
 himself. So the wreaths and garlands of ' blue 
 chempaka/ the flower of death, the gorgeous silks 
 and cloths of gold, were all thrown off, the heavy 
 cover was lifted up, and the uncle began to feel 
 about in the white grave-clothes for the head of 
 the corpse. 
 
 " ' Ha ! here it is/ he said ; ' if we had put him 
 in without looking, it would have been all wrong, 
 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 and we should have had a nice job to get him out 
 again.' 
 
 " ' Well, you know all about it now/ said a 
 bystander, ' so we may as well get on.' 
 
 "The cover was accordingly replaced, the box 
 turned with the head to the north, and then, with 
 a deal of talk and superabundance of advice, from 
 near and from far, the poor body was at last 
 lowered into the grave. Once there the corpse 
 lies on the earth, for the coffin has no bottom. 
 The reason is obvious. 
 
 " You have probably never been to a funeral, 
 and if so, you do not know the horrible sound of 
 the first spadesful of earth as they fall, with dull 
 blows, on that which is past feeling and resistance. 
 The friends who stand round the grave shudder 
 as each clod strikes the wood under which lies 
 their beloved dead. Here it was different, for 
 two men got into the grave and held up a grass 
 mat, against which the earth was shovelled while 
 the coffin was protected. There was hardly any 
 sound, and, as the earth accumulated, the men 
 spread it with their hands to right and left, and 
 finally over the top of the coffin, and then the 
 rest of the work was done rapidly and quietly. 
 
 When filled in, two wooden pegs, each covered 
 
 80 
 
AT A FUNERAL 
 
 with a piece of new white cloth, were placed at 
 the head and foot of the grave. These are even- 
 tually replaced by stones. 
 
 "Then, as the officers of the raja's household 
 began to distribute funeral gifts amongst the 
 priests, the holy men, and the poor, my friend 
 and I slowly retraced our steps, and, with much 
 quiet dignity, the father thanked me for joining 
 him in performing the last offices to his dead son. 
 
 " ' His sufferings were unbearable/ he said ; 
 ' they are over now, and why should I regret ? ' 
 
 " Truly death was best, I could not gainsay it ; 
 but that young life, so horribly and prematurely 
 ended, seemed to have fallen into the snare of a 
 civilisation that cannot be wholly appreciated by 
 primitive people. They do not understand why 
 the burning moral principles of a section of an 
 alien race should be applied to communities that 
 have no sympathy with the principles, or their 
 application to different conditions of society." 
 
 Si 
 
XI 
 OF CHANGE AND DECAY 
 
 THERE is a subject which has an abiding 
 interest for all men and women who are 
 not too old to love ; it is Constancy. I suppose 
 there are few questions on which any half-dozen 
 intelligent people will express such different 
 opinions, and it is doubtful whether any of the 
 six (unless there be amongst them one who is 
 very young and inexperienced) will divulge his, 
 or her, true thoughts thereanent. Almost all 
 women, and most men, seem to think they are 
 morally bound to declare themselves to be very 
 mirrors of constancy, and each is prepared to 
 shower scorn and indignation on the erring mortal 
 convicted of change of feeling. The only feeling 
 I here refer to is the declared love of man for 
 woman, of woman for man. 
 
 The other day a friend, writing to me, said, 
 
 with admirable candour, " Do not think my heart 
 
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OF CHANGE AND DECAY 
 
 is so small that it can only contain love for one 
 man," and I know that she means one man at a 
 time. The maze surrounding this suggestion is 
 attractive ; let us wander in it for awhile, and if 
 we become bewildered in its devious turns, if we 
 lose ourselves in the intricacies of vague phrases, 
 we may yet win our way back to reason by the 
 road of hard, practical fact. 
 
 In the spring of life, when the fancies of the 
 young man and the girl " lightly turn to thoughts 
 of love/' I suppose the average lover honestly 
 believes in the doctrine of eternal constancy, for 
 himself and the object of his affections, and words 
 will almost fail him and her to describe their con- 
 tempt for the frail creature who has admitted a 
 change of mind ; worse still, if the change includes 
 a confession of love for a new object. Coquette, 
 jilt, faithless deceiver, breaker of hearts, ruthless 
 destroyer of peace of mind, words of opprobrium 
 are not sufficient in quantity, or poisonous enough 
 in quality, to satisfy those from whose lips they 
 flow with the violence and destructive force of a 
 river in flood. 
 
 Now, suppose this heaven-mated couple pro- 
 ceeds to extremities that is, to marriage. And 
 suppose that, after quite a short time, so short 
 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 that no false note has ever been heard to mar 
 the perfect harmony of their duet of mutual praise 
 and rapture, one of them dies, or goes mad, or 
 gets lost, or is put into prison for a long term of 
 years ; will not the other find a new affinity ? It 
 happens so often that I think it must be admitted 
 as a very likely possibility. When convention 
 permits of an outward and visible application, and 
 plaster is put over the wound, most of the very 
 virtuous say, " and an excellent thing, too." 
 
 There, then, we arrive at once at the possibility 
 of change ; the possibility of A, who once swore 
 deathless love and fealty to B, swearing the same 
 deathless love and fealty to X. It happens, and 
 it has high approval. 
 
 Now go a little step further, and suppose that 
 the excellent couple of whom I first spoke per- 
 petrate matrimony, and neither of them dies, or 
 goes mad, or gets into prison. Only, after a 
 longer or shorter time, they become utterly bored 
 with each other ; or one finds the other out ; or, 
 what is most common, one, and that one usually 
 the woman, for divers reasons, comes to loathe 
 the married state, all it implies and all it exacts. 
 Just then Satan supplies another and a quite 
 different man, who falls naturally into his place 
 
 8 4 
 
OF CHANGE AND DECAY 
 
 in the situation, and the play runs merrily along. 
 B's deathless love and fealty for A are thrown 
 out of the window, and what remains is pledged, 
 up to the very hilt, to that spawn of the Evil One, 
 the wrecker of happy homes, Z. It can hardly be 
 denied that this also happens. 
 
 I come, then, to the case of the affianced but 
 unmarried lovers, where one, or both, perceives in 
 time that the other is not quite all that fancy 
 painted ; realises that there is a lover, " for 
 showy," and a disagreeable companion and master 
 " for blowy " : a helpful daughter, a charming 
 sweetheart one day, and a very selfish, not to 
 say grasping, spit-fire on another. Or, across 
 the distant horizon, there sails into the quiet 
 waters of this love-locked sea a privateer, with 
 attractions not possessed by the ordinary merchant 
 vessel, .and, when the privateer spreads its sails 
 again, it carries with it a willing prize, leaving 
 behind a possibly better-found and more sea- 
 worthy craft to indulge its wooden frame with a 
 burst of impotent fury and despair. B's death- 
 less love has been transplanted to a more con- 
 genial soil, and, after a space, A will find another 
 and a better helpmate, and both will be satisfied, 
 for a time. 
 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 If one may love, and marry, and lose, and love 
 again ; if one may love, and promise to marry, 
 but, seeing the promise means disaster, withdraw 
 it, to love elsewhere ; if one may love and the 
 love be choked to death, or frozen to entire 
 absence of feeling, and then revive under the 
 warmth of new sympathy to live and feel again 
 if all these things may be, and those to whom 
 the experience comes are held to be no more 
 criminal than their fellows, surely there may be 
 love, real love, honestly given with both hands, 
 as honestly clasped and held, and yet and yet 
 a time may come when, for one of a thousand 
 reasons, or for two or three, that love will wane 
 and wane until, from illumining the whole firma- 
 ment of those within its radiance, it disappears 
 and leaves nothing but black, moonless night. 
 But, by-and-by, a new moon of love may rise, 
 may wax to equal splendour, making as glorious 
 as before everything on which it shines ; and the 
 heart, forgetting none of the past, rejoices again 
 in the present, and says, " Life is good ; let me 
 live it as it comes." If that be possible, the 
 alternate day and night of love and loss may 
 succeed each other more than twice or thrice, and 
 
 yet no charge, even of fickleness, may fairly lie 
 
 86 
 
OF CHANGE AND DECAY 
 
 at the door of him or her to whom this fate may 
 come unsought 
 
 To love, as some can love, and be loved as well 
 in return ; to trust in the unswerving faith, the 
 unassailable loyalty, the unbounded devotion of 
 another, as one trusts in God, in the simple laws 
 of nature, in anything that is absolutely certain ; 
 and then to find that our deity has feet of clay, 
 that our perfect gem has, after all, a flaw, is a very 
 bad experience. Worse than all, to lose, absolutely 
 and for ever, and yet without death, a love that 
 seemed more firmly rooted and grounded in us 
 than any sacred principle, more surely ours than 
 any possession secured by bolt and bar that is a 
 pain that passeth the understanding of those who 
 have not felt it. Add to this the knowledge that 
 this curse has come upon us as the result of our 
 own work folly, blind, senseless, reckless confi- 
 dence, or worse that is the very acme of human 
 suffering. It is not a thing to dwell upon. On the 
 grave of a love that has surpassed, in the perfection 
 of its reality, all the dreams of imagination, and 
 every ideal conjured out of depths of passionate 
 romance, grow weeds which poison the air and 
 madden the brain with grisly spectres. It is well 
 to " let the dead bury their dead " if we only can. 
 
 87 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 There, I am at the end ; or is it only the close 
 of a chapter ? I suppose it must be the latter, for 
 I have but now come to my friend's proposition, 
 namely, that of love distributed amongst a number 
 of objects ; all perhaps different, yet all in their 
 way, let us hope, equally worthy. I know how 
 she explains it. She says she loves one man 
 because he appeals to her in one way, another in 
 another ; and as there are many means of approach 
 to her heart, so there are many who, by one road 
 or another, find their way to it. After all, she is 
 probably more candid than singular in the distri- 
 bution of her affection. How many worldlings who 
 have reached the age of thirty can say that they 
 have not had a varied experience in the elasticity of 
 their affections, in the variety of shrines at which 
 they have worshipped ? Aphrodite and Athene 
 and Artemis for the men ; Phoebus and Ares and 
 Hermes for the women ; and a host of minor 
 deities for either. Minor chords, delicate harmo- 
 nies, charming pages of melody between the tragic 
 scenes, the carefully scored numbers, the studied 
 effects, which introduce the distinguishing motifs 
 of the leading characters, in that strange con- 
 ception wherein is written all the music of their 
 
 lives. 
 
 88 
 
OF CHANGE AND DECAY 
 
 We are told that the sons of God took unto 
 themselves wives from the daughters of men. Do 
 you believe they left no wives, no broken faith, in 
 heaven, before they came to earth to seek what 
 they could not find above the spheres ? What 
 form of marriage ceremony do you suppose they 
 went through with those daughters of men ? Was 
 it binding until death, and did that last trifling 
 incident only open the door to an eternity of 
 wedded bliss in the heaven from which earthly 
 love had been able to seduce these sons of God ? 
 I fear there is proof of inconstancy somewhere. 
 There is clear evidence of a desire for change, and 
 that is usually taken to be a synonym for incon- 
 stancy, as between the sexes. The daughters of 
 men have something to answer for, much to be 
 proud of; but I hardly see why either they, or 
 their menkind, who never drew any loving souls 
 down from the safe heights of heaven to be wives 
 to them, should be expected to make a choice of a 
 partner early in life and never waver in devotion 
 to that one, until death has put them beyond the 
 possibility of temptation. It does happen some- 
 times ; it is beautiful, enviable, and worthy of all 
 praise. But when the heart of man or woman, 
 following that most universal law of nature, change, 
 
 89 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 goes through the whole gamut of feeling, from 
 indifference to passionate love, and later retraces its 
 steps, going back over only a few of them, or to a 
 place, beyond indifference, where dislike is reached, 
 there seems no good reason why that disappointed, 
 disillusioned soul should be made the object of 
 reproach, or the mark for stones, cast by others 
 who have already gone through the same experience 
 or have yet to learn it. 
 
 If we claim immortality, I think we must admit 
 our mutability. Perhaps the fault is not all ours. 
 It is written : 
 
 " Alas for those who, having tasted once 
 Of that forbidden vintage of the lips 
 That, press'd and pressing, from each other draw 
 The draught that so intoxicates them both, 
 That, while upon the wings of Day and Night 
 Time rustles on, and Moons do wax and wane, 
 As from the very Well of Life they drink, 
 And, drinking, fancy they shall never drain. 
 But rolling Heaven from His ambush whispers, 
 So in my licence is it not set down : 
 Ah for the sweet societies I make 
 At Morning, and before the Nightfall break ; 
 Ah for the bliss that coming Night fills up, 
 And Morn looks in to find an empty Cup ! " 
 
 I do not seek to persuade you ; it is a subject 
 we often discuss, on which we never agree. I 
 
 only state the facts as I know them, and I am 
 
 90 
 
OF CHANGE AND DECAY 
 
 for the truth ! even though I wish it were not 
 true rather than for a well-sounding pretence, 
 which usually covers a lie. I have believed ; I 
 have seen what, with my life, I would have main- 
 tained was perfect, changeless love ; and I have 
 seen that love bestowed, in apparently equal 
 measure, on another ; while, sometimes, the first 
 affection has died utterly, or, at others, it has 
 never died at all, and the wavering heart, divided 
 in allegiance, has suffered agonies of remorse, 
 and at last begged one object of its devotion to 
 shun it for ever, and so help it " to be true to 
 some one." 
 
 There you find a result almost the same as that 
 so candidly confessed by my friend ; but the phases 
 through which either will pass to arrive at it are 
 utterly different. Fate and circumstances, the 
 prolonged absence of the lover, misunderstandings, 
 silence, and the ceaseless, wearing efforts of another 
 to take the place of the absent the absent, who 
 is always wrong ; these things will loosen the 
 tightest bond, when once the enemy at the gate has 
 established a feeling of sympathy between him- 
 self and the beleaguered city. If at last there is 
 a capitulation, it is only when the besieged is au 
 bout de ressources; only made in extreme distress, 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 only perhaps under a belief of abandonment by 
 one on whom the city relied for assistance in its 
 dire need. 
 
 My candid friend has no regrets, passes through 
 no phases of feeling, sees no harm, means none, 
 and for herself is probably safe. Only her heart 
 is large and warm ; she desires sympathy, in- 
 tellectual companionship, amusement, passionate 
 adoration. She gets these things, but not all 
 from the same man, and she is prepared to give 
 love in return for each, but it is love with a wise 
 reservation. Sometimes she cannot understand 
 why the objects of her catholic affections are not 
 equally satisfied with the arrangement, and she 
 thinks their discontent is unreasonable. She will 
 learn. Possibly, as she acquires knowledge, she 
 may change. Nothing is more certain than that 
 there is, if not always, very very often, the widest 
 difference in the world between the girl of twenty 
 and the woman of thirty. It is a development, 
 an evolution, often a startling one, and if 
 men more often realised what is likely to come, 
 waited for it, and understood it when it arrived, 
 there would be a deal less unhappiness in the 
 world. 
 
 That, however, is another question, about which 
 92 
 
OF CHANGE AND DECAY 
 
 I should like to talk to you on another day, for it 
 has interest. 
 
 Of love, and change in the object of love, I think 
 you will not deny the possibility. If you have 
 never known such change, you are the exception, and 
 out of your strength you can afford to deal gently 
 with those weaker vessels whose feelings have gone 
 through several experiences. But has your faith 
 never wavered ? Have your affections been set on 
 one man, and one only ; and are they there to-day, 
 as strong, as single-hearted, as true and as contented 
 as ever ? I wonder ; pardon me if I also doubt ! 
 
 I have spoken only of those cases where the 
 love that was has ceased to be ; ceased altogether 
 and gone elsewhere, or so changed from what it 
 was, that it no longer knits together those it once 
 held to the exclusion of all others. But I might 
 remind you that there are many other phases, all 
 of which imply change, or at least such difference 
 as must be counted faithlessness. Your quick 
 intelligence can supply a multitude of instances 
 from the unfortunate experiences of your friends, 
 and I will only cite one that is not altogether 
 unheard of. It is this ; when two people are 
 bound by the ties of mutual love, and fate divides 
 them by time and distance, it sometimes happens 
 
 93 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 that one will prove faithless in heart, while re- 
 maining firmly constant in deed. That is usually 
 the woman. The other may be faithless in deed ; 
 but he says to himself (and, if he has to confess 
 his backsliding, he will swear the same to his 
 lady) that his affections have never wavered. He 
 often does not realise that this statement, the 
 truth of which he takes such trouble to impress 
 upon his outraged goddess, adds to the baseness 
 of his deed. It is curious, but it is true, that the 
 woman, if she believes, will pardon that offence, 
 while she would not forgive the heart-faithlessness 
 of which she is herself guilty. He is not likely 
 to learn that her fealty has wandered ; he takes a 
 good deal for granted, and he does not easily 
 believe that such things are possible where he is 
 concerned ; but, should he suspect it, should she 
 even admit that another has aroused in her feelings 
 akin to those she had hitherto only felt for him, he 
 will hold that aberration from the path of faith 
 rather lightly, though neither tears nor blood could 
 atone for a faithless deed, such as that of which 
 he stands convicted. 
 
 Woman realises that if man's lower nature takes 
 him into the gutter, or even less unclean places, he 
 will not hanker after whatever it was that attracted 
 
 94 
 
OF CHANGE AND DECAY 
 
 him when once his temptation is out of sight. 
 She despises, but she estimates the disloyalty at 
 its right value in a creature for whose want of 
 refinement she learns to feel a certain contempt. 
 Man, busy about many other things, treats as 
 trivial a lapse which implies no smirch on his 
 honour ; and he, knowing himself and judging 
 thereby, says, " Out of sight, out of mind." It 
 seldom occurs to him that, where the woman's 
 heart has been given away from him, he has 
 already lost at least as much as his utmost dread ; 
 and even that is more likely to follow, than he to 
 return to one who has never aroused in him any 
 feeling of which he cares to think. Therefore, he is 
 inclined rather to be amused than distressed ; and, 
 still mindful of his own experiences, he dismisses 
 the matter from his thoughts with almost a sense 
 of satisfaction. But he is wrong : is he not ? 
 
 Of course I am not thinking of the jealous men. 
 They are impossible people whom no one pities. 
 They never see that, while they make themselves 
 hateful to every one who is unhappily thrown into 
 contact with them, they only secure their own 
 misery. I believe there are men who are jealous 
 of the door-mat. These are beyond the help of 
 prayer. 
 
 95 
 
XII 
 DAUGHTERS AND DESPOTISM 
 
 1 AGREE with you that few things are more 
 astonishing than the want of sympathy between 
 parents and their daughters. Many fathers and 
 mothers seem to be absolutely insensible to the 
 thoughts, the desires, and the aspirations of those 
 for whom they usually profess, and probably feel, 
 a very great affection. There are two principal 
 causes for this very common state of matters. 
 One is the difference in age between parents and 
 children. The fathers and mothers are losing, or 
 have already lost, their interest in many of those 
 things which are just beginning to most keenly 
 interest their children. The children are very 
 quick to see this, and the confidence they will 
 give to a comparative stranger they withhold from 
 parents, to whom they are too shy to confess 
 themselves, because they dread ridicule, coldness, 
 
 displeasure. The other cause of estrangement is 
 
 96 
 
DAUGHTERS AND DESPOTISM 
 
 the fact that parents will insist upon regarding 
 their daughters as children until they marry, and 
 sometimes even afterwards ; and they are so 
 accustomed to ordering and being obeyed, that 
 they cannot understand independence of thought. 
 Their children are always children to them ; they 
 must do exactly what they are told without 
 question ; they ought not to have any ideas of 
 their own, and, if they are really good Christian 
 children, well brought up and a credit to their 
 parents, they must, before all things, be obedient 
 and have no likes and dislikes, no opinions that 
 are not those of their parents. As with crows, 
 they must be feathered like the old birds and 
 caw, always and only caw, if they wish to be 
 heard at all. 
 
 It sounds, and it seems, unreasonable, and yet 
 one sees it every day, and the amused or enraged 
 spectator, with no fledglings of his own, is lost 
 in wonderment at the crass stupidity of otherwise 
 sensible people, who, while they do these things 
 themselves, and glory in their own shame, will 
 invite attention to the mote in their neighbour's 
 eye, which ought to be invisible to them by 
 reason of the great beam in their own. I sup- 
 pose it never occurs to them that they are all 
 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 the time committing hateful and unpardonable 
 crimes ; that their want of intelligent appreciation 
 is driving their children to resort to all kinds of 
 concealment, subterfuge, and deceit ; while home 
 becomes often so hateful to a girl that she seizes 
 the first opportunity of leaving it, and makes her 
 life a long misery or something worse. 
 
 If the spectator dared, or cared, to speak the 
 naked truth to a parent, I can imagine that dig- 
 nified individual choking with respectable rage at 
 the bare suggestion that he was in any sense 
 responsible for his daughter's regrettable conduct. 
 Yet surely the father and the mother are blame- 
 worthy, if they decline to treat their grown-up 
 daughters as intelligent creatures, with the in- 
 stincts, the yearnings, the passions for which 
 they are less responsible than their parents. 
 "You must do this, because I was made to do 
 it ; and you must not do that, because I was 
 never allowed to do it. You must never question 
 my directions, because they are for your good ; 
 because you are younger than I am, and cannot 
 therefore know as well as I do ; because I am 
 your mother and you are my daughter ; and, in my 
 day, daughters never questioned their mothers." 
 
 All this, and a great deal more, may be admirable ; 
 
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DAUGHTERS AND DESPOTISM 
 
 but it does not seem so. It may even answer 
 sometimes ; but that is rather cause for surprise 
 than congratulation. It does fail, often and badly; 
 but the parents are the last to realise the fact, and 
 probably nothing would ever persuade them that 
 the failure is due to their methods. If ever it 
 comes home to parents that their revolted chil- 
 dren have grown to hate them, they call them 
 " unnatural," and almost expect the earth to open 
 and swallow them up, as happened to Korah and 
 all his company. 
 
 To onlookers the position often seems intoler- 
 able, and they avoid it, lest they should be tempted 
 to interfere and so make matters worse. Nowadays, 
 intelligent opinion is not surprised when tyranny is 
 followed by rebellion. The world is getting even 
 beyond that phase. Both men and women de- 
 mand that their opinions should be heard ; and 
 where, amongst English-speaking people, they can 
 be shown to be in accordance with common-sense, 
 with freedom of thought, and with what are 
 called the Rights of Man, they usually prevail. 
 Children do not often complain of tyranny, and 
 they seldom revolt ; but they bitterly resent being 
 treated as if they were ten years old when they 
 are twenty, when their intelligence, their educa- 
 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 tion, and even their knowledge of the world entitle 
 them to hold and express opinions. Nay, more, 
 they are conscious of what is due to their own 
 self-esteem, their family, and their order; and 
 there are better ways of keeping them true to high 
 purposes and lofty ideals than by treating them 
 as children, whose intentions must always be sus- 
 pected, because prone to naughtiness. The finer 
 feelings are often strongest in youth ; life and its 
 experiences blunt them. While they are there, 
 it is well to encourage them. Sympathy from 
 an equal can easily do that ; but, unless equality 
 in speech be granted, the being who is held 
 in bondage will be shy to express thoughts and 
 aspirations that may be ridiculed, and will also 
 resent the position of inferiority to which he or 
 she is relegated for reasonless reasons. 
 
 In the relations between parents and children, 
 perhaps the most surprising point is the absolute 
 disregard of the pitiless vengeance of heredity. 
 Men and women seem to forget that some of their 
 ancestors' least attractive attributes may appear in 
 their descendants, after sparing a child or skip- 
 ping a generation. The guiding traits (whether for 
 good or evil) in most characters can be traced 
 with unerring accuracy to an ancestor, where there 
 
DAUGHTERS AND DESPOTISM 
 
 is any record of family history. One child is pre- 
 destined to be a musician, another a soldier, and a 
 third a commonplace or remarkable sinner. Iden- 
 tical methods of education and treatment may not 
 suit all equally well. Because a parent has lived 
 only one life, the half-dozen children for whom he 
 is responsible may not, even in the natural course 
 of events, turn out to be exact replicas of their 
 father, nor thrive on the food which reared him to 
 perfection. 
 
 I do not pretend that there are not many ex- 
 ceptions ; but the daughters who are the victims 
 of parental zeal, or parental repression, are so 
 numerous that, in England at any rate, they pro- 
 bably form the majority of their kind. Of those 
 who marry, the greater number may be entirely 
 well-mated. Every one must hope that it is so. 
 Some there are who are not so fortunate ; and 
 some, again, begin well but end in disaster, due 
 to their own mistakes and defects, to those of 
 their husbands, or to unkind circumstances. With 
 the daughters who are favoured by Fortune we 
 have no concern. For the others, there is only 
 one aspect of their case with which I will bore 
 you, and that because it seems to me to be to 
 
 some extent a corollary to my last letter. If a 
 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 girl has ideas and intelligence beyond those of 
 her parents ; if she has felt constraint and resented 
 it ; if she has exercised self-repression, while she 
 longed for sympathy, for expansion, for a measure 
 of freedom such an experience, especially if it 
 has lasted for any time, is not the best prepara- 
 tion for marriage. Married life where man and 
 woman are in complete sympathy, where mutual 
 affection and admiration make self-sacrifice a joy, 
 arid trouble taken for the other a real satisfaction 
 is not altogether an easy path to tread, with 
 sure and willing feet, from the altar to the grave. 
 Many would give much to be able to turn back : 
 but there is no return. So some faint and others 
 die ; some never cease from quarrelling ; some 
 accept the inevitable and lose all interest in life ; 
 while a few get off the road, over the barriers, break 
 their necks or their hearts, or simply disappear out 
 of the ken, beyond the vision, of their kind. 
 
 I think much of the unhappiness that comes to 
 be a millstone round the necks of married people 
 is due, primarily, to the deep ignorance of woman- 
 kind so commonly displayed by mankind. It is a 
 subject that is not taught, probably because no 
 man would be found conceited enough to profess 
 more than the most superficial knowledge of it. 
 
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DAUGHTERS AND DESPOTISM 
 
 Some Eastern writers have gone into the ques- 
 tion, but their point of view differs from ours, as 
 do their climate, their religion, their temperament, 
 habits, and moral code. Their teachings are diffi- 
 cult to obtain ; they are written in languages not 
 commonly understood, and they deal with races 
 and societies that have little in common with 
 Europeans. Michelet has, however, produced a 
 book that may be read with advantage by all 
 those who wish to acquire a few grains of know- 
 ledge on a subject that has such an enthralling 
 interest at some period of most men's lives. It 
 is not exactly easy to indicate other aids to an 
 adequate conception of the feminine gender, but 
 they will not be found in the streets and gutters 
 of great cities. 
 
 The school-boy shuns girls. He is parlously 
 ignorant of all that concerns them, except that 
 they cannot compete with him in strength and 
 endurance. He first despises them for their com- 
 parative physical weakness ; then, as he grows a 
 little older, a certain shyness of the other sex 
 seizes him ; but this usually disappears with the 
 coming of real manhood, when his instincts prompt 
 him to seek women's society. What he learns 
 
 then, unless he is very fortunate, will not help 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 him to understand and fully appreciate the girl 
 who somewhat later becomes his wife indeed, it 
 is more likely to mislead him and contribute to her 
 unhappiness. Unite this inexperienced, or over- 
 experienced, youth with the girl who is ready to 
 accept almost any one who will take her from an 
 uncongenial home, and it says a good deal for the 
 Western world that the extraordinary difficulties 
 of the position should, in so large a proportion of 
 cases, be overcome as well as they are. 
 
 In the rage for higher education, why does not 
 some philanthropic lady, some many-times-mar- 
 ried man, open a seminary for the instruction of 
 inexperienced men who wish to take into their 
 homes, for life and death, companions, of whose 
 sex generally, their refined instincts, tender feel- 
 ings, reckless impulses, strange cravings, changeful 
 moods, overpowering curiosity, attitudes of mind, 
 methods of attack and defence, signals of deter- 
 mined resistance or speedy capitulation, they know, 
 perhaps, as little as of the Grand Llama. What 
 an opportunity such a school would afford to the 
 latest development of woman to impress her own 
 views upon the rising generation of men ! How 
 easily she might mould them to her fancy, or, at 
 
 least, plant in them seeds of repentance, apprecia- 
 
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DAUGHTERS AND DESPOTISM 
 
 tion, and constancy, to grow up under the care 
 of wives for whose society the Benedictentiary 
 would have somewhat fitted them. 
 
 It is really an excellent idea, this combination 
 of Reformatory of the old man and Education of 
 the new. Can you not see all the newspapers full 
 of advertisements like this : 
 
 PREPARATION OF GENTLEMEN FOR 
 MATRIMONY 
 
 The great success which has attended all those who 
 have gone through the course of study at the Benedic- 
 tentiary of Mesdames - - has led the proprietors to 
 add another wing to this popular institution. The 
 buildings are situated in park-like grounds, far from 
 any disturbing influences. The lecturers are ladies of 
 personal attraction with wide experience, and the dis- 
 cipline of the establishment is of the severest kind 
 compatible with comfort. A special feature of this 
 institution is the means afforded for healthy recreation 
 of all kinds, the object being to make the students 
 attractive in every sense. Gentlemen over fifty years 
 of age are only admitted on terms which can be learnt 
 by application to the Principal. These terms will vary 
 according to the character of the applicant. During 
 
 the last season twenty-five of Mesdames pupils 
 
 made brilliant marriages, and the most flattering testi- 
 monials are constantly being received from the wives 
 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 of former students. There are only a few vacancies, 
 and application should be made at once to the Prin- 
 cipal. 
 
 That is the sort of thing. Do you know 
 any experienced lady in want of a vocation that 
 might combine profit with highly interesting em- 
 ployment ? You can give her this suggestion, 
 but advise her to be careful in her choice of lec- 
 turers, and let the ladies combine the wisdom of 
 the serpent with the gentle cooing of the dove ; 
 otherwise, some possible husbands might be spoilt 
 in the making. 
 
 106 
 
XIII 
 HER FIANCE 
 
 YOU say that my opinions are very unortho- 
 dox, that my views on human constancy are 
 cynical, and that it is wicked to sympathise with 
 children who oppose their inclinations to the be- 
 hests of their parents. 
 
 Do you forget that I said we should not agree, 
 and will you be angry if I venture to suggest that 
 you have not read my letters very carefully, or 
 that your sense of justice is temporarily obscured ? 
 If I dared, I would ask you to look again at the 
 letters, and then tell me exactly wherein I have 
 sinned. I maintained that all are not gifted with 
 that perfect constancy which distinguished Helen 
 and Guinevere, and a few other noble ladies whose 
 names occur to me. I notice that, as regards 
 yourself, you disdain to answer my question, and 
 we might safely discuss the subject without refer- 
 ence to personal considerations. 
 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 My regrets over the strained relations which 
 sometimes exist between parents and children 
 could hardly be construed into an incitement to 
 rebellion. They did not amount to more than 
 a statement of lamentable facts, and a diagnosis 
 of the causes of the trouble. When you add that 
 truth is often disagreeable and better left un- 
 spoken, I will subscribe to the general principle, 
 but fail to see its application here. Nor can I 
 agree with you that problems of this sort are 
 lacking in interest. To be able to construct a 
 geometrical figure, and prove that the method 
 is correct, does not sound very interesting ; but 
 architects, who have knowledge of this kind, have 
 achieved results that appeal to those who look at 
 the finished work, without thought of the means 
 by which the end was gained. 
 
 With your permission, I will move the inquiry 
 to new ground ; and do not think I am wavering 
 in my allegiance, or that my loyalty is open to 
 doubt, if I say one word on behalf of man, whose 
 unstable affections are so widely recognised that 
 no sensible person would seek to dispute the 
 verdict of all the ages. He is represented as 
 loving a sex rather than an individual ; is likened 
 
 to the bee which sucks where sweetness can be 
 108 
 
HER FIANC6 
 
 found and only whilst it lasts ; he shares with 
 the butterfly the habit of never resting long on 
 any flower, and, like it, he is drawn by brilliant 
 colouring and less clean attractions. Virtuous 
 affection and plain solid worth do not appeal to 
 him. 
 
 These are articles of popular belief, and must 
 not be questioned ; but I may say to you, that 
 they do the poor man somewhat less than jus- 
 tice. As a bachelor, he has few opportunities of 
 examining virtuous affection, on his own account ; 
 the experiences of his friends are not always 
 encouraging; and, if he has to work, other things 
 absorb most of his attention at this stage of his 
 existence. If he marries, especially if he marries 
 young, he is often enthusiastic, and usually hope- 
 lessly ignorant of feminine methods, inclinations, 
 and fastidious hesitation. He feels an honest, 
 blundering, but real and passionate affection. He 
 shows it, and that is not seldom an offence. He 
 looks for a reciprocation of his passion, and when, 
 as often happens, he fully realises that his trans- 
 ports awaken no responsive feeling, but rather a 
 scarcely veiled disgust, his enthusiasm wanes, he 
 cultivates self-repression, and assumes a chilly in- 
 difference that, in time, becomes the true expres- 
 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 sion of his changed feelings. From this keen 
 disappointment, this sense of his own failure in 
 his own home, the transition to a state of callous- 
 ness, and thence, to one of deep interest in another 
 object where his advances are met in a different 
 spirit, is not very difficult. 
 
 You see, I am taking for granted that the 
 popular conception of his shortcomings in regard 
 to the affections is correct, and I only want to 
 suggest some of the reasons which have earned 
 for him such a bad reputation. First, it is the 
 fault of his nature, for which he is not altogether 
 responsible ; it is different to yours. In this 
 respect he starts somewhat unfairly handicapped, 
 if his running is tried by the same standard as 
 that fixed for the gentler sex. Then his educa- 
 tion, not so much in the acquirement of book- 
 knowledge as in the ways of the world, is also 
 different. His physical robustness is thought to 
 qualify him, when still a boy, to go anywhere, 
 to see everything at close quarters, and without 
 a chaperone. He is thrown into the maelstrom 
 of life, and there he is practically left to sink or 
 swim ; and whether he drown or survive, he must 
 pass through the deep water where only his own 
 
 efforts will save him. A few disappear altogether, 
 no 
 
HER FIANCE 
 
 and, while all get wet, some come out covered 
 with mud, and others are maimed, or their con- 
 stitutions permanently injured by the immersion. 
 
 That is the beginning, and I think you will 
 admit that, except in a few very peculiar cases, 
 the boy's early life is more calculated to smirch 
 than to preserve his original innocence. 
 
 Then he settles down to work for a living or 
 for ambition, and, in either case, he is left but 
 little time to study the very complex complement 
 of his life, woman. If he does not incontinently 
 fall in love with what appeals to his eye, he 
 deliberately looks about for some one who may 
 make him a good, a useful, and, if possible, an 
 ornamental wife. In the first case he is really to 
 be pitied ; but his condition only excites amuse- 
 ment. The man is treated as temporarily insane, 
 and every one looks to the consummation of the 
 marriage as the only means to restore him to his 
 right mind. That, indeed, is generally the result, 
 but not for the reason to which the cure is popu- 
 larly ascribed. The swain is very much in love, 
 whereas the lady of his choice is entering into 
 the contract for a multitude of reasons, where 
 passionate affection, very probably, plays quite an 
 inferior part. The man's ardour destroys any dis- 
 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 cretion he may have. He digs a pit for himself 
 and falls into it, and, unless he has great expe- 
 rience, unusual sympathy, or consummate tact, 
 he misunderstands the signs, draws false conclu- 
 sions, and nurses the seeds of discontent which will 
 sooner or later come up and bear bitter fruit. 
 
 If, on the other hand, he deliberately enters the 
 matrimonial market and makes his choice with calm 
 calculation, as he would enter the mart to supply 
 any other need, he may run less risk of disap- 
 pointment. But the other party to the bargain will, 
 in due time, come to regret the part she has under- 
 taken to play, and feel that what the man wanted 
 was less a wife than a housekeeper, a hostess, a 
 useful ally, or an assistant in the preservation of 
 a family name. Very few women would fail to 
 discover the truth in such a case, and probably 
 none would neglect to mention it. Neither the 
 fact, the discovery, nor the mention of it will help 
 to make a happy home. 
 
 With husbands and wives, if neither have any 
 need to work, it ought to be easy to avoid bore- 
 dom (the most gruesome of all maladies), and to 
 accommodate themselves to each other's wishes. 
 They, however, constitute a very small proportion 
 
 of society. A man usually has to work all day, 
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HER FIANC6 
 
 and, if he is strong and healthy, it is hardly reason- 
 able to suppose that his only thought, when his 
 work is over, should be how he can best amuse 
 his wife. If he sets that single object before him 
 as his duty or his pleasure, and his wife accepts 
 the sacrifice, the man's health is almost certain to 
 suffer, unless there is some form of exercise which 
 they can enjoy together. 
 
 Husbands and wives take a good deal for 
 granted, and it is more curious that lovers, who 
 are bound by no such tie, often meet with ship- 
 wreck on exactly the same sort of dangers. To 
 be too exacting is probably, of all causes, the 
 most fertile in parting devoted lovers. 
 
 But enough of speculation. Pardon my homily, 
 and let me answer your question. You ask me 
 what has become of the man we used to see so 
 constantly, sitting in the Park with a married lady 
 who evidently enjoyed his society. I will tell you, 
 and you will then understand why it is that you 
 have not seen him since that summer when we 
 too found great satisfaction in each other's com- 
 pany. He was generally " about the town," and 
 when not there seemed rather to haunt the river. 
 Small blame to him for that ; there is none with 
 perceptions so dead that the river, on a hot July 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 day, will not appeal to them. I cannot tell how 
 long afterwards it was, but the man became en- 
 gaged to a girl who was schooling or travelling 
 in France. She was the sister of the woman 
 we used to see in the Park. Un bel giorno the 
 man and his future sister-in-law started for the 
 Continent, to see his fiancee. Arrived at Dover, 
 the weather looked threatening, or the lady wanted 
 rest, or it was part of the arrangement details of 
 this kind are immaterial anyhow, they decided to 
 stay the night in an hotel and cross the following 
 morning. In the grey light which steals through 
 darkness and recoils from day, some wanderer 
 or stolid constable saw a white bundle lying on 
 the pavement by the wall of the hotel. A closer 
 examination showed this to be the huddled and 
 shattered body of a man in his night-dress ; a very 
 ghastly sight, for he was dead. It was the man 
 we used to see in the Park, and several storeys 
 above the spot where he was found were the 
 windows, not of his room, but of another. I do 
 not know whether the lady continued her journey ; 
 but, if she did, her interview with her sister must 
 have been a bad experience. 
 
 114 
 
XIV 
 BY THE SEA 
 
 YOU asked me to paint you a picture a 
 picture of a wonderful strand half-circling 
 a space of sunlit sea ; an island-studded bay, girt, 
 landwards, by a chain of low blue hills, whose 
 vesture of rich foliage is, through all the years, 
 mirrored in the dazzling waters that bathe those 
 rocky feet. The bay is enclosed between two 
 headlands, both lofty, both rising sheer out of 
 the sea, but that on the north juts out only a 
 little, while the southern promontory is much 
 bolder, and terminates a long strip of land running 
 at right angles to the shore out into very deep 
 water. 
 
 The beach between these headlands forms an 
 arc of a circle, and the cord joining its extremities 
 would be about seven miles in length, while fol- 
 lowing the shore the distance is nearly ten miles. 
 
 One might search east or west, the Old World 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 or the New, and find in them few places so attrac- 
 tive as this little-known and sparsely inhabited 
 dent in a far Eastern coast. 
 
 Here the sky is nearly always bright ; a day 
 which, in its thirteen hours of light, does not give 
 at least half of brilliant, perhaps too brilliant 
 sunshine, is almost unknown. Then it is the 
 sunshine of endless summer, not for a month or 
 a season, but for ever. 
 
 Except on rare occasions, the winds from the 
 sea are softest zephyrs, the land breezes are cool 
 and fragrant, sufficient only to stir the leaves of 
 trees and gently ruffle the placid surface of the 
 bay. 
 
 The waters of the bay are green green like 
 a yellow emerald but in some few places, near 
 the shore, this changes into a warm brown. The 
 beach is a wide stretch of sand broken by rocks 
 of dark umber or Indian red. The sand is, in 
 some places, so startlingly white that the eye can 
 hardly bear the glare of it, while in others it is 
 mixed with fine-broken grains of the ironstone 
 called laterite, and this gives a burnt-sienna colour 
 to the beach. When the tide is high, the great 
 stretches of hard, clean sand are covered with 
 
 water to a depth of between five and ten feet, 
 
 116 
 
BY THE SEA 
 
 and, owing to the absence of mud, mangroves, and 
 mankind, the waters of the bay are of an extra- 
 ordinary limpidity. The beach in many places 
 dips steeply, so that, at high tide, there are six 
 feet of water within two or three yards of the 
 trees, shrubs, ferns, and creepers that clothe the 
 shore in an abandonment of wild and graceful 
 luxuriance. The sand shines beneath the waters 
 of the sea like powdered diamonds, and all the 
 myriads of pebbles and shells glisten and scintil- 
 late, with a fire and life and colour which they 
 lose when the tide falls and leaves the sands dry, 
 but for the little pools that fill the depressions 
 of a generally even surface. 
 
 Then, however, is the time to see strange shells 
 moving slowly about, and crabs, of marvellous 
 colour and unexpected instincts, scampering in 
 hundreds over the purple rocks, that here and 
 there make such a striking contrast to the brilliant 
 orange and red, or the startling whiteness of the 
 sand in which they lie half-embedded. 
 
 And how positively delightful it is to paddle 
 with bare feet between and over these rounded 
 stones, while the tireless waters make continents 
 and oceans in miniature, and the strange denizens 
 of this life-charged summer sea destroy each other, 
 
 117 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 in the ceaseless struggle to preserve an existence 
 for which they are no more responsible than we 
 are. Here is an army of scarlet-backed crabs, 
 hunting in battalions for something smaller and 
 weaker than its own tiny, fragile units. The 
 spider-like legion, alarmed by the approach of 
 your naked feet, scuttles hurriedly towards a new 
 Red Sea, and, dashing recklessly into the two 
 inches of water, which are running between banks 
 of sandy desert, disappears as completely as 
 Pharaoh and his host. Unlike the Egyptian 
 king, however, the crabs, which have only bur- 
 rowed into the sand, will presently reappear on 
 the other shore and scour the desert for a morn- 
 ing meal. 
 
 And then you are standing amongst the rocks, 
 on a point of a bay within the bay ; and, as the 
 rippling wavelets wash over your feet, you peer 
 down into the deeper eddies and pools in search 
 of a sea-anemone. Again, you exclaim in childish 
 admiration of the marvellous colouring of a jelly- 
 fish and his puzzling fashion of locomotion, or 
 your grown-up experience allows you an almost 
 pleasurable little shudder when you think of the 
 poisonous possibilities of this tenderly-tinted, 
 
 gauzily-gowned digestive system. 
 
 118 
 
BY THE SEA 
 
 The land is not less rich in life than the sea. 
 Nature has fringed the waters with a garden 
 of graceful trees, flowering shrubs, brilliantly 
 blossomed creepers, and slender ferns, far more 
 beautiful in their untrained luxuriance than any 
 effort of human ingenuity could have made them. 
 There are magnolias, sweeping the waters with 
 their magnificent creamy blossoms, made more 
 conspicuous by their background of great, dark 
 green leaves. There are gorgeous yellow ala- 
 manders, each blossom as large as a hand ; soft 
 pale pink myrtles, star-flowered jasmines, and the 
 delicate wax-plant with its clusters of red or white 
 blossoms. These and a multitude of others, only 
 known by barbarous botanical names, nestle into 
 each other's arms, interlace their branches, and 
 form arbours of perfumed shade. Close behind 
 stand almond and cashew trees, tree-ferns, coco- 
 nuts, and sago palms, and then the low hills, 
 clothed with the giants of a virgin forest, that 
 shut out any distant view. 
 
 Groups of sandpipers paddle in the little wave- 
 lets that lovingly caress the shore ; birds of the 
 most gorgeous plumage flit through the jungle 
 with strange cries ; and, night and morning, flocks 
 
 of pigeons, plumed in green and yellow, in orange 
 119 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 and brown, flash meteor-like trails of colour, in 
 their rapid flight from mainland to island and 
 back again. The bay is studded with islets, some 
 near, some far, tiny clusters of trees growing out 
 of the water, or a mass of stone, clothed from 
 base to summit with heavy jungle, except for a 
 narrow band of red rocks above the water's 
 edge. 
 
 Sailing in and out the islands, rounding the 
 headlands, or standing across the bay, are boats 
 with white or brown or crimson sails ; boats of 
 strange build, with mat or canvas sails of curious 
 design, floating, like tired birds, upon the restful 
 waters of this " changeless summer sea." 
 
 But you remember it all : how we sat under 
 the great blossoms and shining leaves of the 
 magnolias, and, within arm's length, found trea- 
 sures of opal-tinted pebbles, and infinite variety 
 of tiny shells, coral-pink and green and heliotrope, 
 and everything seemed very good indeed. 
 
 A mass of dark-red boulders, overlying a bed 
 of umber rock, ran out into the water, closing, 
 as with a protecting arm, one end of the little 
 inlet, while the forest-clad hill, rising sheer from 
 the point, shut out everything beyond. And then 
 the road ! bright terra cotta, winding round the 
 
 120 
 
BY THE SEA 
 
 bluff through masses of foliage in every shade of 
 green, giant trees, a maze of undergrowth, and 
 the dew-laden ferns and mosses, blazing with 
 emerald fires under the vagrant shafts of sunlight ; 
 dies cretd notanda. 
 
 Do you remember how, when the sun had 
 gone, and the soft, fragrant, Eastern night brought 
 an almost tangible darkness, lighted only by the 
 stars, we returned across the bay in a little boat, 
 with two quaintly coloured paper lanterns making 
 a bright spot of colour high above the bow ? 
 The only sound to break the measured cadence 
 of the oars was the gentle whisper of the land- 
 wind through the distant palm leaves, and the 
 sighing of the tide as it wooed the passive 
 beach. 
 
 And then, as we glided slowly through the 
 starlit darkness, you, by that strange gift of 
 sympathetic intuition, answered my unspoken 
 thought, and sang the Allerseelen, sang it under 
 your breath, "soft and low," as though it might 
 not reach any ears but ours yes, that was All 
 Souls' Day. 
 
 There was only the sea and the sky and the 
 stars, only the perfection of aloneness, " Le reve 
 de rester ensemble sans dessein" 
 
 121 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 And then, all too soon, we came to a space 
 of lesser darkness, visible through the belt of 
 trees which lined the shore ; far down that water- 
 lane twinkled a light, the beacon of our landing- 
 place. Do you remember ? 
 
 122 
 
XV 
 AN ILLUMINATION 
 
 A FTER an absence which cannot be measured 
 ** by days not at least days of twenty-four 
 hours, but rather by spaces of longing and regret, 
 I am back again in a house where everything 
 suggests your presence so vividly that I hardly 
 yet realise that I cannot find you, and already, 
 several times, hearing, or fancying I heard, some 
 sound, I have looked up expecting to see you. It 
 is rather pitiful that, waking or sleeping, our senses 
 should let us be so cruelly fooled. 
 
 It seems years ago, but, sitting in this room to- 
 night, memory carries me back to another evening 
 when you were also here. It had rained heavily, 
 and the sun had almost set when we started to 
 ride down the hill, across the river, and out into 
 the fast-darkening road that strikes through the 
 grass-covered plain, and leads to the distant hills. 
 
 The strangely fascinating transformation of day 
 
 123 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 into night, as commonly seen from that road, 
 cannot fail to arrest the attention and awaken 
 the admiration of the most casual observer ; but 
 for us, I think, it possessed the special charm 
 which comes from the contemplation of nature in 
 harmony with the mood of the spectator, or 
 seen, as with one sight, by two persons in abso- 
 lute sympathy of body and soul. Then nothing 
 is lost no incident, no change of colour, no 
 momentary effect of light or shade ; the scene is 
 absorbed through the eyes, and when the sensa- 
 tion caused finds expression through the voice 
 of one, the heart of the other responds without 
 the need of words. 
 
 I see the picture now ; a string of waggons, 
 the patient oxen standing waiting for their drivers, 
 picturesquely grouped before a wayside booth ; a 
 quaintly fashioned temple, with its faint altar-light 
 shining like a star from out the deep gloom within 
 the portal ; tall, feathery palms, whose stems cast 
 long, sharp shadows across the dark-red road ; on 
 either side a grass-covered, undulating plain, dis- 
 appearing into narrow valleys between the deep 
 blue bills ; behind all, the grey, mist-enshrouded 
 mountains, half hidden in the deepening twilight. 
 
 The last gleams of colour were dying out of the 
 124 
 
AN ILLUMINATION 
 
 sky as we left the main road, and, turning sharp 
 to the left, urged our horses through the gather- 
 ing darkness. At last we were obliged to pull 
 up, uncertain of our bearings, and even doubtful, 
 in the now absolute blackness of tropical night, 
 whether we were in the right way. Carefully 
 avoiding the deep ditches, more by the instinct of 
 the horses than any guidance of ours, we struck 
 into another road and set our faces homewards. 
 It was still intensely dark, but growing clearer as 
 the stars shone out, and we gradually became more 
 accustomed to the gloom ; dark yet delightful, and 
 we agreed that this was the time of all others to 
 really enjoy the East, with a good horse under you 
 and a sympathetic companion to share the fascina- 
 tion of the hour. 
 
 Riding through the groves of trees that lined 
 both sides of the road, we caught occasional 
 glimpses of illuminated buildings, crowning the 
 steep hill which forms one side of the valley. 
 Traversing the outskirts of the town, we crossed 
 a river and came out on a narrow plain, above 
 which rose the hill. I shall never forget the 
 vision which then rose before us. How we ex- 
 claimed with delight ! and yet there was such an 
 
 air of glamour about the scene, such unrealness, 
 
 125 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 such a savour of magic and enchantment as tied 
 our tongues for a while. 
 
 The heights rose in a succession of terraces 
 till they seemed to almost pierce the clouds, each 
 terrace a maze of brilliantly illuminated buildings 
 to which the commanding position, the environ- 
 ment, the style of architecture, and the soft, hazy 
 atmosphere lent an imposing grandeur. 
 
 The buildings which crowned the summit of the 
 spur, lined the terraces, and seemed to be con- 
 nected by a long flight of picturesque stone steps, 
 were all of a dazzling whiteness. Low-reaching 
 eaves, supported on white pillars, formed wide 
 verandahs, whose outer edges were bordered by 
 heavy balustrades. Every principal feature of 
 every building, each door and window, each 
 verandah, balustrade, and step, was outlined by 
 innumerable yellow lights that shone like great 
 stars against the soft dark background of sky 
 and hill. It is impossible to imagine the beauty 
 of the general effect : this succession of snow- 
 white walls, rising from foot to summit of a 
 mist-enveloped hill, suggested the palace-crowned 
 heights of Futtepur Sikri, illuminated for some 
 brilliant festival. The effect of splendour and 
 
 enchantment was intensified by the graceful but 
 
 126 
 
AN ILLUMINATION 
 
 indistinct outlines of a vast building, standing in 
 unrelieved darkness by the bank of the river we 
 had just crossed. In the gloom it was only 
 possible to note the immense size of this nearer 
 palace, and to realise its towers and domes, its 
 pillars and arches, and the consistently Moorish 
 style of its architecture. 
 
 As we approached the lowest of the series of 
 illuminated buildings that, step by step, rose to 
 the summit of the heights, we beheld a sheet of 
 water beneath us on our right, and in this water 
 were reflected the innumerable lights of a long, 
 low temple, standing fifty feet above the opposite 
 bank of the lake. Fronds of the feathery bamboo 
 rose from the bank, and, bending forwards in grace- 
 ful curves, cast deep shadows over the waters of 
 this little lake, from the depths of which blazed 
 the fires of countless lights. 
 
 We stood there and drank in the scene, graving 
 it on the tablets of our memories as something never 
 to be forgotten. Then slowly our horses passed 
 into the darkness of the road, which, winding round 
 the hillside, led up into the open country, a place 
 of grass-land and wood, lying grey and silent 
 under a starlit sky. 
 
 And, when we had gained the house, it was 
 127 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 here you sat, in this old-world seat, with its 
 covering of faded brocade. I can see you now, 
 in the semi-darkness of a room where the only 
 lamp centres its softened light on you an in- 
 comparable picture in a charming setting. You 
 do not speak ; you are holding in your hand a 
 small white card, and you slowly tear it in two, 
 and then again and again. There is something 
 in your face, some strange glory that is not of 
 any outward light, nor yet inspired by that en- 
 chanted vision so lately seen. It is a transfigura- 
 tion, a light from within, like the blush that dyes 
 the clouds above a waveless sea, at the dawn of 
 an Eastern morning. Still you speak no word, 
 but the tiny fragments of that card are now so 
 small that you can no longer divide them, and 
 some drop from your hands upon the floor. 
 I picked them up afterwards did I not ? 
 
 128 
 
XVI 
 OF DEATH, IN FICTION 
 
 IT is delightful to have some one to talk to 
 with whom it is not necessary to think always 
 before one speaks, to choose every word, to explain 
 every thought some one, in fact, who has sym- 
 pathy enough not to be bored with the discussion 
 of a subject that deals neither with gossip nor 
 garments, and intelligence enough to understand 
 what is implied as well as what is said. I have 
 done a good deal of desultory reading lately, 
 mostly modern English and French fiction, and I 
 cannot help being struck by the awkward manner 
 in which authors bring their stories to a conclu- 
 sion. It so very often happens that a book begins 
 well, possibly improves as the plot develops, be- 
 comes even powerful as it nears the climax, and 
 then then the poor puppets, having played their 
 several parts and done all that was required of 
 them, must be got rid of, in order to round off 
 
 I2 9 j 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 the tale, to give finality, and satisfy the ordinary 
 reader's craving for "full particulars." This var- 
 nishing and framing and hanging of the picture is 
 usually arrived at by marrying or slaying some 
 principal character ; the first is a life, and the 
 last a death, sentence. Thus the reader is satis- 
 fied, and often the story is ruined ; that is, if 
 skilful drafting and true perspective are as neces- 
 sary to a good picture as artistic colouring and the 
 correct disposition of light and shade. But is the 
 reader satisfied ? Usually, yes ; occasionally, no. 
 In the latter case the book is closed with a strong 
 sense of disappointment, and a conviction that the 
 writer has realised the necessity of bringing down 
 the curtain on a scene that finishes the play, and 
 leaves nothing to the imagination ; so, to secure 
 that end, he has abandoned truth, and even pro- 
 bability, and has clumsily introduced the priest or 
 the hangman, the " cup of cold poison," or the 
 ever-ready revolver. The effect of the charming 
 scenery, the pretty frocks, the artistic furniture, and 
 "the crisp and sparkling dialogue," is thus spoilt 
 by the unreal and unconvincing denouement. 
 
 It seems to me " to my stupid comprehension," 
 as the polite Eastern constantly insists that this 
 failure is due to two causes. First, most fiction is 
 130 
 
OF DEATH, IN FICTION 
 
 founded on fact, and the writer has, in history, in 
 the newspapers, in his own experience or that of 
 his friends, met with some record or paragraph, 
 some adventure or incident, that has served for 
 the foundation of his story ; but, unless purely 
 historical, he has been obliged to supply the last 
 scene himself, because in reality there was none, 
 or, if there was, he could not use it. In our own 
 experience, in that of every one who has seen a 
 little of the world, have we not become acquainted 
 with quite a number of dramatic, or even tragic 
 incidents, that have scarred our own or others' lives, 
 and would make stories of deep interest in the 
 hands of a skilful writer ? But the action does 
 not cease. The altar is oftener the fateful begin- 
 ning than the happy ending of the drama ; and, 
 when the complications fall thick upon each other, 
 there is no such easy way out of the impasse as 
 that provided by a little prussic acid or a bullet. 
 They are ready to hand, I grant you, but they 
 are not so often used in life as in fiction. I have 
 known a man walk about, with a revolver in his 
 pocket, for three days, looking for a suitable oppor- 
 tunity to use it upon himself, and then he has put 
 it away against the coming of a burglar. When 
 it is not yourself, but some one else, you desire to 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 get rid of, the prospect is, strange to say, even 
 less inviting. Thus it happens that, in real life, 
 we suffer and we endure, the drama is played and 
 the tragedy is in our hearts, but it does not take 
 outward and visible form. So the fiction whilst 
 it is true to life holds our interest, and the 
 skill of the artist excites our admiration ; but the 
 impossible climax appeals to us, no more than a 
 five-legged cow. It is a lusus naturce, that is all. 
 They happen, these monstrosities, but they never 
 live long, and it were best to stifle them at birth. 
 
 Pardon ! you say there is genius. Yes, but it 
 is rare, and I have not the courage to even discuss 
 genius ; it is like Delhi and the planets, a long way 
 off. We can only see it with the help of a power- 
 ful glass, if indeed then it is visible. There is 
 only one writer who openly lays claim to it, and 
 the claim seems to be based chiefly on her lofty 
 disdain for adverse criticism. That is, perhaps, 
 a sign, but not a complete proof, of the existence 
 of the divine fire. 
 
 But to return to the humbler minds. It does 
 happen that real lives are suddenly and violently 
 ended by accident, murder, or suicide, and there 
 seems no special reason why fictitious lives should 
 be superior to such chances. Indeed, to some 
 
 132 
 
OF DEATH, IN FICTION 
 
 authors, there would be no more pleasure in 
 writing novels, without the tragic element as the 
 main feature, than there is for some great billiard 
 exponents to play the game with the spot-stroke 
 barred. I would only plead, in this case, that 
 the accident or the suicide, to be life-like, need 
 not be very far-fetched. In murder, as one knows, 
 the utmost licence is not only permissible but 
 laudable, for the wildest freaks of imagination 
 will hardly exceed the refinements, the devilish 
 invention, and the cold-blooded execution of actual 
 crimes. I remember you once spoke scornfully 
 of using a common form of accident as a means 
 of getting rid of a character in fiction ; but surely 
 that is not altogether inartistic, for the accidents 
 that occur most commonly are those to which the 
 people of romance will naturally be as liable as 
 you or I. It is difficult to imagine that you 
 should be destroyed by an explosion in a coal- 
 mine, or that I should disappear in a balloon ; 
 but we might either of us be drowned, or killed 
 in a railway accident, under any one of a variety 
 of probable circumstances. Again, in suicide, the 
 simplest method is, for purposes of fiction, in all 
 likelihood the best. Men usually shoot them- 
 selves, and women, especially when they cannot 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 swim, seek the water. Those who prefer poison 
 are probably the swimmers. It is a common 
 practice in fiction to make the noble-minded man 
 who loves the lady, but finds himself in the way 
 of what he believes to be her happiness (that is, 
 of course, some other man), determine to destroy 
 himself; and he does it with admirable resolu- 
 tion, considering how cordially he dislikes the role 
 for which he has been cast, and how greatly he 
 yearns for the affection which no effort of his 
 can possibly secure. I cannot, however, remember 
 any hero of fiction who has completed the sacri- 
 fice of his life in a thoroughly satisfactory manner, 
 for he invariably leaves his body lying about, 
 where it is sure to attract attention, and cause 
 great distress to the lady he designs to oblige. 
 That is thoughtless ; and those who really mean 
 to prove their self-denial should arrange, not only 
 to extinguish their lives, but to get rid of their 
 bodies, so that there may be as little scandal and 
 trouble to their friends as possible. I have always 
 felt the sincerest admiration for the man who, 
 having made up his mind to destroy himself, and 
 purchased a revolver with which to do the deed, 
 settled his affairs, moved into lodgings quite close 
 to a cemetery, wrote letters to the coroner, the 
 
OF DEATH, IN FICTION 
 
 doctor, and the undertaker, giving them in each 
 case the exact hour at which they should call on 
 their several errands, paid all his debts, left some- 
 thing to indemnify his landlady, and more than 
 enough for funeral expenses, and then shot him- 
 self. That, however, was not a character in 
 fiction, but a common mortal, and there was no 
 lady in the case. 
 
 I am sure there are many people who would 
 be greatly obliged to me for inviting attention to 
 these matters, if only they could get it in print, 
 to lie about on the table with the page turned 
 down at the proper place. Nothing is more 
 common than the determined suicides who live 
 to a green old age for want of a book of in- 
 structions. These people weary their friends and 
 acquaintances by eternally reiterated threats that 
 they will destroy themselves, and yet, however 
 desirable that course may be, they never take it. 
 This novel and brilliant idea first comes to them 
 in some fit of pique, and they declare that they 
 will make an end of themselves, "and then per- 
 haps you will be sorry." They are so pleased 
 with the effect caused by this statement, that, on 
 the next favourable opportunity, they repeat it ; 
 and then they go on and on, dragging in their 
 
 US 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 wretched threat on every possible and impossible 
 occasion, especially in the presence of strangers 
 and the aged relatives of themselves or the person 
 they want to get at, until mere acquaintances wish 
 they would fulfil their self-imposed task and cease 
 from troubling. It is almost amusing to hear 
 how these suicides determines vary, from day to day 
 or week to week, the methods which they have 
 selected for their own destruction poison, pistols, 
 drowning, throwing themselves out of window or 
 under a train nothing comes amiss ; but, when 
 they wish to be really effective, and carry terror 
 into the hearts of their hearers, they usually 
 declare either, that they will blow their brains 
 out, or cut their throats. The vision of either of 
 these processes of self-extinction, even though 
 remote and unsubstantial, is well calculated to 
 curdle the blood. That, as a rule, is all that is 
 meant ; and, when you understand it, the amuse- 
 ment is harmless if it is not exactly kind. "Vain 
 repetitions " are distinctly wearying, even when 
 they come from husbands and wives, parents or 
 children ; the impassioned lover, too, is not alto- 
 gether free from the threat of suicide and the 
 repetition of it. In all these cases it would be 
 a kindness to those who appear weary of life, 
 
 136 
 
OF DEATH, IN FICTION 
 
 and who weary others by threatening to put an 
 end to it, if they could be persuaded, either to 
 follow the example of the man who, without dis- 
 closing his intentions, took a room by the gate 
 of the cemetery, or, if they don't really mean it, 
 to say nothing more about it. Therefore, if ever 
 you are over-tried in this way, leave this letter 
 where it will be read. The weak point about 
 the prescription is that it is more likely to cure 
 than to kill. However, I must leave that to you, 
 for a good deal depends on how the remedy is 
 applied. The size of the dose, the form of ap- 
 plication, whether external or internal, will make 
 all the difference in the world. I do not prescribe 
 for a patient, but for a disease ; the rest may safely 
 be left to your admirable discretion ; but you will 
 not forget that a dose which can safely and ad- 
 visedly be administered to an adult may kill a 
 child. 
 
 137 
 
XVII 
 A HAND AT ECARTE 
 
 1 WROTE to you of death in fiction, and, if I 
 now write of death in fact, it is partly to see 
 how far you agree with an opinion that was lately 
 expressed to me by a man who is himself literary, 
 and whose business it is to know the public taste 
 in works of fiction. We were discussing a book of 
 short stories, and he spoke of the author's success, 
 and said he hoped we might have a further instal- 
 ment of similar tales. I ventured to suggest that the 
 public must be rather nauseated with horrors, with 
 stories of blood and crime, even though they carried 
 their readers into new surroundings, and introduced 
 them to interesting and little-described societies. 
 My companion said, " No, there need be no such 
 fear ; we like gore. A craving for horrors pervades 
 all classes, and is not easily satisfied. Those who 
 cannot gloat over the contemplation of carcasses and 
 blood, revel in the sanguinary details which make 
 
 138 
 
A HAND AT 
 
 them almost spectators in the real or imaginary 
 tragedies of life. The newspapers give one, and 
 some writers of fiction the other ; there is a large 
 demand for both, especially now that the circle of 
 readers is so rapidly widening amongst a class that 
 cannot appreciate refinements of style, and neither 
 understands nor desires the discussion of abstract 
 questions. Therefore give us, not Light, but 
 Blood." 
 
 I wonder what you think. If I felt you had a 
 craving for horrors I could paint the pages scarlet ; 
 for I have been in places where human life was 
 held so cheap that death by violence attracted little 
 notice, where tragedies were of daily occurrence, 
 and hundreds of crimes, conceived with fiendish in- 
 genuity and carried out with every detail calculated 
 to thrill the nerves and tickle the jaded palate of 
 the most determined consumer of "atrocities," lie 
 hidden in the records of Courts of Justice and 
 Police Offices. Any one who compares the feelings 
 with which he throws aside the daily paper, as he 
 leaves the Underground Railway, or even those 
 with which he closes the shilling shocker in more 
 favourable surroundings, with the sense of exalta- 
 tion, of keen, pulse-quickening joy that comes to 
 him after reading one page in the book of Nature 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 after a long look at one of its myriad pictures 
 would, I think, hesitate to confess to a great han- 
 kering for a perpetual diet of blood. It is not the 
 dread of appearing to be dissipated, but the cer- 
 tainty that there is better health, and a far more 
 intense pleasure, in the clear atmosphere of woods 
 and hills, of river and sea, than in the shambles. 
 
 Sewers are a product of civilisation in cities, but 
 they are not pretty to look at, and I cannot appre- 
 ciate a desire to explore their darksome nastiness 
 while we may, if we choose, remain in the light 
 and air of heaven. London slums are daily and 
 nightly the scenes of nameless horrors, but it may 
 be doubted whether a faithful and minute descrip- 
 tion of them, in the form of cheap literature, does 
 more good than harm. 
 
 That is by way of preface. What I am going 
 to tell you struck me, because I question whether 
 a tragedy in real life was ever acted with details 
 that sound so fictional, so imaginary, and yet there 
 was no straining after effect. It was the way the / 
 thing had to be worked out ; and like the puzzles 
 you buy, and waste hours attempting to solve, I 
 suppose the pieces would only fit when arranged 
 in the places for which they were designed by their 
 Maker. 
 
 140 
 
A HAND AT ECART6 
 
 A long time ago there lived, in one of the prin- 
 cipal cities of Italy, a certain marchese, married to 
 a woman of great beauty and distinguished family. 
 She had a lover, a captain of cavalry, who had 
 made himself an Italian reputation for his success 
 in love-affairs, and also in the duels which had been 
 forced upon him by those who believed themselves 
 to have been wronged. The soldier was a very 
 accomplished swordsman and equally skilful with 
 a pistol, and that is possibly the reason why the 
 husband of the marchesa was blind to a state of 
 affairs which at last became the scandal of local 
 society. The marchesa had a brother, a leading 
 member of the legal profession ; and when he had 
 unsuccessfully indicated to his brother-in-law the 
 line of his manifest duty, he determined to himself 
 defend his sister's name, for the honour of an 
 ancient and noble family. The brother was neither 
 a swordsman nor a pistol-shot, and when he under- 
 took to vindicate his sister's reputation he realised 
 exactly what it might cost him. The position was 
 unbearable ; the cafls were ringing with the tale ; 
 and, if her husband shirked the encounter, some 
 man of her own family must bring the offender to 
 book and satisfy the demands of public opinion. 
 
 Having made up his mind as to the modus 
 141 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 operancti, the brother sought his foe in a crowded 
 cafe, and in the most public manner insulted him 
 by striking him across the face with his glove. 
 A challenge naturally followed, and the choice of 
 weapons was left with the assailant. He de- 
 manded pistols, and, knowing his own absolute 
 inferiority, stipulated for special conditions, which 
 were, that the combatants should stand at a dis- 
 tance of one pace only, that they should toss, or 
 play a game of ecarte for the first shot, and that 
 if the loser survived it, he should go as close to 
 his adversary as he pleased before discharging his 
 own weapon. Under the circumstances, the sol- 
 dier thought he could hardly decline any conditions 
 which gave neither party an advantage, but no one 
 could be found to undertake the duties of second 
 in a duel on such terms. Two friends of the 
 principals agreed, however, to stand by with rifles, 
 to see that the compact was not violated ; and it 
 was understood that they would at once fire on 
 the man who should attempt foul play. 
 
 It was, of course, imperative that the proceed- 
 ings should be conducted with secrecy, and the 
 meeting was arranged to take place on the out- 
 skirts of a distant town, to which it was necessary 
 
 to make r,. long night journey by rail. In the 
 
 142 
 
A HAND AT ECARTE 
 
 early dawn of a cold morning in March, the four 
 men met in the cemetery of a famous monastery, 
 that stands perched on a crag, overlooking the 
 neighbouring city, and a wide vale stretching away 
 for miles towards the distant hills. A pack of 
 cards was produced, and, with a tombstone as a 
 table, the adversaries played one hand at ecarte. 
 The game went evenly enough, and rather slowly, 
 till the brother marked four against his opponent's 
 three. It was then the latter's deal ; he turned 
 up the king and made the point, winning the 
 game. A line was drawn, the distance measured, 
 the pistols placed in the duellists' hands, and the 
 two friends retired a few yards, holding their 
 loaded rifles ready for use. The word was given, 
 and the brother stood calmly awaiting his fate. 
 The soldier slowly raised his pistol to a point in 
 line with the other's head, and, from a distance 
 of a few inches, put a bullet through his brain, the 
 unfortunate man falling dead without uttering a 
 sound or making a movement. 
 
 The officer obtained a month's leave and fled 
 across the border into Switzerland, but, before the 
 month was up, public excitement over the affair 
 had waned, and the gossips were busy with a new 
 scandal. Their outraged sense of propriety had 
 '43 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 been appeased by the sacrifice of the dead, and 
 the novel and piquant circumstances which accom- 
 panied it. As for the intrigue which had led to 
 the duel, that, of course, went on the same as 
 ever, only rather more so. 
 
 J44 
 
XVIII 
 
 THE GENTLE ART OF VEERING 
 WITH THE WIND 
 
 TO-DAY I received a letter from you. I have 
 read it twice, and, though it contains eight 
 pages of closely written lines, there is not one 
 word in it that would show that I am any more 
 to you than the merest acquaintance. For weeks 
 I have anxiously awaited this letter ; plans, of 
 the utmost importance to me, depended upon the 
 answer you would give to a question I had put ; 
 and my whole future, at least that future which 
 deals with a man's ambitions, would, in all proba- 
 bility, be influenced by your reply. I asked you 
 well, never mind what and you, being entirely 
 free to write what you mean and what you wish, 
 say that it is a point on which you cannot offer 
 advice ; but you tell me that you have given up 
 reading and taken to gardening, as you find it is 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 better for you ! Have you ever read the story of 
 Zadig ? If you have, you will perhaps remember 
 how his wife, Azora, railed against the newly 
 made widow whom she found gardening. I have 
 no prejudices of that kind, and, in my case, no one's 
 nose is in danger of the razor ; but still I think 
 I may not unreasonably feel somewhat aggrieved. 
 
 Do not believe that I could ever wish to re- 
 mind you of what you have forgotten, or wish to 
 forget. I only want to know what is real and what 
 is counterfeit, and you alone can tell me. I may 
 ask this, may I not ? It is not that I may pre- 
 sume to judge you, or from any wish to gratify 
 an impertinent curiosity, but that I may be saved 
 from imagining what is not, and, while torturing 
 myself, possibly even distress you. I find it hard 
 to reconcile this letter of yours with others I have 
 received, and if that sounds to you but a confession 
 of my stupidity, I would rather admit my want of 
 intelligence and crave your indulgence, than stand 
 convicted of putting two and two together and 
 making of them twenty-two. If you tell me there 
 is no question of indulgence, but that quite regular 
 verbs have different moods, that present and past 
 tenses are irreconcilable, and, of the future, no man 
 
 knoweth I shall have my answer. 
 
 146 
 
VEERING WITH THE WIND 
 
 You do not write under the influence of winter. 
 I cannot charge myself with any offence against 
 you. Nay, God knows that all my thoughts and 
 all my efforts are but to do you honour. If I 
 have misread your earlier letters, if I have been 
 unduly elated by such kind words as you have 
 sent me, it is the simplest thing in the world to 
 undeceive me and show me the error of my ways. 
 Are you only souffrante, and may I disregard the 
 chilling atmosphere of your present missive, re- 
 membering the tender sympathy of voice, of eye, 
 of hand, in the rapturous days of a cherished 
 past? 
 
 It seems as natural to some people to love 
 to-day, and to be almost strangers to-morrow, as 
 that we should revel in a flood of light when 
 the moon is full, and grope in darkness when 
 the goddess of night is no longer visible. The 
 temperament that makes this possible is ffi^ 
 fiB^Nrare, so much so that it creates an interest 
 in the observer. I have never seen it in man, 
 but I have in woman ; and one realises that then 
 it is JJPto to be a spectator than an actor in 
 what is never a farce, and may easily develop 
 into tragedy. Imagine such a woman of very 
 unusual personal attractions : great beauty of face 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 and figure united to a high intelligence and 
 extreme charm of manner ; witty, ambitious, 
 courageous, full of high thoughts and endowed 
 with all the advantages that wealth can add to 
 personal gifts. Deep in a nature that is strangely 
 complex, and capable of the most opposite ex- 
 tremes, suppose there is implanted, amongst many 
 other feelings, a passionate yearning to be under- 
 stood, and to be loved with a love that would 
 shrink from nothing to prove the greatness of its 
 devotion. Here you have a being capable of what 
 seem the strangest contradictions, and not the least 
 startling of these may be a rare, but absolute and 
 passionate, self-abandonment, under the influence 
 of certain circumstances which strongly appeal to 
 the senses. Overcome by intoxication of sound, 
 colour, and magnetism, every moral and conven- 
 tional muscle suddenly relaxes, and, the violence 
 of the forces released, is wild and uncontrolled, 
 because of the firm determination by which they 
 are habitually bound. To-morrow, in the cold 
 grey light of day, the slow-working mind of man 
 is absolutely bewildered by what he sees and 
 hears. He comes, dominated by an exalted 
 passion, enthralled by a vision of ecstasy through 
 
 which he sees, imperfectly, the people about him, 
 
 148 
 
VEERING WITH THE WIND 
 
 only " men as trees walking " ; reserving his 
 thoughts and perceptions of surrounding objects 
 till he shall again gaze upon that face which 
 seems to him to have opened the door of life 
 with the key of a boundless love. Still dazed 
 by the memories of last night, he enters the 
 presence of his beloved, and experiences a shock, 
 such as a swimmer might feel, if floating, half- 
 entranced, in some tropic sea, he suddenly hit 
 against an iceberg. 
 
 Sometimes, even, influenced by surroundings, 
 maddened by the whisperings of a southern night, 
 passed in a place where she breathes an atmos- 
 phere impregnated with the romance of centuries, 
 the lonely soul of the woman, hungering for sym- 
 pathy and communion, will seize a pen and write, 
 " Come to me ; I want you, for you understand ; 
 come, and I will give you happiness." Before 
 the letter has been gone one day, on a journey 
 that may take it to the ends of the earth, the 
 writer's mood has changed, and she has forgotten 
 her summons as completely as though it had 
 never been written. When the missive reaches 
 its destination, the recipient will be wise to curb 
 his impetuosity, and realise that his opportunity 
 is long since dead and buried. 
 
 149 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 The bewildering phases of such a nature as I 
 have here imagined are nothing to us. To you 
 it may even seem inexcusable that I should allude 
 to a character with which you have no sympathy, 
 an abnormal growth which sounds rather fantastic 
 than real. It is the argumentum ad absurdum, 
 and has its value. This strange perversity which, 
 by reason of its startling contradictions, seems 
 almost inhuman, and if, in rare instances, met 
 with, can only excite feelings of curiosity or re- 
 pugnartce this is the extreme case. The appli- 
 cation of the moral will come nearer home to us, 
 if we make the changes from passionate love to 
 cold indifference a little less marked, the intervals 
 between the moods a little longer. It is well to 
 know one's own mind, not because wavering and 
 change hurt the fickle, but because some stupid 
 person may suffer by the purchase of experience ; 
 may take it to heart, and may do himself an injury. 
 It is well to know one's own heart, and what it 
 can give; lest another put too high a value on 
 the prize and lose all in trying to win it. It is 
 well to know our own weakness, and at once 
 recognise that we shall be guided by it ; lest 
 another think it is strength, and make, for our 
 
 sakes, sacrifices that only frighten and perhaps 
 
 150 
 
VEERING WITH THE WIND 
 
 even annoy us, especially when they are made in 
 the absurd belief that they will please us. 
 
 If you can give the extreme of happiness, do 
 not forget that you can also cause an infinity of 
 pain. No one can blame you for declining to 
 accord favours ; and if that refusal gives pain, 
 there is no help for it. There can be little 
 sympathy for those who seek the battle and then 
 complain of their wounds. Such hurts do not 
 rankle, and quickly heal. But it is different when 
 a woman gives love of her own free will, un- 
 influenced by any consideration beyond her in- 
 clination, and then takes it back, also without 
 other cause than caprice. It is difficult to use 
 any other word either it was a caprice to say 
 she gave what never was given, or it is a caprice 
 to take it back. A confession of thoughtlessness 
 in estimating the character of her own feelings, 
 or of weakness and inability to resist any oppos- 
 ing influence, is a poor pretext for a sudden 
 withering of the tendrils of affection. Such a 
 confession is an indifferent consolation to the 
 heart which realises its loss, but cannot appreciate 
 the situation. Do not mistake me ; it is so hard 
 to be absolutely candid and fair in considering 
 our own cases. We are not less likely to make 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 mistakes in matters of sentiment than in the 
 purely practical affairs of life. If we think we 
 love, and then become certain that we have 
 made a mistake, the only safe and kind course 
 is to confess the error ; but if we deliberately 
 seek love and give it, much protesting and much 
 exacting, how shall we then deny it ? Would 
 one say, " If you asked me, I would go down 
 into hell with you, now," and then, ere twelve 
 months had passed, for no crime but enforced 
 absence, speak or write, to that other, almost as 
 a stranger ? 
 
 There was Peter, I know ; but even he was 
 not altogether satisfied with himself, and, besides 
 denying his Lord, he stands convicted of physical 
 cowardice. 
 
 152 
 
XIX 
 A REJOINDER 
 
 THANK you. Before my last letter could 
 reach you, vous niaviez donne affreusement a 
 penser, and this is what occurs to me : 
 
 " Of all the lover's sorrows, next to that 
 Of Love by Love forbidden, is the voice 
 Of Friendship turning harsh in Love's reproof, 
 And overmuch of counsel whereby Love 
 Grows stubborn, and recoiling unsupprest 
 Within, devours the heart within the breast." 
 
 I dare say it is as well. I am beginning to 
 recognise the real attractions of what I may call 
 a "surprise letter." I have had several lately. 
 It is perhaps the irony of fate that, just after 
 I had mildly hinted to you that the phases of 
 the moods of the feminine mind were some- 
 times rather bewildering, you should write to 
 me the sort of letter which, had it been sent 
 by me to a man I called my friend, I should 
 richly deserve death at his hands. There are 
 '53 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 certainly few things more thoroughly enjoyable 
 than to take up a letter that you see comes from 
 well, let us say from a very dear friend to 
 dally a little over the opening, in the mingled de- 
 sire and hesitation to read the contents ; feverish 
 desire to know that all is well, to hear some word 
 of affectionate regard hesitation lest the news 
 be bad, the letter cold ; and then to find such a 
 missive as you have sent to me. 
 
 To begin with, there is a page and a half on 
 which you have poured out the vials of your 
 wrath. I was quite hot before I had read half of 
 it, and my ears even were burning before I came 
 to a page in which you told me how greatly you 
 were enjoying yourself. And then, at the end, 
 there was another page and a half, every word of 
 which seemed to strike me in the face like a blow. 
 I suppose you introduced the middle section 
 that I might meditate on the difference between 
 your circumstances and mine, and duly appre- 
 ciate the full weight of your displeasure. Well, 
 yes, I have done so ; and, as God only knows 
 when I shall see you again, I must write one or 
 two of the many words it is in my heart to say 
 to you. 
 
 I am a very unworthy person ; I have deeply 
 
A REJOINDER 
 
 offended you ; and you have felt it necessary to 
 tell me gently Jiow ill my conduct looks to you. 
 You leave me to infer that there are offences 
 which cannot be tolerated, and that it would not 
 be difficult to dispense with my acquaintance. I 
 humbly accept this verdict, and as it is absolutely 
 just and right that the prisoner should first be 
 condemned without hearing, and then suffered to 
 state his case, and say anything he pleases in 
 mitigation of sentence, I will try not to weary you 
 by any reference to ancient history, but simply 
 confine myself to the charge. 
 
 Now, what is my crime ? You asked me a 
 question ; I am sure you have long ago forgotten 
 what it was, and I need not remind you ; but I, 
 like an idiot, thought you really wanted an answer, 
 and that it was my bounden duty to find a means 
 of sending it. The question gave me infinite 
 pleasure, and, again like an idiot, I thought the 
 answer I longed to send would be welcome. I 
 could not send it in the ordinary way, as you will 
 admit, and, a sudden thought striking me that there 
 was a safe and easy means of transmission, I acted 
 on it, and your letter is the result. You tell me 
 your pride is wounded, your trust in my word gone, 
 and your conscience scandalised. It is useless for 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 me now to express regret. I have been convicted, 
 and I am only pleading in mitigation of sentence. 
 Well, mine was a deliberate sin. I had to decide 
 whether I would answer you or not, and, though I 
 disliked the means, I thought the end would justify 
 them. To me they did not then, and do not now, 
 seem very objectionable ; and it certainly did not 
 occur to me that I could thereby wound the most 
 sensitive feelings. Of course I was an imbecile, and 
 ought to have realised that a question like that was 
 only a phrase, with no serious meaning. I gave a 
 promise, you say, and have broken it. It is a pity. 
 I had rather have sinned in any other way, for I 
 have my pride too, and it asserts itself chiefly in 
 the keeping of promises, rather than the gift of 
 them. As to the conscience, I deeply sympathise. 
 An offended conscience must be a very incon- 
 venient, not to say unpleasant, companion. But 
 you were greatly enjoying yourself (you impress 
 that upon me, so you will not be offended if I 
 mention it), therefore I conclude your conscience 
 was satisfied by the uncompromising expression of 
 your sense of my misdeeds. Might I ask which 
 way your conscience was looking when you wrote 
 this letter to me, or does it feel no call to speak on 
 
 my behalf? I would rather my hand were palsied 
 
 156 
 
A REJOINDER 
 
 than write such a letter to any one, and you know 
 that I have forfeited your favour in trying to do 
 your will. I think your quarrel was rather with 
 your conscience than with me ; but it is well to 
 keep friends with those of one's own household. 
 
 Truly it is an evil thing to stake one's happiness 
 upon the value of x in an indeterminate equation. 
 It is possible to regard the unknown quanity with 
 philosophy ; it is like the unattainable. The 
 mischief all comes with what looks like solution, 
 but proves in the end to be drawn from false 
 premises. Lines can be straight, and figures may 
 be square, but sentient beings are less reliable, and 
 therefore more interesting as studies. The pity 
 is that we sometimes get too close, in our desire 
 to examine minutely what looks most beautiful 
 and most attractive. Then proximity destroys the 
 powers of critical judgment, and, from appearances, 
 we draw conclusions which are utterly unreliable, 
 because our own intelligence is obscured by the 
 interference of our senses. We have to count 
 with quantities that not only have no original 
 fixed value, but vary from day to day, and even 
 from hour to hour. 
 
 You will say that if I can liken you to an algebraic 
 sign, speak of you as a " quantity " and " an inde- 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 'terminate equation," it cannot matter much whether 
 you write to me in terms of hate or love. If, how- 
 ever, you consider where you are and where I am, 
 and if, when this lies in your hand, you are on 
 good terms with your pride and your conscience, 
 you may be able to spare, from the abundance 
 you lavish on them, a grain of sympathy for me 
 in my loneliness. Is it a crime for the humble 
 worshipper to seek to assure the deity of his un- 
 altered devotion ? It used not to be so ; and 
 though the temple has infinite attractions for me, 
 the tavern none, I could say with the Persian 
 
 " And this I know : whether the one True Light 
 Kindle to love, or Wrath-consume me quite, 
 One Flash of It within the Tavern caught 
 Better than in the Temple lost outright." 
 
 Life is too short, and too full of storm and stress, 
 to induce any one to stake it on a proved uncer- 
 tainty, however attractive. It is better never to 
 take ship at all than to be constantly meeting 
 disaster on the shoals and rocks of the loveliest 
 summer sea. Of the end of such a venture there 
 is no uncertainty. The bravest craft that ever 
 left port will be reduced to a few rotting timbers, 
 while the sea smiles anew on what is but a 
 
 picturesque effect. 
 
 158 
 
XX 
 OF IMPORTUNITY 
 
 1MUST unburden myself to you, because I may 
 do so without offence, without shocking you 
 beyond forgiveness ; for I feel that if my letter 
 were to another, I should either have to use such 
 self-control that I should gain no relief for my 
 injured feelings, or else the other would think I 
 had gone mad, and blot my name out of the book 
 of 'her correspondents two r's, please. You see 
 I am in an evil mood, the bad tense of the evil 
 mood ; so I may as well begin in the green leaf 
 what is sure to come in the brown. Besides, you 
 are partly to blame ! Is not that like a man ? 
 You supplied me with the fruit of this knowledge 
 which has set my teeth on edge, but it is also 
 true that you gave it in furtherance of my request 
 and to oblige me. I fancy that was the case with 
 Eve. Adam probably sent her up a tree (the 
 expression has lasted to our own time), looked 
 iS9 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 the other way, and pretended he had forgotten 
 all about it when the obliging lady came down and 
 tendered the result of her painful efforts. It is 
 bad enough to climb with your clothes on, as 
 I saw the other day, when I induced a friend to 
 swarm up a fern- tree by telling him I did not 
 believe he could do it. But this is all beside the 
 mark ; what has roused my ire is a parcel of 
 new books, kindly selected by you to cheer my 
 solitude. As they came direct from the bookseller, 
 I do not know whether you have read them, but 
 they are very new indeed, and, from what you say, 
 I think you must at least have wrestled with some 
 of them. Very recent publications, like many of 
 these, are rather a rarity here, and, as I was 
 particularly busy, I lent some of them to friends 
 who are always hungering for new literature. Now 
 I am rather sorry, though I washed my hands of 
 the transaction by saying that I would not take 
 the responsibility of recommending anything, but 
 they were at liberty to take what they liked. In 
 due time the volumes were returned, without com- 
 ment, but with the pages cut. I did not think 
 anything of that at the time, the realities of the 
 moment interested me a great deal more than any 
 
 book could ; but now I have read some of the 
 1 60 
 
OF IMPORTUNITY 
 
 batch, and I am suffering from an earnest desire 
 to meet the authors and " have it out with them." 
 As however, that is not in my power, I am going 
 to victimise you. There is one story, of a kind 
 that is now common enough, that is specially 
 aggravating. If you have read it you will know 
 which I refer to ; if not, I won't tell you. It is 
 written by a woman, and discourses in a very 
 peculiar fashion on the ways of men. That is of 
 no particular moment, for the writer has either a 
 very indifferent knowledge of men, or she is not 
 to be congratulated on her male friends, or she 
 has had some very unfortunate personal experi- 
 ences, and judges the species by some repulsive 
 individuals. It was a man who said that women 
 do not possess the sentiment of justice, and he 
 might, if he had wished to be fair, have added 
 that it is comparatively rare in men. Men have 
 written many unkind and untrue things about 
 women as a sex, but they cannot have harmed 
 them much, since their influence over the beings, 
 derisively styled " Lords of Creation " is certainly 
 on the increase, especially in new countries like 
 America. 
 
 What, however, is rather strange is that, in 
 
 the book I speak of, there are two women joint- 
 161 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 heroines, as it were held up for the reader's 
 admiration, but described as perfectly odious crea- 
 tures. The story, however, is practically confined 
 to the life and character of one of these ladies, 
 and the exact position of the other, in relation to 
 her friend, is not altogether clear, nor of any con- 
 cern as regards my point. Let me then speak of 
 the one woman as the heroine ; it is to her I wish 
 to apply the epithet odious. The writer, I take 
 it, is very pleased and satisfied with the lady of 
 her creation, and, whilst she never loses an oppor- 
 tunity of enlarging on the very objectionable char- 
 acteristics of all men of birth and education, she 
 evidently means the reader to understand that she 
 has drawn and coloured the picture of a very per- 
 fect and altogether captivating woman. A young, 
 beautiful, intelligent, highly educated, perfectly 
 dressed woman, surrounded by every luxury that 
 great wealth and good taste can secure, may easily 
 be captivating, and it might be counted something 
 less than a crime that a number of admirers 
 should be anxious to marry her. When it comes 
 to character it is different ; and even though the 
 spectacle of a woman with fewer attractions than 
 I have named, and a disposition that left some- 
 thing to be desired, enslaving men of renown, is 
 
 162 
 
OF IMPORTUNITY 
 
 not unknown to history, it seems a little unusual 
 to design a heroine as the very embodiment of 
 selfishness, and then exhibit her as the perfect 
 woman. The life that is shown to us is chiefly 
 that of a girl, old enough, and independent and 
 intelligent enough, to know perfectly what she 
 was doing, constantly allowing, or alluring, men 
 to make love to her ; and then, when they wished 
 to marry her, telling them in language which, if 
 not considerate, was certainly plain, how deeply 
 insulted she felt. If they wasted years and years, 
 or lost their useless, sinful lives altogether, over 
 ner, that was a matter of such absolute indiffer- 
 ence that it never gave her a second thought or 
 a moment of regret. She did not avoid men alto- 
 gether ; on the contrary, she seemed rather fond of 
 their society, as she had only one woman friend, 
 and is described as giving them all ample op- 
 portunities of declaring their passionate admira- 
 tion for her beauty and intelligence. The lovers 
 were many and varied ; coming from the peerage, 
 the squirearchy, the army, the Church, and other 
 sources ; but they all met with the same fate, and 
 each in turn received a special lecture on the vice 
 and amazing effrontery of his proposal. 
 
 I suppose it is a book with a purpose, and, 
 163 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 unlike a Scotch sermon, it is divided into only 
 two heads. As to one, I could imagine the reply 
 might be in the form of another book styled " Her 
 Lord the Eunuch." Biblical history deals with the 
 species. It is less common now, but if a demand 
 again arises, no doubt there will be a supply to 
 meet it. That is the head I cannot discuss, even 
 in these days of fin de siecle literature, wherein it 
 is a favourite subject, and would have fewer diffi- 
 culties than the case of a nineteenth-century Virgin 
 Mary, which formed the text of one volume in 
 the parcel. The other consideration seems to 
 rest on safe ground, with no treacherous bogs or 
 dangerous quicksands, and therefore I venture to 
 ask you what you think of this paragon of all the 
 virtues. Is she the type of a woman's woman ? 
 One sometimes, but very, very rarely, meets a 
 woman like this, in England at any rate ; and 
 though the lady's girdle is certain to be deco- 
 rated with a collection of male scalps of all ages 
 and many colours, very few of her own sex will be 
 found in the number of her friends or admirers. 
 Her charity is generally a form of perversity ; for 
 if she occasionally lavishes it on some animal or 
 human being, it is a caprice that costs her little, 
 
 and to the horse or dog which fails in instant 
 
 164 
 
OF IMPORTUNITY 
 
 obedience, to the beggar or relative who impor- 
 tunes, she is passionately or coldly cruel. Yet 
 her fascination is real enough, but it seldom en- 
 dures. There is no need to sympathise with the 
 would-be lovers, who are rejected yet still impor- 
 tunate. When, as sometimes happens in a world 
 of change, there has been mutual love between 
 man and woman, and one has ceased to love, it is 
 natural enough that the other should desire to re- 
 tain what may still be, to him or her, the only thing 
 worth living for. But to importune a woman to 
 give herself, her body and soul, her whole destiny 
 till death, when she does not wish it, is to ask 
 for something that it were better not to precisely 
 define. Persumably if the man thinks he is in 
 love, it is the woman's love he wants. She says 
 she does not love him, and he is a fool, or worse, 
 to take anything less, even when she is willing to 
 sacrifice or sell herself for any conceivable reason. 
 Surely, if the man had any real regard for her, 
 he would think first of her happiness, and refuse 
 to take advantage of her weakness or necessities. 
 Besides, her misery could not be his advantage, 
 and the worn-out sophism of parents or other in- 
 terested persons, that "she did not know her own 
 mind, and would get to like him," is too hazardous 
 165 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 a chance on which to stake the welfare of two lives. 
 Of course men plague women to marry them after 
 they have been refused. The world is full of 
 people who want what is not for them, and are 
 not too particular as to the means, if they can 
 secure the end. But I wonder what a man would 
 say if some woman he did not care about worried 
 his life out to marry her. Man is easily flattered, 
 the sensation is with him comparatively rare, and 
 he is very susceptible to the agreeable fumes of 
 that incense ; but only the very weakest would be 
 lured to the altar, and the after-life of the lady 
 who took him there would not be an altogether 
 happy one. Man and his descendants have had 
 a grudge against the first woman for thousands 
 of years, for an alleged proposal of hers that is 
 said to have interfered with his prospects. It is 
 not chivalrous for a man to press a woman to 
 " let him love her, if she can't love him ; " it is 
 not a very nice proposition, if he will take it 
 home and work it out quietly ; it is something 
 very like an insult to her, and it is certainly not 
 likely to be anything but a curse to him. That 
 is when she is endowed with those charming 
 qualities common to most women. When, how- 
 ever, as in the case I have referred to, she has a 
 
 1 66 
 
OF IMPORTUNITY 
 
 special aversion to men generally, and him in 
 particular, and prides herself on the possession of 
 characteristics that he could not admire in his own 
 mother, to still insist upon forcing the lady into 
 a union with him is to be vindictively silly. It 
 is hardly necessary to go as far as this to prove 
 his determination and his title to a sort of spurious 
 constancy. 
 
 167 
 
XXI 
 OF COINCIDENCES 
 
 IN spite of the testimony of many worthy and 
 some unworthy people, I have not yet been 
 able to accept spiritual manifestations and the re- 
 appearance of the dead as even remotely probable. 
 I think most of the current ghost stories are 
 capable of a simple explanation, if one could only 
 get an unvarnished statement of real facts from 
 the witnesses. Usually, however, those on whose 
 authority these stories rest, are constitutionally of 
 such a nervous organisation that they are physi- 
 cally incapable of describing with exact accuracy 
 what they saw or heard. When, as not infre- 
 quently happens, those who have seen visions 
 admit to having felt that extremity of fear which 
 bathes them in a cold perspiration, or makes their 
 hair rise up straight on their heads (this last is 
 not, I think, alleged by women), then there is 
 
 all the more reason to doubt their testimony. 
 1 68 
 
OF COINCIDENCES 
 
 Undoubtedly curious things happen which do not 
 admit of easy explanation, but they are not neces- 
 sarily supernatural, or connected in any way with 
 the return of the dead to the sight of the living. 
 Dreams, again, are sometimes very curious, and it 
 might be difficult to offer a reasonable explanation 
 of some dream-experiences, especially those which 
 lead to the backing of winning horses or the pur- 
 chase of prize-tickets in a lottery. A really re- 
 liable dreamer of this kind would be a valuable 
 investment ; but, unfortunately, there is a want of 
 certainty about even those who have, once in a 
 lifetime, brought off a successful coup. Still, it 
 has happened. I myself have heard a dreamer 
 who was also a dream -talker place accurately 
 the three first horses in a coming race ; but I 
 had not sufficient confidence in the " tip " to take 
 advantage of it. In that case, too, the winner 
 was a very pronounced favourite. Many people 
 say they have dreamt of strange places, and after- 
 wards seen those places in reality, and even been 
 able to find their way about in them. It may be 
 so. For myself, I cannot say I have ever had 
 such an experience, but I believe (I say it doubt- 
 fully, because one may be deceived about journeys 
 in dreamland) that I have often seen the same 
 169 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 places in different dreams, dreamed after intervals 
 of years, so that, while dreaming, I have at once 
 recognised the place as a familiar scene in my 
 dreamland. But those places I have never beheld 
 on earth. In my early youth, scared by tales of 
 the bottomless pit and the lake of brimstone, I 
 used to dream, almost nightly, of those places of 
 torment; but it is a long time ago, and I have 
 quite forgotten what they were like. I have no 
 ambition to renew my acquaintance, or to be 
 given the opportunity of comparing the reality 
 with the nightmare of my childish imagination 
 and a cramped position. Apart from these more 
 or less vain considerations, I have known some 
 very curious coincidences, and I will tell you the 
 story of one of them. 
 
 I was journeying in a strange, a distant, and 
 an almost unknown land. More than this, I was 
 the guest of the only white man in a remote 
 district of that country. It was a particularly 
 lovely spot, and, being an idler for the moment, 
 I asked my host, after a few days, what there 
 was of interest that I could go and see. He 
 said he would send a servant with me to show 
 me a cemetery, where were buried a number of 
 
 Englishmen who, some few years before, had been 
 170 
 
OF COINCIDENCES 
 
 killed or died in the neighbourhood, during the 
 progress of one of England's successful little mili- 
 tary expeditions. That afternoon I was led to the 
 cemetery in question. I have seldom seen a more 
 glorious succession of pictures than were presented 
 by the view from that lovely spot ; and never in 
 any country have I beheld a more ideal resting- 
 place for the honoured dead. It did not surprise 
 me that my host told me he had already selected 
 his own corner, and repeatedly made it the objec- 
 tive of his afternoon walks. Within a fenced 
 enclosure, partly surrounded by graceful, ever-green 
 trees, lay the small plot of carefully kept grass 
 which formed the burial-ground. It occupied the 
 summit of a rising ground commanding a magni- 
 ficent view of the surrounding country. From the 
 gate the ground sloped steeply down to a road, 
 and then dropped sheer forty or fifty feet to the 
 waters of a great, wide, crystal-clear river, flowing 
 over a bed of golden sand. Under this steep and 
 lofty bank, the base all rock, the river swirled 
 deep and green ; but it rapidly shallowed towards 
 the centre, and the opposite shore, seven hundred 
 feet distant, was a wide expanse of sand, half- 
 circled by great groves of palms, and backed by 
 
 steep, forest-clad hills. The river made a wide 
 171 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 sweep here, so that, looking down on it from 
 such a height gave it rather the appearance of 
 a huge lake narrowing into the distant hills. 
 Picturesque villages lined both banks of the river, 
 the houses showing splashes of colour between 
 the trees. Boats of quaint build sailing, poling, 
 paddling, rowing passed up and down the broad 
 stream, giving life to the scene ; while at distances 
 varying from three miles to thirty or more, the 
 valley was shut in by lofty mountains, green 
 near by, with their garment of unbroken forest, 
 but, in the distance, blue as an Italian sky. I 
 drank this in, felt it all as a feeling, this and 
 much more with which I will not weary you, and 
 then I turned to look at the grass-covered mounds 
 and wooden crosses that marked the graves of the 
 exiled dead. I was standing in front of a some- 
 what more pretentious headstone, which marked 
 the resting-place of an officer killed a few miles 
 from this spot, when, through the wicket, came a 
 messenger bearing a letter for me. The cover 
 bore many post-marks, signs of a long chase, and 
 here at last it had caught me in my wanderings. 
 I did not recognise the handwriting, but when I 
 had opened the letter and looked at the signature, 
 I realised that it was that of an old lady who was 
 > 172 
 
OF COINCIDENCES 
 
 but an acquaintance, and one of whom I had not 
 heard for years. I read the letter, and I may 
 confess to some little astonishment. It told me 
 that, hearing that I was leaving England for a 
 long journey, and that I should eventually arrive 
 at somewhere in the East, the writer wished to 
 tell me that her daughter (whom I hardly remem- 
 bered) had married a certain soldier, that he had 
 been killed some time before, and was buried in 
 some place (which she tried indifferently to name) 
 where there were no Europeans. If I should ever 
 be in the neighbourhood, would I try to find his 
 grave, and tell them something about it ; for they 
 were in great grief, and no one could relieve their 
 anxiety on the subject of their loved one's last home. 
 It seemed to me a somewhat remarkable coinci- 
 dence that I should, at that moment, be standing 
 in front of the stone which told me that, under- 
 neath that emerald turf, lay all that was left 
 of the poor lady's son-in-law, the grief-stricken 
 daughter's husband. The situation appealed to 
 my artistic instincts. I sat down, there and 
 then, and, with a pencil and a bit of paper, I 
 made a rough sketch of the soldier's grave ; care- 
 fully drawing the headstone, and inscribing on it, 
 in very plain and very black print, the legend 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 that I saw in front of me. Then I went home, 
 and, while the situation was hot upon me, I 
 wrote, not to the mother, but to the widow, a 
 little account of what had occurred, using the 
 most appropriate and touching language I could 
 think of, to describe the scene and my deep 
 sympathy. Finally I enclosed the little picture, 
 which I had drawn with such a compelling sense 
 of my responsibilities, and the unique character 
 of the opportunity, to show that I was a man 
 of rather uncommon feeling. Much pleased with 
 the result of my efforts, I entrusted the letter to 
 my friend (there was no such thing as a post- 
 office), and we became almost sentimental over 
 the chastened tears with which my letter would 
 be read by the two poor ladies. 
 
 The mother's letter to me had wandered about for 
 two or three months before it came to my hands ; 
 but I learned, ages afterwards, that my letter 
 to the daughter was a far longer time in transit ; 
 not the fault of my friend, but simply of the general 
 unhingedness of things in those wild places. 
 
 The letter did at last arrive, and was handed to 
 the widow on the day she was married to a new 
 husband. That is why I believe in the quaint- 
 ness of coincidences. 
 
XXII 
 OF A COUNTRY-HOUSE CUSTOM 
 
 1WENT one morning to a hotel in London 
 to call upon a celebrated writer of fiction, a 
 lady, and she told me that, as a protest against 
 ideas which she despised, she always locked her 
 door when she was talking to a man. I stayed 
 there about two hours, but I don't remember 
 whether the door was locked or not, probably 
 not ; no one, however, tried it, and my reputation 
 survived the ordeal. The practice is unconven- 
 tional, though innocent enough. It is much more 
 common to find yourself in a lady's room, at 
 night, in a country-house in England, and there 
 you may talk to a friend, perhaps to two, and 
 even, on occasions, smoke a cigarette, while the 
 door is seldom locked. Do you see any harm 
 in it ? The thing itself is so pleasant that I do 
 not mean to discuss with you the fors and 
 againsts ; I am satisfied that it is often done, and 
 "75 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 that I sometimes profit by the arrangement. A 
 century ago, or rather more, it was common 
 enough, if not in England, certainly on the 
 Continent, and the guest was sometimes present 
 while the lady lay in bed, or made her toilette. 
 It is conceivable that this custom deserved to 
 be discouraged, and it seems to have gone out of 
 fashion, no doubt for sufficiently good reasons. 
 
 I was once a guest in a delightful country-house 
 in the heart of England, a house where nothing 
 was lacking that could contribute to comfort, and 
 where the hostess was attraction sufficient to draw 
 visitors from the uttermost parts of the earth, and 
 keep them with her as long as she desired their 
 presence. She was wayward (an added charm), 
 and the company came and went, and some came 
 again, but none remained long enough to become 
 overpoweringly tedious or compromisingly epris. It 
 was winter, the hard earth was full of "bone," the 
 waters icebound, and the face of the country white 
 with a thick covering of frozen snow. There were 
 but few of us in the house, and we had been skat- 
 ing on the ornamental water in a neighbour's park, 
 miles away. That was the only form of exercise 
 open to us, and we had enjoyed it. The long walk 
 
 over the crisp snow and the uneven cart tracks of 
 
 176 
 
OF A COUNTRY-HOUSE CUSTOM 
 
 a country road, the intoxicating ease and rapidity 
 of motion over the glassy ice, the ring of steel on 
 that hard, smooth surface, how distinctly they all 
 come back ! And then the trudge home in the 
 gathering dusk, between the woods whose snow- 
 laden trees looked the very picture of winter, 
 it was all delightful and exhilarating, and, if our 
 dinner-party was small, it was certainly a merry 
 one. When we parted on the stairs it was close 
 on midnight, and I was standing enjoying the blaze 
 of my fire and the intense cosiness of my room, 
 when there came a knock, and what I had thought 
 was a cupboard-door opened to admit the head of 
 our charming chatelaine, with an inquiry as to my 
 comfort and contentment, and an invitation to put 
 on a smoking-jacket and have a cigarette in her 
 snuggery. I very eagerly and gratefully accepted 
 that offer, and a few minutes later found myself in 
 the most delightfully warm, cosy, and withal artisti- 
 cally beautiful room the heart and mind of woman 
 could desire or design. This boudoir faced the front 
 of the house, and looking over the lawn and terraces 
 were three French windows, through which streamed 
 bright rays of moonlight, for the shutters were not 
 closed. Within, a great wood fire blazed on a wide 
 hearth of olive-green tiles. Two lamps, with shades 
 
 '77 M 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 of vieille rose, shed a soft glow over inviting-looking 
 chairs, thick carpet, tables littered with books and 
 papers, lovely bits of porcelain and bronze, treasures 
 in burnished silver and dull red gold. Every chair 
 looked as if it were made for comfort, and the whole 
 room said unmistakably, "This is where I live." 
 I should have noted the general effect at a glance, 
 but I had time to appreciate the details, for, when 
 I entered, I found the room unoccupied. In a few 
 minutes my hostess appeared from her room, which 
 opened out of this fascinating retreat, and said 
 
 " Well, how do you like my snuggery ; is it not 
 cosy?" 
 
 I said it was charming and delightful, and every- 
 thing that good taste and an appreciation of real 
 comfort could make it. 
 
 " I am so glad," she said ; " will you smoke one 
 of my cigarettes ? " 
 
 " Thank you, yes." 
 
 " Shall I light it for you ? " 
 
 " That would be most kind." 
 
 " There ; now we can make ourselves quite 
 comfortable and have a real good chat, and no 
 one will come to disturb us. What have you 
 been doing with yourself all this time ? What 
 
 new friends have you made ? What books have 
 
 178 
 
OF A COUNTRY-HOUSE CUSTOM 
 
 you been reading ? Tell me all about everything. 
 I think you would be more comfortable over there ; 
 don't worry about me, this is my favourite seat, 
 but I change about and never sit very long in 
 one place. You can imagine I am your Father 
 Confessor, so don't keep me waiting; tell it all, and 
 keep back nothing ; you know I shall be sure to 
 find you out if you try to deceive me." 
 
 I found a seat not exactly where I had first 
 wished to place myself, but where I was put 
 and our chat was so mutually interesting that I 
 was surprised to find it was 2 A.M. when my 
 hostess told me I must go to bed. I must have 
 smoked a good many cigarettes, and I have a 
 vague recollection that there were glasses with 
 spiritual comfort as well ; it is probable, for 
 nothing that any reasonable human being could 
 want was ever lacking there. I know that I 
 lingered, and the white light through the curtains 
 drew us both to the window. Never shall I 
 forget the incomparable picture of that snow- 
 covered landscape ; glittering, scintillating under 
 the silver radiance of a full winter moon, riding 
 high in a clear, grey, frosty sky. The absolute 
 stillness of it ; not a sign of life ; the bare trees 
 
 throwing sharp shadows on the dazzling whiteness 
 179 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 of a prospect broken only by the evergreens of 
 the garden, the cleared stone steps of the terraces, 
 and beyond, a small stream winding through the 
 narrow valley, and forming a little lake of as yet 
 unfrozen water, its ever rippling surface showing 
 black and sombre under the shadow of a high 
 bank which shut out the moonlight. The contrast 
 between that outside, the coldness, the white- 
 ness, the sense of far-into-the-nightness, which 
 somehow struck one instantly ; and the inside, 
 the warmth, the comfort, the subtle sympathy 
 of companionship with a most fascinating, most 
 beautiful, perfectly-garmented woman : it was too 
 striking to be ever forgotten. The picture has 
 risen unbidden before my eyes on many a night 
 since then, under other skies and widely different 
 circumstances. 
 
 Turning away from the window, I could see 
 through an open door into my companion's room, 
 and I said, " How did you get into my room ? " 
 " Very easily," she answered ; " there is a cup- 
 board in the thickness of the wall between your 
 room and mine ; it opens into both rooms, but is 
 at present full of my gowns, as you would have 
 seen had you had the curiosity to look in, and 
 
 the door happened to be unlocked." 
 180 
 
OF A COUNTRY-HOUSE CUSTOM 
 
 I said I had abundant curiosity, and would 
 gratify it when I got back. 
 
 My hostess smiled and said, "There is nothing 
 to find out now ; I have told you all there is to 
 tell. Good night." 
 
 " But/' I said, " why should I go all the way 
 round, through cold passages, when I can walk 
 straight through to my room by this way ? " and 
 I pointed to the open door. 
 
 " That is very ingenious of you," she answered ; 
 "and you are not wanting either in the quick 
 grasp of a situation, or the assurance to make the 
 most of it. You do not deserve that I should 
 pay you such a pretty compliment ! It is too late 
 for banter ; I am getting sleepy. Good night." 
 
 iSi 
 
XXIII 
 A MERE LIE 
 
 A 5 the tale I am going to tell you is only a lie, 
 you will understand that it is not of my 
 making ; I cannot even pretend to have heard it 
 at first hand. The author was a scientist who 
 lied in the intervals between his researches. It 
 was a relief, I suppose, after too close contact 
 with the eternal truths of Nature. His mental 
 fingers seemed to wander over the keys of an 
 instrument of romance, striking strange chords 
 and producing unsuspected effects in an accom- 
 paniment to which he sang a perpetual solo. 
 
 Amongst the most eccentric of his class the 
 Professor would still have been a remarkable char- 
 acter. No one seemed to know to what nationality 
 he belonged, and it was useless to ask him for any 
 information, because of the doubt which clouded any 
 statement that he made. Indeed, to put it shortly, 
 
 he lied like a tombstone. When I met him his 
 182 
 
A MERE LIE 
 
 only companion was a Papuan boy, so black that 
 a bit of coal would have made a white mark on 
 him ; and the Professor would affectionately stroke 
 the child's head, and say that when he had grown 
 bigger, when his skull was fully developed, he 
 meant to take it, and was looking forward to the 
 day when he could examine it carefully, inside 
 and out, and compare it with the skulls of certain 
 wild tribes which, he felt certain, he should thus 
 be able to prove were of true Melanesian origin. 
 He would then sometimes relate how, during a 
 visit to Cadiz, he took a great fancy to the head 
 of a Spaniard whom he met there. He thought 
 the man was in failing health ; but as he could 
 not waste time in the Peninsula, he looked about 
 for some means of hastening the possibly slow pro- 
 gress of disease. The Professor soon found that 
 the owner of the head had a reckless and profligate 
 nephew, with whom he scraped acquaintance. To 
 him the Professor said that he had observed his 
 uncle, and thought him looking far from well, 
 indeed, he did not fancy he could last long, and, 
 explaining that he was himself an anthropologist, 
 concerned in scientific studies for the benefit of 
 humanity, he arranged with the nephew that, when 
 his uncle died, the Professor should pay a sum of 
 183 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 30 and be allowed to take the uncle's head. The 
 uncle died shortly afterwards, and the money was 
 paid, but the nephew, a man without principle, 
 buried his relative in defiance of his bargain with 
 the Professor. 
 
 The means by which the man of science secured 
 full value for his investment made one of his best 
 stories ; and some day I may tell it to you, but, 
 when I began this letter, I had quite a different 
 adventure in my mind, and I will take the liberty of 
 asking you to suppose that the collector of skulls 
 is telling you his own tale in his own way. 
 
 " I was in Australia, where I had already met 
 with some strange experiences, the last of them a 
 disastrous expedition into the desert, where, when 
 I was quite alone and a thousand miles from the 
 nearest habitation, I fell over two precipices, first 
 breaking my right and then immediately afterwards 
 my left leg. I got back to civilisation with some 
 difficulty, as I had to crawl on my hands most of 
 the way, dragging my broken legs behind me ; but 
 what really made the journey seem long was the 
 fact that I had to forage for my own sustenance 
 as well. I was somewhat exhausted by these 
 hardships, and was giving myself a short holiday 
 
 for rest, when Australia was moved to a pitch of 
 
 184 
 
A MERE LIE 
 
 the greatest excitement and indignation by the 
 exploits of a daring bushranger, who set the Police 
 and the Government at defiance, and established 
 such a panic in the land that a party of Volunteers 
 was formed, sworn to track the outlaw down and 
 bring him in alive or dead. I do not say that I 
 had any ultimate designs on the man's head, but 
 still the skull of a person of that type could not 
 fail to be interesting. So, partly as a relaxation, 
 but mainly in the cause of science, I joined the 
 expedition. 
 
 " It would not interest you to describe our 
 failures how the man outwitted us ; how, just 
 when we thought we had him, he would slip 
 through our fingers, partly by his own skill, his 
 knowledge of the bush, and the excellence of his 
 horses, but mainly, I think, by the help of sym- 
 pathisers, who always gave warning of our move- 
 ments and most secret plans. I will pass over all 
 that and take you to the final scene in the drama. 
 
 " When we were not actually in the bush we 
 were following our quarry from one country-place 
 to another, as the information we received gave 
 us a clue to his whereabouts. It seldom happened 
 that we passed a night in a town, and, when not 
 
 camping out, we were billeted on the people of 
 185 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 the district, the wealthiest and most important of 
 them being too glad to place their houses at our 
 disposal. One evening, after a hot pursuit, feeling 
 sure we were close upon the trail of our man, we 
 reached a great house where a number of guests 
 were already being entertained. In spite of our 
 numbers we were welcomed with effusion, and, 
 after dinner, the ladies of the party took advantage 
 of the sudden arrival of a number of young fellows 
 ready for anything to get up an impromptu dance. 
 I am not a dancing man my time has been spent 
 in communion with Nature, in reading in the open 
 book of Truth therefore I left the revellers and 
 went to bed. 
 
 " We had had a long and a hard day in the 
 saddle, and I was weary, and must have fallen 
 asleep almost as soon as I lay down. 
 
 " Now I must tell you what I afterwards heard 
 from others of my party. It was a little after 
 midnight, and the dancing was going on with 
 great spirit, when I this, of course, is what they 
 tell me suddenly appeared at a door of the ball- 
 room in my night-dress, with a rifle in my hand, 
 and, without hesitation, I walked through the 
 room and out into a verandah that led towards 
 
 the back of the house. My head was thrown 
 186 
 
A MERE LIE 
 
 somewhat back, my eyes were wide open and 
 seemed fixed on some distant object, while I 
 was evidently unconscious of my immediate sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 " I fear my sudden entry into the dancing-room 
 in such a very unconventional dress was rather a 
 shock to some of the ladies. I am told that several 
 screamed, and one or more of the older ones 
 fainted ; but for myself I knew none of this till 
 afterwards. It appears that, what with astonish- 
 ment at my appearance, and the necessary atten- 
 tions to the ladies whose nerves were upset, a little 
 time elapsed before any one thought of following 
 me. Then some one fancied he heard the sound 
 of a horse's feet, and the men of my party pulled 
 themselves together and made for the stables, as 
 that was the direction I seemed to have taken. 
 
 " I was nowhere to be seen ; but a stable door 
 was open, and my horse, saddle, and bridle had 
 gone. Then the matter began to look serious, and, 
 as my friends saddled their horses and started to 
 look for me, riding they hardly knew where, there 
 were rather dismal forebodings of the probable fate 
 of even a fully-clad man luckless enough to be lost 
 in the Australian bush. It was a lovely starlight 
 night with a young moon, and, under other circum- 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 stances, the ride might have been pleasant enough ; 
 but the aimlessness of the whole business was be- 
 coming painfully evident to the searchers, when the 
 sound of a rifle-shot was distinctly heard at no 
 great distance. The horses' heads were turned 
 towards the direction from which the sound came, 
 and the troop pushed on at a brisk pace. Almost 
 immediately, a faint column of smoke was per- 
 ceived, and as the horsemen approached the spot, 
 the embers of a dying fire shed a slight ruddy glow 
 in the darkness. The word was passed to proceed 
 with caution, but the party was already so close 
 that they could see my white night-dress, as I 
 stood with naked feet by the side of my horse, 
 regarding, with a half-dazed expression, the smok- 
 ing rifle which I held in my hand. Sixty yards 
 off was the thin column of smoke rising from the 
 dying fire. 
 
 " I was surrounded by my friends, who all 
 spoke at once, and fired a perfect volley of ques- 
 tions at me. I said, ' Softly, gentlemen, softly, 
 and I will tell you all I know about it, for indeed 
 the situation seems strange enough. As you 
 know I went to bed. I slept and I dreamed. 
 I suppose I was over-wrought, and my mind was 
 
 full of the bushranger, for I thought I was again 
 188 
 
A MERE LIE 
 
 on his track, out in the bush, on horseback and 
 alone. It was night, but I seemed to be riding 
 with a purpose, or my horse knew where he was 
 going, for by-and-by I was drawn towards a 
 thin column of white smoke, the smoke of a wood 
 fire, and then, as I got nearer, I caught the flicker- 
 ing glow of dying embers. I felt the object of 
 our search was there, and I moved forward with 
 extreme caution, till I had got within a hundred 
 yards, and then I distinctly saw the outlaw lying 
 perfectly straight on the ground, his feet towards 
 the fire, and his horse hobbled hard by. I say 
 I saw the outlaw, but I was dreaming, and in 
 my dream I knew it was the man, though I could 
 not see his face. I dismounted, and, leading my 
 horse, I got to within sixty yards of the sleeper. 
 Then, fearing that if I went nearer he might wake 
 and escape me, I took a steady aim, pulled the 
 trigger, and the next instant I was wide awake 
 standing here in my night-dress.' 
 
 " Almost before I had finished I saw men look- 
 ing towards the fire, which was no dream, and we 
 all of us now distinctly made out the form of a 
 man, lying on his side, almost on his face, with 
 his feet towards the embers and his head by the 
 bush. Moreover, we could both see and hear a 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 horse, that was evidently hobbled not very far 
 from the sleeper. It did not take long to sur- 
 round the spot where the man lay ; but, as we 
 rapidly closed in on the sleeper, he never stirred. 
 A moment more and we were beside him. A 
 dark stream, on which the glow from the fire 
 seemed to shed some of its own red light, was 
 oozing slowly from beneath the man's chest ; and, 
 as several hands turned his face up to the stars 
 and the pale moonlight, it was too evident that 
 he was dead, and that his life had gone out with 
 that crimson stream which flowed from a bullet 
 wound in his heart. 
 
 " I did not know the man myself, but several 
 of our party recognised him. It was the bush- 
 ranger, and, as I expected, his skull was not with- 
 out features of special interest to science." 
 
 190 
 
XXIV 
 TIGERS AND CROCODILES 
 
 WHEN I first came, a visitor, to the Malay 
 Peninsula, I was struck by the fact that 
 wherever I went I heard stories of tigers. If, in 
 the course of a day's ride, I stopped at a village 
 to eat my luncheon, the people who pressed round 
 to watch me and have a chat would always tell 
 me a tiger story of local and comparatively recent 
 occurrence. Wherever I encamped for the night, 
 I should be sure of at least one tale of successful 
 attack or successful resistance, where a tiger had 
 filled the principal role. When once I understood 
 the little peculiarity, I took it as a matter of course, 
 and at talking time I used to say, " Now tell me 
 about the tiger : what was it he did ? " It may 
 have been accident, but it is no exaggeration to 
 say that my question nearly always drew forth a 
 more or less ghastly story. 
 
 Now that my visit is nearly over, it occurs to 
 191 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 me that, though I have accumulated an almost 
 endless series of more or less interesting tales of 
 the " low, crouching horror with the cruel fangs," 
 I have not retailed any of them to you. In a 
 certain number of cases I was myself near enough 
 to be able to verify details, and in others I had 
 means of proving main facts. One is almost 
 bound to say that, because tiger-stories, which 
 are worth repeating, are almost always listened 
 to with incredulity, or, what is worse, with that 
 banter which often means, in plain words, " What 
 I have not seen myself I decline to believe." That 
 is the attitude of England to the Orient in the 
 presence of a tiger-story with which the auditors 
 can claim no connection. I said that the pre- 
 valence of these tales struck me on my first 
 arrival. I soon became blase, and for a long time 
 I have had no curiosity on the subject ; but I will 
 tell you of two tiger incidents that I personally 
 verified, as far as I was able, and I will make no 
 attempt to paint in the background with local 
 colour, in order to supply you with finished 
 pictures. 
 
 There is an island by the western shore of the 
 Straits of Malacca. You would never guess it to 
 
 be an island, for it is simply a block of mangrove- 
 
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TIGERS AND CROCODILES 
 
 covered mud, with one side towards the sea, and 
 the other three sides separated from the mainland 
 by deep but narrow lagoons of tidal water. The 
 only inhabitants are a few wood-cutters, Malays 
 and Chinese, who live in huts of mat or bark with 
 palm-leaf roofs, while they are employed cutting 
 mangroves and a hard-wood palm called Ntbong. 
 The huts of the Chinese are on the ground, but the 
 Malay dwellings are invariably raised a few feet 
 above the damp soil, and to them entry is obtained 
 by means of a ladder. These hovels are very 
 carelessly built ; they are of flimsy materials, only 
 intended to last for a few months, when they are 
 abandoned and rapidly fall to pieces. They serve 
 their purpose. The occupants are out from dawn 
 till afternoon, when they return to cook, eat, and 
 sleep ; and so, from day to day, till the job on 
 which they are engaged is completed, and they can 
 return, in the case of the Malays, to their families, 
 while the Chinese are probably moved to another 
 scene of similar labour. 
 
 I was obliged to tell you this ; you would not 
 understand the story otherwise. 
 
 The island covers an area of several thousand 
 acres, but except for the few wood-cutters it 
 was, at the time I write of, uninhabited. At 
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UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 one spot there was a hut containing two Chinese, 
 near it a Malay house with eight or ten men 
 in it, and at no great distance a large shed 
 with nearly a score of Chinese. One dark night, 
 about II P.M., the two Chinese who lived together 
 were awakened by a noise in that part of the 
 hut where they kept their food. One of the two 
 got up, struck a light, and went into the back 
 room. Immediately there was a dull thud, as of 
 a man knocked heavily down, and the poor wretch 
 screamed, " Help me, it is a tiger ! " His comrade 
 at once got out of his mosquito-curtain, and sprang 
 to his friend's assistance. Seizing him by the 
 arm, he tried to free him from the clutches of the 
 tiger, who already had a firm hold of the doomed 
 man's leg. The tug of life and death did not last 
 long, for the tiger pulled the would-be rescuer 
 down on his face, and, the light having been extin- 
 guished in the struggle, the man's courage went out 
 with it, and, in a paroxysm of fear, he climbed on 
 to the roof. There he remained till daylight, while, 
 close beneath him, within the narrow limits of the 
 hut, the tiger dragged his victim hither and thither, 
 snarling and growling, tearing the flesh and crunch- 
 ing the bones of the man, whose agonies were 
 mercifully hidden. In the grey light which heralds 
 
 194 
 
TIGERS AND CROCODILES 
 
 dawn, the watcher, clinging to the roof-ridge, saw 
 the tiger drag out of the house and into the forest 
 the shapeless remains of his late companion. When 
 once the sun was fairly up, the survivor slid down, 
 and without daring to look inside the hut, made 
 his way to the nearest Police Station, and reported 
 what had occurred. An examination of the pre- 
 mises fully bore out his statement. 
 
 A week passed. The Malays, whose hut was 
 nearest to that visited by the tiger, were careful to 
 bar their door after hearing what had happened ; 
 but in this case the precaution proved useless. 
 Easterns, especially those engaged in severe manual 
 labour, sleep exceedingly heavily, and the men of 
 this household were aroused by a smothered cry 
 from one of their number; the noise of a heavy 
 body falling through the thatch having passed 
 practically unnoticed. One of the party got up, 
 lighted a torch, and was at once knocked down 
 by a tiger springing upon him. In a moment 
 every man had seized his heavy chopping-knife, 
 and the whole party fell upon the man-eater, 
 and, by the light of the fallen torch, hit so hard 
 and straight that the beast suddenly sprang 
 through the roof and disappeared. It was then, 
 for the first time, discovered that this was the 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 means by which the tiger had effected its en- 
 trance, and it left by the hole which it had made 
 on entering the hut. The first man attacked was 
 dead ; the second was taken to hospital, and there 
 died of his wounds. 
 
 There was a fourth victim. I am not certain of 
 the facts in that case, but he was severely injured 
 and was sent to hospital, where, I believe, he re- 
 covered with the entire loss of his scalp. That 
 filled up the cup of crime. Almost directly after- 
 wards the murderer killed a bullock ; the carcass 
 was poisoned, and the next day the body of a 
 tigress was found close by that of her victim. She 
 was not very large, eight feet from nose to the tip 
 of the tail ; she was in splendid condition teeth 
 perfect and coat glossy but her legs and feet 
 were disproportionately large to the size of her 
 body. On her head there was a deep clean cut, 
 and one of her fore-legs was gashed, evidently by 
 a Malay chopper. The most curious feature was 
 that in certainly two out of the three cases the 
 tigress, who always attacked by night, the only 
 time when the huts were occupied, effected her 
 entrance by springing on the roof and forcing her 
 way through the thin palm thatching. 
 
 There is another tiger story that I can tell you 
 196 
 
TIGERS AND CROCODILES 
 
 in two words. It is curious, it sounds highly 
 improbable ; but, after hearing it on the spot from 
 the two men concerned, I believe it. 
 
 Quite recently it was the fruit season here, and, 
 as is customar}', two men were watching an 
 orchard situated on the side of a main cart-road. 
 The orchard was not enclosed in any way, and 
 the fruit trees on one side actually overhung the 
 road. The road was divided from the orchard 
 by a rather wide but quite shallow ditch, that 
 was always dry except during rain. Fifteen or 
 twenty feet on the inside of this ditch was a tiny 
 lean-to under the trees. The shelter consisted of 
 a raised floor of split bamboos, covered by a palm- 
 thatch roof, and a narrow sort of bench, also under 
 the roof, but level with the floor. The bench was 
 next to the high road. 
 
 On the night of which I write, one man was 
 sleeping on the bench, the other on the floor of the 
 shelter. It was fine, with a young, early-setting 
 moon ; the scattered houses of a considerable village 
 were all round, and there was nothing to fear. 
 
 I said before that natives sleep soundly, and 
 
 you must believe it, or you will never credit my 
 
 story. About I A.M. the man sleeping on the 
 
 floor of the shelter heard his friend shouting for 
 
 197 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 help. The voice came from the ditch by the road, 
 and thither the man ran, shouting "What is the 
 matter ? " " Thieves ! " promptly replied the other, 
 but a moment's conversation dispelled the idea born 
 of his partially-awakened intelligence, and led them 
 to the true interpretation of the riddle. The man 
 in the ditch said then, and says now, that he was 
 asleep, and knew nothing till he suddenly found 
 himself thrown in the ditch, when he awoke and 
 shouted, "Help, thieves!" But, all the same, 
 when he tried to get up, and his friend helped 
 him to the shelter and got a light, it was seen 
 that he had a deep gash in the shoulder, which 
 kept him in hospital for nearly three weeks. The 
 light also showed the track of a tiger up to the 
 bench, thence to the spot in the ditch where the 
 man was lying, and straight across the high road 
 into another orchard. One other thing it showed, 
 and that was a patch of earth on the top of the 
 wounded man's head. 
 
 The friend's theory, shared by all the neigh- 
 bours, is this. He points to the exact position 
 in which the sleeper was lying, and how a post, 
 from ground to roof, completely protected the back 
 of his neck, so that the tiger could not seize him 
 
 as he must have wished to do. Owing to the 
 198 
 
TIGERS AND CROCODILES 
 
 man's position, and the way the post of the house 
 and the rails of the bench (for it had a sort of 
 back) ran, the tiger had to take a very awkward 
 grip of his prey, catching him by the shoulder, 
 and therefore carrying him with his head almost 
 on the ground. Three or four steps, a second or 
 two in time, would bring him to the shallow, dry 
 ditch. It was so shallow that he would not jump 
 it, but the in-and-out of a tiger with a kill would 
 be the equivalent of a jump. In he would go easily 
 enough, but the cut slope of the ditch and the 
 slight rise into the road on the other side just 
 saved the man's life, for the top of his head hit 
 against the edge of the ditch, and, awkwardly held 
 as he was, knocked him out of the tiger's mouth. 
 
 Once dropped, the beast would not return to 
 pick his prey up again, especially with one man 
 shouting and the noise of the other coming to his 
 assistance. 
 
 The tiger is the scourge of the land, the croco- 
 dile of the water. They seem to be complement 
 and supplement each of the other : the " golden 
 terror with the . ebon bars," the very embodiment 
 of vitality, sinew, and muscle of life that is savage 
 and instant to strike and the stony-eyed, spiky- 
 tailed monster, outwardly a lifeless, motionless 
 199 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 log ; but, once those pitiless jaws open, it is only 
 a question of what tooth closes on the victim, 
 whether it be "The last chance," "Tear the 
 shroud," or " God save your soul." 
 
 I was starting for some hot springs in a remote 
 spot, far in the interior, where I was certain of 
 finding both elephant and rhinoceros, and the 
 second night of my journey I spent at the junction 
 of two large streams. Strolling back from a swim 
 in the river, the local chief told me this pathetic 
 story of fruitless heroism. 
 
 The country hereabout is very sparsely peopled, 
 only a few scattered huts breaking the monotony 
 of the virgin forest, Malays and wild tribes the 
 sole inhabitants. Every house is on the bank of 
 a river, and beyond the produce of their rice-fields 
 and orchards the people rely mainly on the water 
 to supply them with food. The Malay is exceed- 
 ingly cunning in devising various means for catch- 
 ing fish, but what he likes best is to go out in 
 the evening, just at sundown, with a casting-net. 
 Either he wades about by himself, or, with a boy 
 to steer for him, he creeps along in a tiny dug-out, 
 throws his net in the deep pools, and usually dives 
 in after it, to free the meshes from the numerous 
 snags on which they are sure to become entangled. 
 
 200 
 
TIGERS AND CROCODILES 
 
 One evening, a few days before my arrival, a 
 Malay peasant was netting in the river accom- 
 panied by his son, a boy of twelve years old. 
 They were wading, and, while the father moved 
 along the edge of the deeper water under the 
 bank, the boy walked in the shallows out in the 
 stream. The short twilight passed, and the dark- 
 ness of night was gathering over the waters of the 
 wide river, when suddenly the father was startled 
 by a cry from the boy, and, as he turned, he 
 shuddered to hear the one word, " crocodile," 
 come in an agonised scream from the poor child. 
 Dropping his net, the man swam and stumbled 
 through the shallowing stream to the boy's rescue. 
 The child was down, but making frantic, though 
 hopelessly ineffectual struggles to free himself 
 from the grip of a crocodile which had him by 
 the knee and thigh. The man was naked, except 
 for a pair of short trousers ; he had no weapon 
 whatever, yet he threw himself, without hesitation, 
 on the saurian, and with his hands alone began 
 a struggle with the hideous reptile for the posses- 
 sion of the boy. The man was on the deep-water 
 side of his foe, determined at all costs to prevent 
 him from drowning the child ; he had seized the 
 creature from behind, so as to save himself from 
 
 201 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 its claws, and he tried to find, through dark- 
 ness and water, the eye-sockets, by which alone 
 he , could hope to reach a vulnerable joint in 
 its impenetrable harness. The father's fury and 
 despair guided his hands to the reptile's eyes, and 
 pressing his thumbs with all his might on these 
 points of less resistance, he inflicted such pain 
 that the creature gave a convulsive spring which 
 threw the man backwards into the water. But 
 the boy was released, and the saurian retired 
 from the fight to sulk and blink over his defeat 
 in some dark pool beneath the overhanging grasses 
 of the river bank. 
 
 The man carried the boy on shore, and thence 
 to his home ; but the poor child was so severely 
 injured that, with no skilled surgeon to attend him, 
 he died after three days of suffering. 
 
 202 
 
XXV 
 A ROSE AND A MOTH 
 
 WHEN I came again to this enchanted moun- 
 tain, above the steaming plains, the first 
 thing I did was to wander in the garden, amid the 
 sweet-smelling blossoms and the bees and butter- 
 flies, and feast my eyes upon the ever-new loveli- 
 ness of the changeless hills, the changeful sky 
 and sea, that crowd the prospect with a thousand 
 pictures of infinite beauty and inspiring grandeur. 
 Then I saw a perfect rose, a rose of divine, 
 deep colour betwixt rubies and red wine of the 
 texture of finest velvet, and I gathered it. Once, 
 long ago, at least so it seems, you gave me the 
 fellow of this rose, plucked from the same tree. 
 To me this flower will always suggest you, for, 
 beyond the association, there are certain charac- 
 teristics which you share with it, " dark and true 
 and tender," a rare sweetness of perfume and, in 
 
 the heart of the rose, a slumbering passion, the 
 203 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 like of which will some day wake you to the joy 
 or the sorrow of life. I have treasured that 
 sweet-scented blossom as long as it would stay 
 with me ; and now, when the petals are falling, I 
 see that they are the counterpart of three rose- 
 petals that had travelled from far over sea in a 
 letter from you. They came the bearers of their 
 own message, and now I seem to read it. Have 
 I been very dense, or am I only fatuous now ? 
 Why can't they speak, these things you have 
 touched, or do they speak and I lack under- 
 standing ? At least you sent them, and that is 
 much from you. I am grateful, and if I am a 
 prey to vain imaginings, you will forgive me, and 
 understand that I did not, presumptuously and 
 with indecent haste, set about the construction of 
 a castle that, even now, has but my wish for its 
 unsubstantial foundation. 
 
 Last night, this morning rather, for it was be- 
 tween midnight and I A.M., I was reading that 
 very weird story about a phantom dog. I was 
 deeply engrossed in the weirdest part of it, when 
 I heard a buzzing noise, and in a dark corner 
 behind the piano I saw a pair of very strange 
 eyes approaching and receding. They were like 
 
 small coals of fire, extraordinarily brilliant, with 
 204 
 
A ROSE AND A MOTH 
 
 a pinkish flame, shedding light as well as con- 
 taining it. I realised that they were the eyes of 
 what looked like a very large moth, whose wings 
 never ceased to move with marvellous rapidity. 
 
 My chair was touching a table on which was a 
 long vase of perfume-laden lilies, white lilies with 
 yellow hearts, and by-and-by the moth flew to 
 the flowers and stood, poised in air, before a lily- 
 blossom. There were two very bright lights on 
 the table, and the creature was within two feet 
 of me, so I saw it plainly enough. The wings 
 never for an instant stopped their vibration, and 
 it was so rapid that I could not tell their form 
 or colour. Once directly opposite the flower, the 
 moth produced a delicate proboscis, which it in- 
 serted into the blossom, and then slowly pushed 
 it right up the stamen, apparently in search of 
 honey. When extended, this feeler was of quite 
 abnormal length, at least two or three inches. 
 What, however, surprised me was that, having 
 withdrawn the probe (for that was what it looked 
 like, a very fine steel or wire probe, such as 
 dentists use), the instrument seemed to go back 
 into the moth's head, or wherever it came from, 
 to be again extended to sound the depths of 
 
 another blossom. There ! it is past midnight, 
 205 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 and I hear the buzzing in the next room; here 
 it comes ; and I can examine the creature again. 
 Alas ! what a disappointment : this is a horned 
 beetle. I thought it made over-much noise for my 
 interesting friend. Now to continue my tale. 
 
 I observed the moth had a large, dark, cigar- 
 shaped body, with two longish antenna, much 
 stouter than the proboscis, and infinitely shorter. 
 After pursuing its researches into the internal 
 economy of several lilies, the thing flew into my 
 face, and I ought to have caught and examined 
 it, for then the feeler had disappeared ; but I was 
 surprised and rather alarmed, and I thought it 
 would return to the flowers, and I could again 
 watch, and, if necessary, catch it. It made, how- 
 ever, for a dark corner, and then buzzed about 
 the wooden ceiling till it came to an iron hook 
 from which hung a basket of ferns. I was care- 
 fully watching it all the time, and at the hook it 
 disappeared, the buzzing ceased, and I concluded 
 the creature had gone into a hole where it pro- 
 bably lived. To-day, in daylight, I examined the 
 ceiling all round the hook, but there was no hole 
 anywhere. 
 
 Now is this the beginning of the dog business, 
 
 and am I to be haunted by those fiery eyes, by 
 206 
 
A ROSE AND A MOTH 
 
 the ceaseless clatter of those buzzing wings, and 
 the long supple feeler that suggests the tortures 
 of dentistry, and may probe deep into the recesses 
 of my brain ? It can't, I think, be liver, for I 
 have not yet learnt on which side of me that 
 useful organ lies, and it is not drink. If it is 
 only a moth of a rather uncommon kind, I sup- 
 pose the fire in its eyes is to light it through the 
 darkness ; but I never before saw a moth going into 
 raptures over flowers, and I can't yet understand 
 where it puts away that instrument of torture, 
 unless it winds it round a bobbin, inside its head 
 or its body, when not using it. It reminds me of 
 a man I saw swallowing swords at the Aquarium. 
 I was quite willing to admire and believe, until he 
 took up a sword, the blade of which, by outside 
 measurement, stretched from his mouth nearly to 
 his knee, and swallowed it to the hilt at one gulp. 
 Then I doubted ; and the knotty sticks, umbrellas, 
 and bayonets, which he afterwards disposed of 
 with consummate ease, only increased my dislike 
 for him. Still this proboscis is not an umbrella, 
 and though it is about twice as long as the moth 
 itself, and seems to come out of the end of its 
 nose, I know so little of the internal arrangements 
 
 of these creatures that I dare say this one can, by 
 207 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 winding the instrument up like the spring of a 
 watch, find room for it in its head. Why the 
 thing won't keep its wings still, and sit quietly 
 on the petals of the flower while it thrusts that 
 probe into the lily's nerve-centres, I can't imagine. 
 Then one could examine it quietly, and not go to 
 bed in fear of a deadly nightmare. 
 
 Perhaps, after all, it is the result of reading 
 about that "Thing too much," that starving, mur- 
 derous cur, at I A.M. ; if it is, I had better go to 
 bed now, for it has just struck the hour. Am I 
 wrong about the message of the rose ? You see 
 how hard I try to do your bidding. 
 
 208 
 
XXVI 
 A LOVE-PHILTRE 
 
 THERE is, to me, something strangely attrac- 
 tive about Muhammadan prayers, especially 
 those fixed for the hour of sunset. Time and 
 again I have gone in with the Faithful, when the 
 priest chants the mu'azzin, and I have sat by 
 and been deeply impressed by the extraordinary 
 reverence of the worshippers, while eye and ear 
 have been captivated by the picturesque figures 
 against their colourful background, the wonder- 
 fully musical intoning of the priest, and the not 
 less harmonious responses. I do not pretend that 
 this oft-repeated laudation of God's name, this 
 adoration by deep sonorous words and by every 
 bodily attitude that can convey profound worship, 
 would appeal to others as it does to me, even 
 when I have to guess at the exact meaning of 
 prayers whose general import needs no interpre- 
 tation. 
 
 209 Q 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 The fifth hour of prayer follows closely on that 
 fixed for sundown, and the interval is filled up 
 by singing hymns of praise led by the priest, or 
 by telling, and listening to, stories of olden times. 
 Of Eastern places the Malay Peninsula had special 
 attractions for me, and the few European travellers 
 I met there, and who, like myself, were not bound 
 to a programme, seemed equally fascinated. Most 
 of them either prolonged their stay, or determined 
 to return for a longer visit. 
 
 It is difficult to say exactly wherein lies the 
 spell, but there are beauties of scenery, the un- 
 doubted charm of the people (as distinguished 
 from other Easterns), and the sense of mystery, 
 of exclusiveness, of unspoilt nature and undescribed 
 life, that arouse a new interest in the wearied 
 children of the West. It is pleasant to get at 
 something which is not to be found in any ency- 
 clopaedia, and it is, above all, gratifying to obtain 
 knowledge direct and at the fountain-head. This 
 is why I often return, in thought, to the narrow 
 land that lies between two storm-swept seas, itself 
 more free from violent convulsions than almost any 
 other. There, is perpetual summer ; no volcanoes, 
 no earthquakes, no cyclones. Even the violence of 
 the monsoons, that lash the China Sea and the 
 
 210 
 
A LOVE-PHILTRE 
 
 Indian Ocean into periodical fury, is largely spent 
 before it reaches the unprotected seaboards of the 
 richly dowered peninsula. 
 
 Forgive this digression. I was sitting with the 
 Faithful, and the first evening prayer was over. 
 The brief twilight was fast deepening into night. 
 The teacher excused himself, and the disciples 
 pushed themselves across the floor till they could 
 sit with their backs against the wall, leaving two 
 rows of prayer-carpets to occupy the middle of 
 the room. I had asked some question which, in a 
 roundabout way, led to the telling of this tale. 
 
 " I remember all about it," said a man, sitting 
 in the corner ; "he was a stranger, a man of 
 Sumatra, called Nakhodah Ma'win, and he gave 
 the girl a love-potion that drove her mad. He 
 was a trader from B&tu Bara, and he had been 
 selling the famous silks of his country in the 
 villages up our river. Having exhausted his 
 stock and collected his money, he embarked in 
 his boat and made his way to the mouth of the 
 river. Every boat going to sea had to take water 
 on board, and there were two places where you 
 could get it ; one was at Teluk Batu on our coast, 
 and the other was on an island hard by. But, in 
 those days, the strait between the coast and the 
 
 211 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 island was a favourite haunt of pirates, and 
 Nakhodah Ma'win made for Teluk Batu to get his 
 supply of fresh water. He was in no hurry, a 
 week or a month then made no difference ; so he 
 first called on the chief of the place, a man of 
 importance, styled Toh Permatang, and then he 
 began to think about getting the water. Now it 
 happened that Toh Permatang had four daughters, 
 and the youngest but one, a girl called Ra'unah, 
 was very beautiful. When there is a girl of un- 
 common beauty in a place, people talk about it, 
 and no doubt the Nakhodah, idling about, heard the 
 report and managed to get sight of Ra'unah. At 
 once he fell in love with her, and set about think- 
 ing how he could win her, though she was already 
 promised in marriage to another. These Sumatra 
 people know other things besides making silks and 
 daggers, and Nakhodah Ma'win had a love-philtre 
 of the most potent kind. It was made from the 
 tears of the sea-woman whom we call duyong. I 
 know the creature. I have seen it. It is bigger 
 than a man, and something like a porpoise. It 
 comes out of the sea to eat grass, and, if you lie 
 in wait for it, you can catch it and take the tears. 
 Some people eat the flesh, it is red like the flesh 
 of a buffalo ; and the tears are red, and if you mix 
 
 212 
 
A LOVE-PHILTRE 
 
 them with rice they make the rice red ; at least, 
 people say so. Anyhow, Nakhodah Ma'win had the 
 philtre, and he got an old woman to needle the way 
 for him, as one always does, and she managed to 
 mix the duyong's tears with Ra'unah's rice, and, 
 when the girl had eaten it, she was mad with love 
 for the Nakhodah. He stayed at Teluk Batu for a 
 month, making excuses, but all to be with Ra'unah; 
 and he saw her every day with the help of the 
 old woman, of course. You can't go on like that for 
 long without some one suspecting something, and, 
 though I never heard for certain that there was any- 
 thing really wrong, the girl was mad and reckless, 
 and the Nakhodah took fright. She was a chief's 
 daughter, while he was a trader and a stranger, and 
 he knew they would kill him without an instant's 
 hesitation if Toh Permatang so much as suspected 
 what was going on. Therefore, having got the water 
 on board, the Nakhodah put to sea, saying nothing 
 to any one. In a little place people talk of little 
 things, and some one said, in the hearing of Ra'unah, 
 that the Batu Bara trader had sailed away. With 
 a cry of agony the girl dashed from the house, her 
 sisters after her ; and seeing the boat sailing away, 
 but still at no great distance, for there was little 
 breeze, she rushed into the sea and made frantic 
 213 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 efforts to tear herself from the restraining arms 
 of her sisters, who could barely prevent her from 
 drowning herself. At the noise of all this uproar 
 a number of men ran down to the shore, and, 
 when they saw and heard what was the matter, 
 they shouted to the Nakhodah to put back again. 
 He knew better than to thrust his neck into the 
 noose, and, though they pursued his boat, they 
 failed to catch him. 
 
 "When Ra'unah saw that she could not get 
 to her lover, and that each moment was carrying 
 him farther away, she cried to him to return, and 
 bursting into sobs, she bemoaned her abandonment, 
 and told her tale of love in words of endearment 
 and despair that passed into a song, which to this 
 day is known as Ra'unah's Lament. 
 
 "Yes, I can remember the verses, and will 
 repeat them if it does not weary you. The 
 Nakhodah never returned. 
 
 "'Oh, shelter! my dear shelter ! the palm stands in the plain. 
 The fruit of the nutmeg falls to the ground and lies there. 
 Thine is thy sister, small but comely, 
 Thy diamond ! the light of Permatang Guntong. 
 
 Oh, my shelter ! I hear the measured splash of the oars ; 
 I see the drift-weed caught in the rudder. 
 Thou art above, my protecting shelter ; 
 I am beneath, in lowly worship. 
 214 
 
A LOVE-PHILTRE 
 
 Oh, my shelter ! 'twas the hour of evening prayer 
 
 when thou settest sail ; 
 
 The oars are straining and the boat reels along. 
 God's mercy is great, His promise sure ; 
 By His blessing we shall meet in the Garden of 
 
 Paradise. 
 
 Oh, my shelter ! the breeze is blowing in fitful gusts ; 
 Be careful not to pull the sail to the left. 
 In three months and ten days, 
 Thou wilt return, my brother ! 
 
 Oh, my shelter ! make for the island, Sri Rama ; 
 For there are two marabouts and a fish-weir. 
 Though thou leavest me, be not long absent ; 
 In two, at most in three, months, return again. 
 
 Oh, my shelter ! the waters of the sea are calm, 
 
 Yet do not hug the shore. 
 
 Have no fear of my betrothed ; 
 
 Was not thy sword but lately sharpened ? 
 
 Oh, my shelter ! thou earnest to Teluk Batu, 
 And the peace of my heart has gone. 
 Satan delights in my undoing, 
 For my heart cleaves to thine. 
 
 Oh, my shelter ! take good thought, 
 The passions war with the soul. 
 Do not waste the gold in thy hand, 
 Lest scoffers have cause to mock thee. 
 215 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 Oh, my Nakhodah when the mattress is spread, who 
 
 will lie on it ? 
 
 Who shall be covered by the folded coverlet ? 
 Who will sit upon the embroidered mat, 
 Or lean against the great round pillow ? 
 
 Oh, my Nakhodah ! the feast is waiting, but who 
 
 will eat it ? 
 
 The water is cool, but who will drink it ? 
 The napkin is there, whose mouth can it wipe ? 
 The sireh is ready, but who will use it ? 
 Thy Sister is cold, who will fondle her ? 
 Ah-hu ! ah-hu ! come death, deliver me.' 
 
 "And then she fell to weeping and moaning, 
 struggling with her sisters, and trying to cast 
 herself into the sea. 
 
 "That is the tale of Ra'unah and Nakhodah 
 Ma' win, and ever}' one knows it. Some tell it one 
 way and some another, but that is how it came to 
 me. The girl was mad, mad with love and regret 
 for six months ; and then her father married her 
 to another man, and that cured her. I knew the 
 man : he was a foreigner. She and two of her 
 sisters died long ago, but the other is alive still. 
 
 " How to get the duyong's tears ? Oh, that 
 is easy enough. You catch the sea-woman when 
 she comes up the sand to eat the sweet grass on 
 
 shore. I told you how to do it. You have to lie in 
 216 
 
A LOVE-PHILTRE 
 
 wait and she waddles up on two sort of fins that 
 she uses like feet, helping with her tail. If she 
 sees you, she tries to get back into the sea, but 
 you stand between her and the water and so catch 
 her. Then, if you want her tears, you make a 
 palisade of sticks in the deeper water of the bay 
 through which she came, and there you bind her 
 in a sort of cage, at the surface of the water, so 
 that she can't move. It is like the thing they put 
 elephants in when they are half-tamed. When 
 she finds she is held fast there, and cannot get 
 down into the deep water to her young, she weeps, 
 and as the tears stream down her face you catch 
 them, sweep them into a vessel, and you have the 
 philtre." 
 
 There was a pause. Then a man said, " I hear 
 they sell duyong's tears in Penang." 
 
 The teller of the story at once replied, " Very 
 likely, I have heard it too ; but it is probably only 
 some make-believe stuff. You must try it before 
 you buy it." 
 
 " How do you do that ? " 
 
 " Easily. Rub some of the philtre on a 
 chicken's beak ; if it is really potent, the chicken 
 will follow you wherever you go ! " 
 
 "Have you seen that yourself?" 
 217 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 " No. I want no love-philtres. I manage 
 well enough without them. I don't care to play 
 with a thing you can't control. I might get into 
 trouble, like Nakhodah Ma'win. It is easy enough 
 to give the potion, but I never heard what you 
 do to stop it. Anyhow, if I wanted to buy the 
 stuff, I should first try it on a chicken, and if it 
 had no effect I should not believe in it, for every 
 one knows that the story of Ra'unah and Ma'win 
 is true, or they would not sing about it to this 
 day. Hark ! the teacher is calling to prayer." 
 
 A number of boys' high-pitched voices were 
 chanting 
 
 " Bihak-illah, rizal-P Allah / 
 Aain-nu na, bi-aun illah!" 
 
 and, across their chorus, came the sonorous, far- 
 reaching tones of the priest 
 
 Allah-hu akbar ! 
 Allah-hu akbar! 
 Ashdd-du Allah, illah-ha il-Allah." 
 
 When the little group of men had fallen into 
 their places, and the only sound in the building 
 was the musical intoning of the half-whispered 
 prayers, I could not help musing on the extra- 
 ordinarily happy expression, "he found an old 
 218 
 
A LOVE-PHILTRE 
 
 woman to needle the way for him." Nothing 
 could be more delightful than the symbol of the 
 small, insinuating, finely tempered, horribly sharp 
 bit of steel that goes so easily through things, 
 and leaves no trace of its passage. And then 
 there is nearly always a thread behind it, and 
 that remains when the needle has gone ! 
 
 I have translated Ra'unah's lament for you 
 absolutely literally, except that the word which 
 occurs so often, and which I have rendered 
 " shelter," means " umbrella." The umbrella here, 
 as in other countries, is an emblem of the highest 
 distinction : a shelter from sun and rain, a shield 
 and protection, "the shadow of a great rock in 
 a dry land." A yellow umbrella is a sign and 
 token of sovereignty. 
 
 219 
 
XXVII 
 MOONSTRUCK 
 
 ONCE I suggested to you that the greatest 
 facts of life are, in English, expressed by 
 the smallest words, and, with that dainty, hesi- 
 tating manner that is so captivating, you almost 
 consented to agree. Look, for instance, at these 
 words : God, sin, good, bad, day, night, sun, 
 moon, light, dark, heat, cold, earth, sky, sea, 
 world, peace, war, joy, pain, eat, drink, sleep, 
 love, hate, birth, death. They cover a good deal 
 of ground, and you can easily add to them. A 
 philologist would tell you why the most profound 
 conceptions, the most important abstract facts, 
 are denoted by simple words, but the explana- 
 tion might not interest you. The circle of my 
 acquaintances does not include a philologist ; my 
 nearest approach to such dissipation is a friend 
 who pretends to be a lexicographer. Now look 
 at that word, it is long enough in all conscience, 
 
 220 
 
MOONSTRUCK 
 
 but the idea which it represents only makes one 
 tired. 
 
 Whilst a good reason could be found for ex- 
 pressing original principles in monosyllables, I 
 wonder if any one can say why that fantastic 
 product of this century, the (so-called) educated 
 Indian, revels in the use and misuse of all the 
 longest words he can find to convey his, some- 
 times grotesque, but nearly always commonplace, 
 thoughts, when he tries to put them in English. 
 Curiously enough, this transcendental language, 
 which is the peculiar pride of the Indian babu, 
 leaves on the mind of the listener no concrete 
 idea, no definite conception of what the speaker 
 wants to say ; but it does invariably conjure up a 
 figure typical of the class which employs this bar- 
 barous tongue as a high-sounding medium in which 
 to disguise its shallow thoughts. And then one 
 feels sorry for the poor overthrown words, the 
 maimed quotations, and the slaughtered sentences, 
 so that one realises how happy is that description 
 which speaks of the English conversation of East 
 Indians as a melee, wherein the words lie about 
 "like dead men on a battle-field." There must 
 be something in the Indian's character to account 
 for this ; and, as a great stream of words pours 
 
 221 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 * 
 
 from the narrow channel of his mind, and gives 
 
 expression to his turgid thoughts in an avalanche 
 of sound, so you will see the same extravagance 
 of outward display in the manner of his life, in 
 his strange garments, his sham jewellery, and his 
 pitiful and disastrous attempts to ape what he 
 thinks is the riotous tl fastness " of the quite white 
 man. Behind this outward seeming, there is also, 
 in many cases, nothing, and sometimes even less 
 than that. Misapplied English education has a 
 good deal to answer for, and, if the babu has a 
 soul, it may demand a reckoning from those who 
 gave it a speech in which to make known the 
 impossible aspirations of a class that is as rich 
 in wordy agitation as it is poor in the spirit and 
 physique of a ruling race. Many babus cannot 
 quench revolt. Perhaps the babu is the " thing 
 too much " in India ; they could do without him. 
 And yet he and education, combined, make a grow- 
 ing danger that may yet have to be counted with. 
 But enough of the babu ; I cannot think how he 
 got into my letter. 
 
 My visit to this strange and beautiful country 
 is over. For the last time a steamer is hurrying 
 me down one of those great waterways which, 
 
 222 
 
MOONSTRUCK 
 
 until recent times, have been the only means of 
 getting into this mysterious land. The dying day 
 supplied a feast of colour, of momentarily changing 
 pictures that, however familiar, seem always new, 
 always resplendent with amazing lights, delicate 
 half-tints, and soft shadows, such as only a 
 moisture-charged atmosphere and a fiery sun can 
 produce. Does the thought of such an evening 
 ever come back to you, or are you trying to 
 accustom yourself to the greys and neutral tints 
 of the life of resignation ? Ah ! The moon is 
 just rising ; the scene is quite enchanting, and I 
 must try to tell you exactly what I see. 
 
 The river is six or seven hundred yards wide. 
 It is high tide, and, to the eye, the picture has but 
 three component parts sky, wood, and water. 
 Sky and water are divided by a belt of wood 
 which borders the river. The continuous belt of 
 trees, of varying height, growing from out the 
 river and up the bank, makes a deeply indented 
 line of vegetation. This belt is unbroken, but 
 it rises into plumes and graceful fronds, where 
 some loftier palm or giant jungle-tree towers above 
 its neighbours, and all its foliage shows clear as 
 an etching against the grey-blue background. 
 
 Again, the belt dips and leaves broken spaces of 
 223 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 sky, where the foliage suddenly dwarfs. The sky 
 is dark grey just above the trees, but the grey 
 changes to blue as the eye travels upward, and 
 overhead the zenith is sapphire, cloudless sapphire 
 spangled with stars. The water is like burnished 
 gun-metal, and, under the shore, there is a shadow 
 as dark and wide as the line of trees which throws 
 it. The moon, a perfect circle of brilliant light, 
 not silver nor gold, but the colour produced by 
 silvering over a golden ground, has just risen, and 
 rides a short space above the trees. In the deepest 
 shadow, exactly where water and land meet, there 
 is a narrow streak of amazingly bright light ; then 
 a space of darkness, covered by the shadow of the 
 trees, and then a veritable column of gold, the 
 width of the moon, and the length of the moon's 
 distance above the trees. The column is not still, 
 it is moved by the shimmer of the water, and it 
 dazzles the eyes. The effect is marvellous : this 
 intense brilliance as of molten gold, this pillar of 
 light with quivering but clearly-defined edges, play- 
 ing on a mirror of dark burnished steel. Then 
 that weird glint of yellow flame, appearing and 
 disappearing, in the very centre of the blackest 
 shadow, and, above all, the Queen of Night moves 
 through the heavens in superb consciousness of 
 224 * 
 
MOONSTRUCK 
 
 her own transcendent beauty, calmly satisfied to 
 recognise that the sapphire firmament, and all the 
 world of stars, are but the background and the 
 foils to her surpassing loveliness. 
 
 As the moon rises, the reflection in the river 
 lengthens, widens, breaks into ripples of amber, 
 and shoots out arrows of paler light. Soon there 
 is a broad pathway of glittering wavelets, which 
 opens out into a great silvery road, and the light 
 of the risen moon dispels the grey fog that hung 
 over the belt of jungle, and tinges with silver the 
 few fleecy clouds that emphasise the blueness of 
 their background. Then a dark curtain gradually 
 spreads itself across the sky, dims the moonlight, 
 veils the stars, and throws a spell over the river, 
 hiding its luminous highway, and casting upon 
 the water the reflection of its own spectre-like 
 form. 
 
 The fog clung to the river, but when we reached 
 the sea the moon reigned alone, paling the stars 
 and filling the air with a flood of delicious light. 
 I was leaning over the side of the ship, wondering 
 where I could ever see such a sight again, when 
 a man of the country came and stood by me. I 
 
 said something to him of the beauty of the night, 
 225 p 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 and he answered, " Yes, there are flowers in the 
 moon." 
 
 I asked him what he meant, and this is what 
 he told me : 
 
 " It was a night like this, and I was going with 
 my mother, my wife, and child to a neighbouring 
 island to visit some relatives. We were travelling 
 by a small steamer, and in the early hours of the 
 morning were coasting along the shore of the 
 island. The moon was then setting, but it was 
 extraordinarily brilliant, and I tried to find a spot 
 in the shadow where I could sleep. As I settled 
 myself comfortably, I noticed that my mother was 
 standing, looking over the bulwark. It might have 
 been an hour later when I awoke, and, as we 
 were near the port, I went to rouse my people 
 and collect my luggage. I could not find my 
 mother anywhere. The rest of my party and all 
 the other passengers were asleep till I roused them, 
 and no one had seen or heard anything unusual. 
 We all of us searched the ship in every direction, 
 but without success, and the only conclusion was 
 that the poor old lady had somehow fallen over- 
 board. By this time the vessel had reached the 
 anchorage, and there was nothing to be done but 
 to go ashore. I took my family to the house of 
 226 
 
MOONSTRUCK 
 
 our friends, some miles from the landing-place, and 
 then wondered what to do next. The village we 
 had come to was on the shore, and not very far 
 from the place where I had last seen my mother 
 on board the ship. I determined, therefore, to 
 drive to a spot as nearly opposite that place as I 
 could get, and then to walk along the beach, and 
 ask at the huts of the Chinese fishermen whether 
 they had seen a body in the water. The first two 
 or three cottages I came to were empty, but I 
 made my way to a solitary hut which I saw 
 standing in the centre of a tiny bay. In that 
 hut, to my surprise and great joy, I found my 
 mother and two Chinese fishermen. The men 
 told me that they had gone out before daylight 
 to set their nets, and in the light of the moon, 
 then almost on the horizon, they saw a woman, 
 as they described it, " standing in the water," so 
 that, though her head only was visible, she seemed 
 to be upright, and they imagined she must be sup- 
 ported somehow, or resting her feet on an old 
 fishing stake, for the water was fifteen or twenty 
 feet deep there. She did not cry out or seem 
 frightened, only rather dazed. They rowed to 
 the spot and pulled her into the boat, and just 
 
 then the moon sank out of sight. The old lady 
 227 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 had lost her skirt, but otherwise seemed little the 
 worse, and, as far as the fishermen could see, she 
 was not resting on any support. When I asked 
 her how she got into the sea, she said she could 
 not tell, but she was looking at the moon, and 
 she saw such lovely flowers in it that she felt she 
 must try to get to them. Then she found herself 
 in the water, but all the time she kept looking at 
 the flowers till the fishermen pulled her into their 
 boat and brought her on shore. I took her to 
 the house where we were staying, and I have 
 left her in the island ever since, because I dare 
 not let her travel by sea again." 
 
 228 
 
XXV1I1 
 THE "DEVI" 
 
 I AM in Agra. The Japanese say that if you 
 have not been to Nikko you cannot say kekko. 
 That is an insular conceit, meant, no doubt, 
 originally for Japan and the Japanese only ; but 
 national pride speaking as the frog spoke who 
 lived under half a coconut-shell, and thought 
 the limits of his vision comprised the universe 
 now declares that the Nikko temples are incom- 
 parable. I cannot claim to have seen all the 
 great buildings in the world, but I have visited 
 some of the most famous, and I say with confi- 
 dence that the Taj at Agra is the most perfect 
 triumph of the architect's and builder's skill in 
 existence. I visited this tomb first by daylight, 
 and it is difficult to give you any idea of the 
 extraordinary effect the first sight of it produced 
 on me. I drove in a wretched two-horse gharry, 
 
 along a dusty and uninteresting road, until the 
 229 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 rickety vehicle was pulled up with a jerk in 
 front of a great red stone portal, and I got out. 
 Through that lofty Gothic arch, and framed 
 by it, appeared a vision of white loveliness, an 
 amazing structure of dazzling marble, shooting 
 towers and minarets into a clear, blue, cloudless 
 sky. 
 
 The Taj the Crown of Kings stands on a 
 raised terrace ; it is a considerable distance from 
 the gate, and the eye is led to it by a wide, 
 straight path, bisecting a garden, which, at the 
 first glance, seems a mass of dark green foliage. 
 The garden is extensive, and shut in by a high 
 wall. Just outside this wall, to right and left of 
 the Taj, are a palace and a mosque of deep red 
 sandstone. More than that you cannot see, but 
 the river Jumna flows under the rear wall of the 
 raised terrace on which the Taj stands. 
 
 The marble monument, which contains the tombs 
 of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, is an enormous 
 building, and represents seventeen years' work of 
 a force of twenty thousand men. But the design 
 is so faultless, the proportions so perfect, the whole 
 effect so exquisitely graceful, that, until you are 
 close to the wide steps leading up to the terrace, 
 and realise that men standing by the walls look 
 230 
 
THE "DEVI" 
 
 almost like flies, you are not struck by any sense 
 of extraordinary size. 
 
 The building itself is superb. The conception is 
 absolutely unique, and the harmony of every part 
 a crowning triumph ; the splendour of material, the 
 purity of that dazzling, unbroken whiteness these 
 are a joy and a delight. 
 
 But the surroundings, the setting in which this 
 jewel stands, are so marvellously well calculated 
 to exactly frame the picture, that the whole scene 
 seems a vision, unearthly in its beauty. When 
 once that sensation passes, when one has gazed, 
 and blinked, and rubbed one's eyes, and compassed 
 the reality of it all, one is profoundly impressed 
 by the genius that could raise such a heavenly 
 edifice, and one is proudly thankful to have lived 
 that hour of life, to have felt the soul stir, and to 
 carry away an imperishable memory of one of the 
 noblest of human achievements. 
 
 The main entrance is by a great arched door, 
 bordered by Arabic characters in black marble 
 let into the white wall. Pierced marble windows 
 admit a dim and softened light to a lofty chamber. 
 In the comparative gloom one slowly discerns a 
 marble wall surrounding the centre space. The 
 
 wall is inlaid with precious stones jasper and 
 231 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 onyx, sardius and topaz, amethyst, chrysobel, 
 and sapphire, set in floral designs. Within this 
 enclosure are the white marble tombs of Shah 
 Jahan and his wife. 
 
 Last night the moon was full, and, an hour 
 before midnight, I went and sat in that dark stone 
 palace, and revelled in the beauty of a spectacle 
 that cannot be equalled on earth. It is said that 
 the palace was built for Royal ladies, and was 
 specially designed to give them the most perfect 
 view of the Taj. There is an open stone verandah, 
 over which I leaned and gazed in ecstasy at the 
 scene. The dark trees of the garden spread from 
 under the walls of the palace over a wide space 
 of ground, and from them rose the incomparable 
 Taj ; minarets, walls, and windows, blazing with 
 silver sheen under the direct rays of the moon, 
 softened in the half shadows, darkening to deep 
 tones of grey on the river face. Slightly to the 
 left of the Taj, and as far beyond it as the Taj 
 was from me, stood the mosque, a splendid foil 
 to the glittering radiance of the tomb. In the 
 shadow, cast by the great mass of marble, rippled 
 the shallow waters of the wide river. The rear 
 walls of the building are on the edge of the bank, 
 
 and beyond the Taj the river stretches away in 
 232 
 
THE "DEVI" 
 
 a silver ribbon towards the city. In a line to the 
 right of the Taj, and distant about three miles, 
 rises a dark hill, crowned by the Palace and 
 Citadel of Agra. The enclosing walls and battle- 
 ments, built of the same red sandstone, were 
 scarcely distinguishable from the hill ; but the 
 moonlight caught the white marble buildings 
 within, and innumerable lights twinkled from walls 
 and windows. 
 
 I must have been a long time in my solitude, 
 intoxicated by the wonder of the night and the 
 splendour of the scene, when I heard the strains 
 of a violin, played with extraordinary skill. The 
 music seemed familiar (for I had heard the songs 
 of many Eastern lands), and, moreover, I became 
 certain that the instrument was being played some- 
 where in the great building wherein I chanced 
 to be. The sounds ceased, but presently the 
 musician began a Persian dance which I recog- 
 nised ; and as the wild air leaped from the strings 
 in quickening waves of sound, the devilry of the 
 mad nautch seemed to possess me, and it became 
 impossible not to beat time to the rhythm of the 
 music. Again there was silence, and I wondered 
 greatly who could make a violin throb with such 
 feeling, and where the minstrel could be. Whilst 
 233 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 still absorbed by these thoughts, and anxiously 
 listening for the faintest sound, my ear caught 
 the strains of an Arab love-song that I knew 
 well enough, but had never heard played like 
 this before, nor yet under such circumstances. 
 The air was in the minor key, and was, I knew, 
 played only on three strings, but it seemed to 
 wail and shiver from the instrument out into the 
 night, through the trees, across the bright lights 
 and deep shadows, to mingle with the crooning of 
 the river, to fill the atmosphere and soar towards 
 the empyrean. It was like the song of a lark at 
 the dawn of a day in spring. The power of the 
 musician was such that Taj and city, mosque and 
 river and garden faded away, and I distinctly saw 
 a narrow street in an Arab town. Flat-roofed 
 buildings, pierced by a few small iron-barred win- 
 dows, lined either side of a street, which rose in 
 a gentle ascent till it twisted out of sight round 
 
 a distant corner. A brilliant moon, shining in a 
 
 A 
 cloudless sky, threw into white light the roofs on 
 
 one side the street. But the houses on the other 
 side cast a deep shadow, and in that shadow a 
 man, with his back to me, was standing playing 
 the three-stringed Arab gambus, and singing 
 singing as though for his life, in a low, sweet 
 234 
 
THE "DEVI" 
 
 voice up to a barred window whence issued a 
 ray of yellow light. I thought I could even 
 understand the words of the passionate serenata, 
 though I know almost as little of the Arabic as 
 of the Patagonian tongue. It was the music, the 
 angelic skill of the violinist, which had bewitched 
 me, and I stood enthralled by that soul-entrancing 
 melody. 
 
 Before you write me down an emotional ass, 
 remember where I was, and try to imagine 
 what I saw, what I heard. I cannot expect to 
 impress you with any true- idea of either scene 
 or song. 
 
 While those yearning, thrilling, imploring waves 
 of sound cried to the exquisite beauty of the 
 night, I was spell-bound. But, in the silence 
 that followed, I reasoned that the music came 
 from above me, probably from the roof, and that 
 I might well seek the author of it. I passed 
 through a maze of passages, where light and 
 shadow alternated, and, as I groped about to find 
 a staircase, I was guided to my object by the 
 strains of the violin, and a gleam of light which, 
 striking through a narrow window, disclosed a 
 winding stair. 
 
 As I expected, the stairs led up to the roof, and 
 235 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 I was not a little surprised by what I saw there. 
 The head of the staircase was in a corner of the 
 great flat space forming the roof, and a parapet, 
 about thirty inches high, completely enclosed it, 
 except for a flight of outside steps leading down 
 to another and lower roof. The cement floor and 
 surrounding parapet were so brilliantly lighted by 
 the moon, that every inch unshadowed was as 
 bright as day. Four people occupied the space, 
 and my eye was first caught by a white-robed, 
 dark-complexioned boy, who, leaning against the 
 parapet, played a violin with closed eyes, his face 
 set in an expression of dreamy rapture. At a 
 little distance from him, but nearer to me, were 
 a woman and two girls. The woman sat upon a 
 quantity of silks spread over the parapet, while 
 she leaned against a pile of cushions placed against 
 a round stone column. I should say she was 
 hardly twenty. Her skin was very fair, her com- 
 plexion wonderfully clear, her hair black and abun- 
 dant, her eyes large, dark, and liquid, while long 
 curling lashes threw a shadow far down her cheeks. 
 The eyebrows were strongly marked and slightly 
 arched, like the artificial spur of a game-cock. 
 Her nose was straight and rather small ; her 
 
 scarlet lips made a perfect Cupid's bow, and the 
 236 
 
THE "DEVI" 
 
 upper lip was so short that it disclosed teeth of 
 extreme regularity with a whiteness and sheen 
 as of pearls. The chin was round, the face oval ; 
 the ears, hands, and feet very small, but beauti- 
 fully formed. This woman, or girl, was clothed 
 in silk skirts of a dull red, heavy with gold thread ; 
 she wore a jacket of white satin, embroidered with 
 small red and gold flowers, and fastened by three 
 diamond brooches. On her head, falling in grace- 
 ful folds over her shoulders, was a dark gossamer 
 veil, studded with tiny gold stars, and bordered 
 by a wide hem of shining gold lace. In one hand 
 she listlessly held a long spray of stephanotis. 
 She seemed absorbed by the music, and the wonder 
 of that soft white light, which so enhanced her 
 loveliness that I stared in wide-eyed admiration, 
 forgetful of Eastern customs, of politeness, and all 
 else, save only that fascinating figure. At her 
 feet, on the roof, sat two girls, attendants, both 
 clad in bright-coloured silk garments, and both wear- 
 ing gold-embroidered gossamer veils. 
 
 Not one of the group seemed to notice my 
 presence, and I heard no words exchanged. 
 
 It was long past midnight ; the violinist had 
 excelled himself in pulse-stirring dances, in pas- 
 237 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 sionate love-songs and laments that sounded like 
 the sobbing of despairing hearts. I had gradually 
 moved forward, and was leaning over the parapet 
 looking towards Agra, and feeling that no moment 
 of a night like this could be missed or forgotten, 
 when suddenly I heard a sharp cry, half of sur- 
 prise, half of dread. I turned and saw my four 
 companions all gazing with startled eyes at some- 
 thing beyond me, out past the parapet, towards the 
 glistening river. I turned again, and I now saw 
 a white marble bridge stretching in a single grace- 
 ful arch an arch like a strung bow springing 
 from the centre of the back wall of the Taj across 
 the river, till it rested on the farther bank. There 
 rose another Taj ! the exact duplicate of the one 
 standing on the hither side of the stream, as white, 
 as graceful, as perfect in all respects as its fellow. 
 The roadway of the bridge was enclosed in a 
 sort of long gallery, the sides of marble fretwork, 
 with windows at intervals opening on to the river. 
 The roof was formed of marble slabs. One could 
 see the shining water through the perforated walls 
 of the gallery ; occasionally, where two opposite 
 windows were open, there were glimpses of the 
 distant lights, the palace, and the hill. The beauti- 
 ful flat arch of that bridge, its graceful lines, and 
 238 
 
THE "DEVI" 
 
 the airy lightness of the structure are unforgetable. 
 Think of that bridge, that pure white bow of 
 glistening stone, spanning the river's width, and 
 tying Taj to Taj ! 
 
 As I feasted my eyes, in wonder and admira- 
 tion, on this alluring vision, a mist rose from the 
 river, gathered volume and density, shut out the 
 distance, enveloped bridge and river, bank and 
 building, and hung in a thick white cloud, the 
 ends creeping rapidly to right and left across the 
 level plain. I looked upward ; the moon was 
 slowly sinking towards the west ; it had a faint 
 bluish tinge, a common effect at very late hours 
 of the night, when it seems to shine with even 
 greater brilliance. 
 
 I turned to look for my companions, but found 
 I was alone. There was not a sign of lady, or 
 maid, or minstrel. They had disappeared, vanished 
 without a sound ; and, of their late presence, there 
 was no sign except the spray of stephanotis. It 
 was strange, I thought, as I walked to the spot 
 where the flower lay and picked it up, but one 
 cannot be astonished at anything in the East. 
 
 I felt a chill puff of wind, and I glanced back 
 towards Agra. The mist was moving, rising 
 239 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 rapidly in wisps ; it was thin and transparent, and 
 I could indistinctly see the background through 
 it. The marble bridge, the other Taj that second 
 tomb Shah Jahan meant to build were gone. 
 Clearly my imagination, a mirage, or the mist 
 had played me a trick. And then the girl, the 
 violinist : were they also the phantoms of my 
 brain ? Surely that was impossible. Why, I 
 can see the girl now ; I could tell you every de- 
 tail of her face, her figure, pose, and dress. The 
 violinist could have been no spirit ; though he 
 played like an angel, his music was earthly, and 
 perfectly familiar to me. 
 
 I gave it up and went away, wondering ; but 
 I took the stephanotis, and it stands in front of 
 me now in a tiny vase of water. 
 
 To-day, in daylight, when the sun was high, and 
 I had eaten and bandied commonplaces, and knew 
 that I was sane, I went to find the old creature 
 who keeps the gate of the garden of the Taj. I 
 asked him who was in the Red Palace late last 
 night, and he said that not having been there him- 
 self he could not tell ; moreover, that he did not 
 turn night into day, but slept, like other respectable 
 
 people. I felt snubbed but still curious, so I said 
 240 
 
THE "DEVI" 
 
 " The boy who plays the violin, who is he ? " 
 
 " What boy ? Where ? How should I know ? " 
 he said, but he began to look rather startled. 
 
 "On the roof of the Red Palace, over there," 
 I replied, pointing to the corner of the building 
 visible from where we stood. "And the lady, the 
 young lady in the beautiful clothes, who is she ? " 
 
 But the old man had started, and at mention 
 of the girl he dropped the stick on which he 
 leaned ; and as he slowly and painfully recovered 
 himself from the effort of picking it up, I heard 
 him say, in an awe-struck whisper, "The Devi!" 
 
 My attempts to extract anything further from 
 this old fossil were futile. He hobbled off to his 
 den, muttering to himself, and evidently anxious 
 to be rid of my society. 
 
 After this rebuff I hesitate to make further 
 inquiries from others, because I know no one 
 here ; because the white people never concern 
 themselves with native matters, and are mainly 
 interested in gossip ; and because I am conscious 
 that my story invites doubt, and must rest on my 
 word alone. It is not the personal ridicule I am 
 afraid of, but I don't like the idea of jest at the 
 expense of the girl whom I saw on that parapet, 
 
 the Devi whose stephanotis perfumes my room. 
 241 
 
XXIX 
 THE DEATH-CHAIN 
 
 WHEN last I wrote and told you about the 
 Devi, I had a vague hope that my stepha- 
 notis would, indirectly, prove that the lovely girl, 
 from whose hand it had fallen, gathered it in some 
 heavenly garden, beyond mortal ken, where Death 
 and Time are unknown. 
 
 I did not like to say so, but I meant to keep the 
 flower, and, if I had seen it fade and die, I should 
 have been disappointed, perhaps even rather sur- 
 prised. You will say such fantastic ideas can only 
 come to people whose minds have been warped by 
 contact with Oriental mysticism; and, while you 
 are probably right, I reply that when you have a 
 Taj, when you have an atmosphere of sunshine un- 
 soiled by coal-smoke, when, in fine, any really big 
 miracle is wrought in your Western world, then you 
 may see a Devi sitting in the moonlight, you may 
 
 hear angelic music played by a boy unknown to the 
 242 
 
THE DEATH-CHAIN 
 
 critics, and you may even weave romances round 
 a spray of stephanotis. 
 
 I guarded my flower carefully, and, for five days, 
 I could not see that it showed any sign of fading. 
 True I kept it in water, even when I was travel- 
 ling ; and, if it came from a heavenly garden, I 
 dare say that care was altogether needless ; but we 
 are creatures of habit, and my Faith was not very 
 robust, and leaned somewhat heavily on Hope. I 
 had to leave Agra and journey through Rajputana. 
 On the fifth day from that night, which I had 
 almost said " was worth, of other nights, a hun- 
 dred thousand million years," I was in Jaipur, and 
 from there I visited the glorious Palace of Amber. 
 I restrain myself with difficulty from going into 
 raptures over that ancient castle, which, for so 
 many centuries, has stood on that distant hillside 
 and watched its many masters come and go, while 
 the ladies loved, and gossiped, and hated, in the 
 Hall of a Thousand Delights, and the horsemen 
 and spearmen went down from the gates to the 
 dusty road, the seething plains, whence many of 
 them never returned. 
 
 I will spare you. You are long-suffering, but 
 there must be a limit even to your patience. I 
 know that qui s } excuse s'accuse, and I offer no excuse 
 243 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 for trying to draw for you the pictures that are 
 only seen beyond beaten tracks. Ruskin has said, 
 "The greatest thing the human soul ever does in 
 this world is to see something, and tell what it saw 
 in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for 
 one who can think, but thousands can think for 
 one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, pro- 
 phecy, and religion all in one." If thousands can 
 think for one who can see, surely there must be 
 still thousands who see and cannot tell " in a plain 
 way" what they saw. There are millions whose 
 eyes are to them only what animals' eyes are 
 aids to the gratification of appetite. There are 
 thousands more who do see and appreciate, yet 
 cannot put what they have seen into words ; cannot 
 communicate their own feelings, cannot help another 
 to share, even a little, in the joy that has come to 
 them through greater opportunities. I have often 
 wondered why people who have seen the most 
 interesting places on earth, have been present per- 
 haps on memorable occasions, and have met the 
 most famous people of their time, showed, in their 
 conversation, no sign of these advantages, and, if 
 questioned, could only give the most disappointing, 
 uninteresting description of any personal experiences. 
 
 Then there are the very few who have seen, and can 
 244 
 
THE DEATH-CHAIN 
 
 help others to see again, through their eyes; but 
 they seldom do it, because they have found that, 
 with rare exceptions, the relation of their experi- 
 ences is but little appreciated. Ruskin himself is 
 one of the few who can see and can describe, 
 but others may hesitate to string the plain words, 
 knowing how little worthy they will be of what 
 the eyes have seen. 
 
 Some of this I may have been thinking, as I 
 slowly made my way back to Jaipur ; but, when I 
 reached the house of my sojourn, almost the first 
 thing I noticed was that the tiny vase which had 
 carried my spray of stephanotis was empty of all 
 but water. Of course I sent for everybody, and 
 made minute inquiries, and, of course, every one 
 had seen the flower, and no one had touched it, 
 and I was left to draw any conclusion I pleased. 
 
 I drew none. There are no data on which to 
 come to a conclusion ; but the facts remind me of 
 a story I will tell ^ou. 
 
 I have an Italian friend. He is a very un- 
 common type, and worthy of far more attention 
 than I will give him now, because, for the moment, 
 I am concerned rather with his story than with 
 him. He was in Egypt, and whilst there he dis- 
 covered a buried city. Carefully and wisely he 
 245 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 kept his knowledge to himself, till, owing to an 
 absence of some months, he lost all trace of the 
 place, and never found it again. A sand-storm had 
 buried it once more. 
 
 The original discovery was purely the result of 
 accident, and his first researches had to be con- 
 ducted in secrecy, without assistance, otherwise 
 the trouvaille would have become public property. 
 His explorations led him to a building that he 
 believed was a tomb; and having, by laborious 
 efforts, gained an entrance, he had the satisfaction 
 of proving that his surmise was correct, and also 
 the reward of finding in the chamber a single sarco- 
 phagus, containing a mummified girl, or woman, in 
 wonderful preservation. He knew the common 
 superstition that disaster would befall any one who 
 disturbed a mummy; but he thought little of the 
 tale, and did not mean to be deterred from removing 
 the body when he should have the means to do so. 
 Meanwhile he had to be content with what he could 
 carry, and that consisted of a few coins, and a 
 necklace which he unfastened from the lady's poor 
 shrivelled neck, or rather from the cere-cloths in 
 which it was swathed. 
 
 Perhaps you have never seen one of these mummy 
 
 necklaces; they are rather curious, and, from my 
 246 
 
THE DEATH-CHAIN 
 
 friend's account of it, the one he found nearly re- 
 sembled others which I have seen myself. The 
 material seemed to be some kind of pottery, or 
 opaque glass made into rough beads, and short 
 lengths of small glazed piping, strung together in a 
 quaint pattern. The prevailing colour was a sort 
 of turquoise with an extra dash of green, and every 
 bit of piping was so tinted ; but, alternately with 
 these blue lengths, were strung groups of round 
 beads, in bunches of two to six or eight, or even 
 more. By far the majority of the beads were 
 turquoise-blue, but some were yellow, others brown, 
 and a few almost black, and the arrangement was 
 such that it could easily have been made to repre- 
 sent a string of words. The effect of the chain was 
 bizarre but attractive, and it somewhat resembled 
 the rosaries worn by devout Arabs. The intrinsic 
 worth of the thing was nil, but sometimes one has 
 a friend who will accept and value un rien like this, 
 for the sake of the giver, when jewels would be 
 declined. My Italian had such a friend, and the 
 bauble found a new home on her neck. 
 
 Not long after she had begun to wear the quaint 
 little chain which had lain for so many centuries 
 round the throat of the dead Egyptian, its new 
 
 owner was distressed and alarmed by a persistent 
 
 247 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 form of nightmare, which gradually induced a feel- 
 ing that she was haunted by the wraith of a dark- 
 skinned girl, of a type of feature unlike any known 
 to her, but clad in raiment such as she fancied 
 had been worn by Egyptians in the days of the 
 Pharaohs. The apparition was always clothed in 
 the same manner, and though she wore a number 
 of strangely fashioned ornaments, her neck was 
 left completely bare. The girl seemed to be ever 
 present in her dreams, and her face always wore a 
 look of extreme distress, as of one who grieved for 
 the loss of some dearly beloved friend or possession. 
 The curious part of it was, that the dream-girl 
 seemed always to come to the sleeper as to one 
 from whom she could get relief; and while, in her 
 earlier appearances, she had the expression and 
 the manner of a supplicant, the dreamer fancied 
 that latterly there had been a change, and the dark 
 face looked both agonised and threatening. 
 
 These visitations, which could not be ascribed 
 to any reasonable cause, had so got on the lady's 
 nerves that she had gone for change to a villa on 
 the coast of Normandy. The change of scene 
 brought no relief. The haunting form of the 
 Egyptian girl, though not a nightly visitor, was 
 
 so constantly present, that the dread of seeing her 
 
 248 
 
THE DEATH-CHAIN 
 
 deprived sleep of all power of giving rest, and the 
 poor lady was not only becoming seriously ill, but 
 she was so affected by her uncanny infliction, that 
 she even sometimes imagined she caught glimpses 
 of her tormentor when she herself was wide awake. 
 One afternoon, the lady was lying in a darkened 
 room, the persiennes closed to keep out the hot 
 and penetrating rays of a summer sun. She felt 
 very weary and despondent, the result of many 
 broken nights and the prolonged strain on her 
 nerves, and, though she held a book in her hand 
 she was all the time wondering how much longer 
 she could bear this oppression, and what she had 
 done to deserve such a weirdly horrible fate. In a 
 dull sort of way she supposed she must be going 
 mad, and felt with grim cynicism that the border- 
 land between sanity and insanity was so narrow 
 that she would hardly realise the moment when she 
 crossed it. There was absolute silence everywhere, 
 except for the faint soothing whisper of the sea, 
 rippling over the sand beneath the wooded bluff on 
 which the villa stood. The air was warm and heavy 
 with summer perfumes; the room was darkening 
 slowly as the sun dipped towards the placid waters 
 of La Manche ; the woman was deadly weary, and 
 
 she slept. 
 
 249 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 At first her sleep must have been sound ; but, 
 after a time, her eyes opened to that other con- 
 sciousness which is of the world of dreams, and 
 once again she saw her now dreaded companion, 
 the dark-eyed, dark-skinned girl from the land of 
 the Pharaohs. The girl seemed to plead in im- 
 passioned terms for something, but the dreamer 
 could not understand the strange words, and racked 
 her brain, as dreamers will, to try to imagine their 
 meaning. The girl burst into a storm of tears, 
 sinking to the ground in her grief and despair, and 
 burying her face on a pile of cushions. Still the 
 dreamer, suffering torture herself, was helpless to 
 relieve the other. Then suddenly the girl sprang up, 
 and, dashing the tears from her eyes, which now 
 seemed to blaze with murderous resolve, she sprang 
 upon the white woman, enlaced her throat with 
 supple brown fingers, pressed and pressed, tighter 
 and tighter ah, God ! the horror and the suffocat- 
 ing pain of it and all the while the sleeper's hands 
 seemed tied to her side. Then with a scream the 
 dreamer awoke. She felt her eyes must be starting 
 from her head, and instinctively raised her hands 
 to her throat, only to realise that her vivid sensation 
 of strangulation was merely a nightmare, but that 
 
 the chain the string of turquoise beads which she 
 250 
 
THE DEATH-CHAIN 
 
 had never unfastened from the day she first put it 
 on was gone. 
 
 There was now little light in the room, only 
 enough to see things vaguely, yet the lady declares 
 that in that first moment of waking she distinctly 
 saw a figure, exactly like that of the girl of her 
 dreams, glide swiftly away from her and pass out 
 through a portiere into the verandah. For some 
 time she was too frightened and unnerved to move, 
 but when at last she summoned her people they 
 had seen no one. 
 
 The only thing that was real was that she had 
 lost the necklace, and never saw it again. As some 
 compensation she also lost for ever the society of 
 her dream-visitor, and completely recovered her own 
 health. 
 
 Now who took my stephanotis ? 
 
 251 
 
XXX 
 SCANDAL AND BANGLES 
 
 FOR years I have not been so angry as I am 
 at this minute ; I have very nearly lost my 
 temper, and the reason is really ridiculous. Why 
 I should choose this as a favourable opportunity 
 for writing to you I cannot tell, but my tormentor 
 had no sooner left the room than I seized the pen, 
 which is nearly always ready to my hand, and you 
 are the victim. The cause of this unusual and un- 
 seemly frame of mind is a girl, quite a pretty girl, 
 who walked in here, sans ceremonte, and, after a 
 few minutes' desultory conversation, told me a pre- 
 posterous piece of gossip about myself, a fantastic 
 story in which there was not a grain of truth. 
 
 "Who says that?" I asked. 
 
 " Everybody says so." 
 
 " Then everybody is mistaken." 
 
 "Of course you deny it; but it is true, all the 
 
 252 
 
SCANDAL AND BANGLES 
 
 " It is not in the least true, and I am prepared 
 to swear that in any form of oath." 
 
 " I dare say you are, but no one will believe 
 you." 
 
 "Very well. Now what does your story rest 
 upon?" 
 
 "The evidence of people's senses. Every one 
 has seen you." 
 
 " I cannot deal with ' every one/ it is too in- 
 definite. You say I went to some one's house, 
 not that it would matter the least if I did, but 
 who saw me ? " 
 
 " I did." 
 
 "You did! I never was in the house in my 
 life." 
 
 " Try to remember. I have seen you go in and 
 also seen you come out of it." 
 
 " If it were not so stupid, one might almost get 
 angry. I repeat that I have never been in the 
 house, nor spoken to the owner." 
 
 " And I, having seen with my own eyes, maintain 
 that you have." 
 
 "You have mistaken some one else for me, or 
 drawn on your imagination, for what you say is 
 absolutely untrue. But, as you seem to have con- 
 structed a fantastic story on that insecure foun- 
 253 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 dation, I have a good mind to charge you with 
 defaming me." 
 
 " By all means, and I will go into court and say 
 what I know and you know to be true." 
 
 Now, what can you do with a person like that ? 
 If I were the judge, trying my own cause and 
 knowing there is not a semblance of a particle of 
 truth in this absurd tale, I believe that if a witness 
 appeared and gave evidence against me with this 
 sublime assurance, -I would decide the case against 
 myself. 
 
 The wasp has still a sting left, she says ; " You 
 sent your carriage to a lady, that she might drive 
 in it?" 
 
 " I did." 
 
 "And she sent it back." 
 
 "She did." 
 
 "She would not use it because of what I have 
 told you, and she does not want to see or speak to 
 you again ! " 
 
 I said I should not die of the affront, nor commit 
 any rash act if the lady adhered to her deter- 
 mination ; but I admit that, though I laughed, I was 
 beginning to lose my temper, and I told my tor- 
 mentor that if I could whip her it would be a satis- 
 faction ! She also laughed, but as I had seen that 
 254 
 
SCANDAL AND BANGLES 
 
 she was brimful of merriment all along, that was 
 nothing. By-and-by she disclosed that she wanted 
 me to do something for her, and, when I had heaped 
 coals of fire on her head by doing what she wished, 
 she went away asking me if I had any message for 
 the lady who had refused my carriage! I heard 
 her laughing all the way downstairs, and, as she 
 insisted on walking through the grounds to her 
 carriage, I fancy I can hear her giggling still. 
 
 I think I remarked once before that the train of 
 another's thoughts are not easy to divine, but ex- 
 planations are boring, so I leave you to supply the 
 connection between what I have just written and 
 what now occurs to me to tell you. It is not only 
 fowls and curses that come home to roost. 
 
 Once upon a time there was a very beautiful and 
 attractive lady, the wife of a high official in India. 
 She was of those who have but one admirer at a 
 time, and that one very devoted. Women of her 
 type cannot share with any one else the attentions 
 of their cavaliers; they insist upon a service that 
 is complete and unquestioning, dog-like in devotion 
 and obedience ; and they do not seem to care if it is 
 also dog-like in its inability to do more than gaze in 
 rapture at the face of its mistress. I have known 
 cases of the kind myself, and marvelled to see how 
 255 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 the lady and her slave can stand, and sit, and walk 
 together, with no one to disturb their confidences, 
 and yet they never seem to speak. As far as I can 
 understand, that was the case with the heroine of my 
 tale and her cavalier e servente. They were on the 
 hills or in the plains it does not matter where 
 when a native Prince appeared upon the scene. He 
 was a delightful and fascinating person, but wicked 
 beyond the dreams of wickedness. He stayed 
 several months in the station, and when about to 
 return to his own native state, ^he called upon an 
 English friend of his and said, " I am going away ; 
 I speak English very indifferently ; I wish to say 
 good-bye to some of my friends : will you come with 
 me ? " The Englishman at once said he would be 
 delighted, and they set out on a round of calls, the 
 Prince saying where he wished to go. Amongst 
 other houses they visited that of the engaging lady, 
 and after a few words explaining his early departure 
 and regret, the Prince produced a number of beau- 
 tiful gold bangles, and said he trusted the lady 
 would accept them as a token of his respectful 
 admiration. This was duly interpreted, and the 
 lady replied that as her husband held a Government 
 post she could not accept any present. The Prince 
 
 said he trusted that she would not persist in this 
 256 
 
SCANDAL AND BANGLES 
 
 determination, because he was merely a visitor, and 
 as the lady's husband had no authority or influ- 
 ence in his territory, he could not believe that the 
 ordinary rules would apply to a gift of such small 
 value, which was merely an expression of his 
 esteem and thanks for the kindness he had received. 
 Meanwhile the bangles had been tendered to the 
 lady ; they had lain in her hand, and she appreciated 
 their curious design and artistic excellence. 
 
 " What shall I do ? " said the lady, appealing to 
 the Englishman. 
 
 " What you please," he replied. 
 
 It is possible that it was out of consideration for 
 the feelings of the donor that she then said 
 
 "My husband would never let me accept the 
 bangles, but I should like to keep them if I knew 
 that you would say nothing." 
 
 "Pray do not think of me," said the friend; "I 
 am an accident in the interview, and, when I leave 
 the house, I shall have forgotten all about it." 
 
 " Then I shall keep them." 
 
 One evening, about a fortnight or three weeks 
 later, the lady was dancing with the man who had 
 interpreted, and he said, "Will you allow me to 
 admire your bangles : they are not only beautiful in 
 themselves but exceedingly becoming." 
 
 2 57 R 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 "Yes," she replied, "but the unfortunate part 
 of it is that my husband thinks they have been 
 given to me by some one else, and I can't enlighten 
 him, for I dare not tell the truth ! " 
 
 P.S. The lady who refused to use my carriage 
 has just sent me an invitation to dinner ! 
 
 258 
 
XXXI 
 
 THE REPREHENSIBLE HABIT OF 
 MAKING COMPARISONS 
 
 I AM not given to the use of postscripts, but I 
 indulged myself with one in the last letter I 
 wrote to you. It reminds me of the only bon mot 
 to which I can lay claim. When I was about six 
 years old, my mother and I were visiting an aunt 
 of mine, and, one evening, my mother read aloud 
 to my aunt a letter she had just received. It was 
 lengthy, and no doubt interesting to the two ladies, 
 while the contents were probably beyond my com- 
 prehension. "Little pigs have long ears," and I 
 noticed that, at the conclusion of the letter, my 
 mother read " P.S.," and then some final sentences. 
 Immediately afterwards I was ordered to bed, and, 
 once there, my mother came to see me. My small 
 mind was full of this new idea, and I was thirsting 
 for information as to the meaning of these myste- 
 rious letters. Therefore, when my mother had 
 259 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 bid me good night and was going away, I said, 
 " Mother, what does P.S. mean; is it Parting Sub- 
 ject?" She smiled and said, "No, the letters 
 stand for post scrtptum, but the meaning is not very 
 different." She afterwards helped me to wrestle 
 with the Latin grammar, and in time I arrived at 
 the exact translation of post scrip turn, but my 
 childish rendering of P.S. would do just as well. I 
 was made to bitterly regret having ever suggested 
 it ; for, when my proud mother told the story, my 
 various brothers and sisters, separately and collec- 
 tively, insisted that some one had told me to say 
 it, and I am not sure that they did not, each in 
 turn, give me a thrashing to impress upon me 
 the vice of " trying to be sharp." When children 
 have brothers and sisters, their schooling begins 
 early and lasts a long time fortunately for them- 
 selves and the world at large. 
 
 That, however, has nothing to do with the matter 
 I was going to write about. I suppose you some- 
 times look through those galleries of garments 
 which begin and end ladies' journals, just as I 
 occasionally glance at the advertisements of new 
 books, which I find at the end of a modern novel. 
 The other day I was idly turning over the pages of 
 
 such a series of advertisements (each page devoted 
 260 
 
OF MAKING COMPARISONS 
 
 to one book, and quotations from the newspaper 
 reviews of it), and I could not help noticing how, in 
 the case of every book, if not in every critique, the 
 author was compared with some well-known writer 
 Dickens, Thackeray, George Meredith, Zola, Ibsen, 
 De Maupassant it does not seem to matter who it 
 is, so long as it is some one. As for Mr. Rudyard 
 Kipling, a writer who mentions India, China, Japan, 
 Siam, the French or Dutch Indies, or any place 
 within two or three thousand miles of them, is 
 certain to find himself compared with the astonish- 
 ingly talented author of "Soldiers Three," "The 
 Drums of the Fore and Aft," and a dozen other tales 
 that had made Mr. Kipling famous in India years 
 before his name had been heard in the West. 
 
 I know that whenever we visit a new place, we 
 have a ridiculous desire to compare it with some 
 totally different spot that is familiar to us; and I 
 suppose we make the comparison, either because 
 we want to show that we have been somewhere and 
 seen something, or because we are so devoid of 
 ideas or language to express them, that this com- 
 parison is our only means of description. Like 
 London, only bigger ; Petersburg in winter, but not 
 so cold ; bluer than the Mediterranean, and so on. 
 
 It seems to imply poverty of resource ; but if to help 
 261 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 readers to realise the appearance of a spot in New 
 Zealand, that place is compared with the Carse of 
 Stirling, the information is not of much use to those 
 who do not know their Scotland. 
 
 Is it the same with literary critics ? Hardly, I 
 fancy; because even though they write easily of 
 Lake Toba, the Thibetan highlands, or more or less 
 known writers, it can't give them any real satisfac- 
 tion, for their own names are but seldom disclosed. 
 
 Enlightened people who attend places of Christian 
 worship, often wish that the occupant of the pulpit 
 would read a sermon by some great divine, rather 
 than stumble through an original discourse, which 
 possibly arouses only the scorn, the resentment, or 
 the pity of his hearers. The preacher who is con- 
 scious of his own want of eloquence, or realises that 
 the spring of his ideas trickles in the thinnest and 
 most uncertain of streams, may seek to improve his 
 language, or replenish his own exhausted stock of 
 subjects, by studying the sermons of abler men. I 
 doubt if he is greatly to be blamed. Some illustrious 
 writers have won renown after a diligent study of 
 the works of dead authors, and a suggestion of the 
 style of a famous master may be observable in the 
 work of his admirer ; just as a modern painter may, 
 
 consciously or unconsciously, follow the methods, 
 
 262 
 
OF MAKING COMPARISONS 
 
 the composition, or the colour schemes of a genius 
 who has given his name to a school of imitators. 
 It would, however, be a little unreasonable to com- 
 pare all play-writers with Shakespeare, all essayists 
 with Macaulay. If there is nothing new under the 
 sun, two or more men or women, contemporaries, 
 may have the same ideas on a given subject without 
 either being open to a charge of plagiarism. They 
 may express the same ideas differently, or put 
 different ideas in somewhat the same style of lan- 
 guage : both may have drawn inspiration from a 
 more or less original source, not generally known 
 or quoted in all these cases comparisons may be, 
 and often are, simply inept. Some subjects are not 
 yet entirely exhausted, and while it is interesting to 
 compare the different views of recognised authorities, 
 it is annoying to both writers and readers to find 
 that the highest flight of criticism of a new work 
 seems often to consist in mentioning the names of 
 other writers on the same subject as though it 
 were, in a sense, their personal property, or they 
 had some vested interest in it, by reason of discovery 
 or continual harping on that particular theme. I 
 suppose reviewers, except in a few instances, have 
 no time to really read the books they criticise, and 
 
 judge them on their merits; but, if they could, it 
 263 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 would be more satisfactory to possible readers, who, 
 as things are, can form very little opinion of what 
 a book contains, its relative value or worthlessness, 
 from statements like this, which purports to be an 
 extract from a review in a leading London paper : 
 
 " The opening chapters have a savour of Dickens ; the 
 climax is almost Zolaesque." 
 
 Or this : 
 
 " The knowledge of character revealed reminds us of 
 George Eliot's 'Scenes of Clerical Life.'" 
 
 You will think that one who wanders from an 
 infantile legend about the word postscript to a growl 
 anent newspaper reviews, is indifferently qualified 
 to criticise any one or anything. As a letter-writer 
 I acknowledge that I am inconsequent. I do not 
 even seek to be otherwise. 
 
 264 
 
XXXII 
 A CHALLENGE 
 
 OH ! Oh ! Oh ! What a storm ! But are 
 you not a little unreasonable ? 
 
 You are not a circulating library, you say, nor 
 a railway book-stall ; you don't want to hear tales 
 of forest and flood which have no personal interest 
 for you or me; and you cannot carry on a corre- 
 spondence with a phrase-book, a thing that has no 
 existence as a human being, and, when not lectur- 
 ing you, or taking advantage of your good-nature 
 to air boring platitudes, is doling out little stories 
 to you, as though you were a child in a Sunday 
 School. 
 
 My dear lady, I hope that you feel better after 
 that tirade ; but as you have attacked me with 
 violence, and at all points at once, I claim the right 
 to defend myself, and again I say you are unreason- 
 able. We were never strangers to each other, or 
 
 so it seems to me, but circumstances and a certain 
 265 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 mental attraction drew us into friendship. In the 
 delight of your society I realised what it would be 
 to me if, through that friendship, I might win your 
 affection. I even dreamed that I might compel the 
 impossible, and attain to an earthly paradise of sweet 
 alliance whence no mortal promises and no inspired 
 writings could ever win me. 
 
 Whilst we dream of life's big possibilities, its 
 little duties drive us where they will. We were 
 parted, and, if I do not now remind you of that 
 time, it is because I know that there are few things 
 a woman hates more than to be told she once, by 
 word or deed, showed any tender feeling for a man 
 who no longer holds the same place in her regard. 
 You went and I stayed ; you spoke and I believed ; 
 and what I did not say was only what you told me 
 not to repeat, lest parting should seem over-hard 
 to bear. Then I wrote and you wrote, and, at first, 
 your letters were so fine a gift that they almost 
 consoled me for your absence, and, in my great 
 gratitude, I wrote some of the thoughts of my 
 inmost heart. My fervour seemed to frighten you, 
 and the chill of your surroundings came through 
 your letters to me. It may have been the fault of 
 those about you ; it may have been that you were 
 
 tried beyond endurance, possibly even that I, in 
 
 266 
 
A CHALLENGE 
 
 some indirect way, was a cause of your distress. 
 But you never said so; you never took me into 
 your confidence and frankly told me you were in 
 any trouble ; only your letters went through those 
 phases which I, once, cynically suggested were the 
 common fate of those whose friendship could not 
 survive a real separation. I was too slow to at 
 once trim my sails to the varying breeze, nor could 
 I call back letters which were already on their way. 
 Therefore I fell under your displeasure, and you 
 ordered me to write only of " the daily round, the 
 common task." I obeyed you, as nearly as I was 
 able. When you asked me to tell you of what I 
 saw, of what I was doing, I attempted to do so, and 
 to make the telling as little personal as I could. 
 To weary you with the trivialities of my daily life, 
 to describe to you the wearisome people I met, 
 the banalitcs they uttered that was beyond me. 
 Therefore, to try and interest you, I gave you the 
 best of what had interested me, and even that was 
 only done with some sacrifice, for you know my 
 time is not all my own. Naturally those letters 
 were empty of personal reference. To have written 
 of myself would have been to write of you, and 
 that might have brought down on my head another 
 
 storm of invective. I am in the position of the 
 267 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 burnt child : I dread the fire. Even now I dare not 
 accept your invitation. I might write, and, before 
 the letter could reach you, receive from you another 
 missive, telling me your present letter was written 
 under an impulse you regret but cannot explain, 
 and that of course it meant nothing. You would 
 add that you delight in the discussion of abstract 
 questions, and queer little stories are, to you, as 
 rain to dry land. Then I can imagine the sternly 
 traced characters of that other destroying scroll, 
 in which you would sum up the tale of my sins, 
 after reading such a letter as I might send in answer 
 to your present message of discontent and provo- 
 cation. So, I warn you. I shall give you time to 
 think ; in spite of your scoffing, I shall continue to 
 write to you as I have done in these latter days; 
 and then and then your blood be on your own 
 head. If the outward cold of damp and fog, of 
 weeks of sunless gloom and surroundings of rain- 
 drenched rows of hideous dwellings, muddy roads, 
 sullen skies, and leaden seas produce what you no 
 doubt think is a virtuous frame of mind, when the 
 state of the crops and the troubles of the farmers 
 are the only matters with which a conscience- 
 burdened woman can occupy her mind, I shall 
 
 pander to your appetite, and write to you of famine 
 268 
 
A CHALLENGE 
 
 and plague, the prospects of the poppy (the opium 
 poppy, you understand) and I will even stretch a 
 point to discuss the silver question and the fate of 
 the rupee. If, on the other hand, you throw discre- 
 tion to the winds ; if in that atmosphere where you 
 say you are always frozen, " outside and in," you 
 pine for a glimpse of sunlight ; if you like to watch 
 a conflagration when at a safe distance from the 
 flames, or even if the contortions of the cockchafer, 
 when impaled by the pin, excite your amusement; 
 then also I will help you to realise these very 
 reasonable wishes. Yes, then I will write you a 
 love-letter that will be but a poor substitute for 
 the impassioned words that should stir your heart, 
 were once my lips within reach of yours. 
 
 Even from here I see you smile ; even now I 
 hear you say, " Well, write after all vivisection 
 has benefited the race, and the contortions of the 
 cockchafer will perhaps distract one's attention for 
 a moment from the eternal monotony of the narrow 
 life." 
 
 269 
 
XXXIII 
 IN EXILE 
 
 IN order that I may keep on perfectly safe ground, 
 and successfully resist the temptation to depart 
 from my resolve, I will tell you a story of my visit 
 to Burmah, where, wandering aimlessly, I found 
 an old friend in a distinguished Indian civilian, who 
 invited me to accompany him on a tour of inspec- 
 tion. I gladly accepted his invitation, and we had 
 been travelling for some time, driving, riding, walk- 
 ing, and, finally, after rafting over a magnificent 
 series of rapids, had been some days paddling down 
 the river in house-boats, when we reached a remote 
 inland station called Phatmah. I caught my first 
 view of the place as our boat swung round a bend in 
 the great river, disclosing a reach of brown water, 
 enclosed between high, jungle-covered banks, and 
 shut in, at the end, by a green hill, crowned by a 
 plank bungalow with a mat roof. 
 
 The boat was soon alongside the rough landing- 
 270 
 
IN EXILE 
 
 stage, where a young civilian, introduced as Basset, 
 was waiting to receive his chief. We climbed the 
 steep hill, and Basset conducted us to the house 
 devoted to our shelter for the couple of days we 
 were to spend at Phatmah. 
 
 In my two days' stay there, I had ample oppor- 
 tunities of seeing the place, and realising its few 
 attractions and its many drawbacks. There was 
 a tiny native village on the bank of one of the 
 two streams that here united in one great river, and 
 flowed in stately, ever-widening progress for over 
 two hundred miles before it reached the sea: two 
 hundred miles of virgin forest, save for the native 
 villages and clearings that lined the banks at un- 
 certain intervals. A few jungle tracks leading to 
 distant mines were the only apology for roads ; the 
 river was the real highway, and the sole means of 
 transport were native boats. Comfortable enough, 
 these boats, for men used to jungle travel; flat 
 and wide, with a palm-leaf roof, the fore-part occu- 
 pied by the crew, the after-part by passengers. 
 There was a deck of boards or split bamboos, and 
 you could only move about it by crawling on your 
 hands and knees. Entrance and exit were accom- 
 plished by the same means. A door, at the back 
 
 of the enclosed after-deck, led on to a bamboo 
 271 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 frame over the rudder ; the steersman sat on the 
 palm-leaf awning, and the only privacy was ob- 
 tained by hanging a screen between crew and 
 passengers. There was room for two mattresses 
 on the after-deck, and there the passengers sat or 
 lay through the blazing heat of the tropical day 
 and the star-lit stillness of the Burmese night. 
 
 At this station there dwelt, besides Basset, an 
 officer of police, another concerned with public 
 works, and an apothecary in charge of a hospital. 
 That was all. Their quarters were dotted about 
 on the high land behind Basset's bungalow. For 
 the rest, the eye was met by jungle near and far 
 endless jungle, and the river-reach. Silent and 
 placid the waters, moving along in brown eddies, 
 when, as now, the river was in flood; clear and 
 shallow, disclosing groups of rocks dotted about the 
 bed, in what was called the dry season. 
 
 At the time of our visit it was spring, and the 
 jungle, especially in certain parts of the mountainous 
 country, was a truly marvellous sight. The forest 
 had put on its wedding garment, and the new leaves 
 of many, even of most of the trees, were dazzling 
 in the brilliance of their colouring. The prevailing 
 hues were red and yellow; but then there were 
 
 shades of red and of yellow that one never seemed 
 272 
 
IN EXILE 
 
 to have dreamed of, such quantity, such intensity 
 that the eyes almost ached with gazing at the glory 
 of it all. 
 
 One is struck, especially in the East, by the wonder 
 of flowering trees, or the striking creepers that cling 
 to the tops of forest giants; but imagine these 
 same trees in all their height, their wealth of foliage, 
 and beauty of form, one mass of colour ! There 
 were trees of delicate lemon, of brilliant cadmium, 
 of deepest orange ; trees of such crimson that every 
 leaf looked as though it were dripping with fresh 
 blood ; trees of copper and pale pink, of terra-cotta 
 and scarlet all these in one pure colour, or inter- 
 mingled with every shade of green from palest apple, 
 through varying tones of emerald, to the shining 
 dark leaves that seemed all but black. Dotted 
 about, here and there, stood trees of some shade of 
 brown, or graceful forms clothed in darker or paler 
 heliotrope. The virgin Eastern forest is a sight to 
 see, but the glory of the jungle in the first freshness 
 of spring leafage is a revelation. 
 
 That jungle was one of the attractions of Phatmah ; 
 not monopolised by Phatmah, only shared, and 
 not to so large an extent as by a thousand other 
 places nearer the great hills. 
 
 Then there was the river reach, where all day 
 
 273 S 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 long the shadows crept gradually closer under one 
 bank as they were projected from the other; while 
 now and then a native boat passed up or down 
 the river, and, for a few minutes, broke the melan- 
 choly of that changeless stretch of water. The 
 sunsets made the last, and perhaps the greatest 
 attraction of Phatmah. Then, in the after-glow, 
 great beams of light would rise, fan-like, from east 
 and west, almost meeting in the zenith, and leave, 
 between their rays, sharply-defined, heavenly roads 
 of deepest blue ; while the soft white clouds, riding 
 through the sky, took shades of gold and rose and 
 pearly-grey, until the stars shone out and set all 
 the cicadas shrilling a chorus to waken every other 
 denizen of the jungle. 
 
 Sunsets cannot be commanded; they are inter- 
 mittent, and, though they are comforting in a 
 way they do not always come when they are most 
 wanted. In Phatmah it would rain in torrents on 
 the evening that you had set your heart upon see- 
 ing a gorgeous sunset, and, when it did not rain, it 
 was hotter than in almost any other spot in Burmah, 
 and that is saying a great deal. Moreover, it was as 
 dull probably as any place on earth, except to the 
 three white men who lived there and had their work 
 
 to do, or whose business took them, weekly, or at 
 274 
 
IN EXILE 
 
 least monthly, into some other more or less desolate 
 part of the district. 
 
 I noted these things in that first day I was at 
 Phatmah, while my friend and Basset were talking 
 about roads to be made and buildings constructed, 
 natives to be encouraged or sat upon, dacoits harried, 
 and all the things that make the life of the exiled 
 English officer in the outermost parts of the Empire. 
 I also observed Basset. I knew he had a wife, a girl 
 whom he had just married, when at home on leave 
 in England, and who was now in that house, across 
 the grass, a hundred yards away. I had not seen 
 Basset's wife, but I had heard of her from some 
 who had met her, before she left the last confines 
 of civilisation and started for what must in future 
 be her home. What I had heard made it seem 
 unlikely that Mrs. Basset would reconcile herself 
 to jungle life, and, when I understood Phatmah, 
 I thought it would be very surprising if such 
 a miracle could be wrought for the sake of 
 Basset. 
 
 Basset was a most excellent fellow, a good officer, 
 good to look at, lithe and well-made, a man who 
 had found favour with his seniors and was likely 
 to do well. He was young, but that was a fault for 
 which he was not responsible, and one that every 
 275 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 day was curing. And yet, when I saw Phatmah, 
 I thought Basset had been unwise, and when I 
 saw his wife, as I did the next day, I felt certain 
 of it. 
 
 I had been told she was very young in years and 
 child-like at that, nervous to the last degree, selfish, 
 unreasonable, full of fancies, and rather pretty 
 but the one or two ladies who were my informants 
 differed as to this last important particular. 
 
 What I saw for myself, when I went to call upon 
 " the only lady in Phatmah," was this : a glory 
 of fair waving hair framing a young, but not very 
 youthful face; a pallid complexion, and features 
 where nothing specially appealed for admiration ; a 
 voice that was not more than pleasant, and a figure 
 that, while very petite, seemed well enough shapen, 
 as far as could be seen under the garment of silk 
 and lace that must have been the first of its kind 
 to visit Phatmah. The house did not strike me as 
 showing more than the evidences of a young man's 
 anxiety to make it what he would call " fit for a 
 lady"; but then the resources of Phatmah were 
 strictly limited, the Bassets had only just, so to 
 speak, arrived, and things entrusted to the tender 
 mercies of river transport were often months upon 
 
 the way. On the whole there was nothing about 
 276 
 
IN EXILE 
 
 Mrs. Basset to excite either sympathy or interest, 
 if you had met her in any civilised place; but as 
 the only white woman in Phatmah, come here to 
 gain her first real experiences of life, scared by 
 frogs and lizards, and terrified by the many insects 
 that fly straight at you and stick on your hair, your 
 face, your clothes, one could not help feeling that 
 the experiment, if not a cruel one to her, was at 
 least thoughtless, and, if persisted in, might end 
 in disaster. 
 
 My friend and I exerted ourselves that after- 
 noon and evening (for the Bassets dined with us) to 
 put as good a complexion as we could on Burmah 
 in general and Phatmah in particular; and though, 
 to the ordinary spectator, we might have appeared 
 to succeed fairly well, I carried away with me 
 vague suspicions, born of my own observation and 
 the conversation I had had with the lady as we 
 sat and looked over that jungle -shrouded river- 
 reach, while the path to the stars grew an ever- 
 deepening blue, and she told me somewhat of herself 
 and her life. There was no doubt that she not 
 only looked dissatisfied, but felt it, and said it, 
 and took credit for her candour. Then she com- 
 plained that Phatmah offered no opportunities for 
 
 " getting into mischief," but that was probably 
 277 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 merely another way of saying that she was utterly 
 bored ; and, in truth, when she asked if I could 
 conceive a greater dulness, the trite reply that she 
 had her husband stuck in my throat, and I ad- 
 mitted that it was immeasurably dull, but talked 
 cheerfully of what it would be when communication 
 with the outside world was easier, and then fell 
 to asking her if she read, or played, or sang, or 
 sketched, as Phatmah seemed to be the very place 
 for study, or the practice of accomplishments. She 
 pleaded that she was too lately from school to 
 hanker after study, but became almost enthusiastic 
 on the subject of music. 
 
 Then our tete-a-tete was interrupted, and in the 
 evening the only thing that struck me was that, 
 for a girl so lately from school, our guest drank 
 rather more in quantity and variety than was usual, 
 and whenever in the after-days my thoughts went 
 back to Phatmah, I remembered this with an un- 
 comfortable feeling of the awful loneliness of that 
 reach of brown river, the boundless forest, and the 
 girl, left for days to her own devices, and the 
 possibility of " getting into mischief" by drowning 
 a craving, not for excitement so much as for the 
 companionship of her kind. 
 
 A hundred miles below Phatmah the river wound 
 278 
 
IN EXILE 
 
 through the plains in long reaches, six or seven 
 rrfiles in length; the country was more open, and 
 the banks were occasionally fringed with palms and 
 orchards surrounding the huts of a native hamlet. 
 The moon was waxing to the full, and, sitting at 
 the stern of my boat, looking back up the long 
 stretch of water bathed in mellow light, till the wide 
 band of silver narrowed to a point that vanished 
 in grey mist, I could not help thinking that, even 
 here, the sense of loneliness, of monotony, and 
 banishment, was less acute than in Phatmah's forest- 
 bound clearing. 
 
 Years passed, and I was again in Burmah, this 
 time with an object. I had forgotten all about the 
 Bassets: one does not remember people who live 
 in the East, only the places that are striking, and 
 the things seen or heard of that may become pro- 
 fitable in one way or another. I thought of my 
 friend, because he might be able to help me, but he 
 was away in another part of the province and I had 
 to journey alone. Officials are useful on their own 
 ground, and even when they are not personal friends, 
 they are, in the East at any rate, ready enough to 
 be hospitable. The advantage of "entertaining 
 
 angels unawares " is, however, all on their side, and 
 279 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 guests so soon recognise this fact, that they feel 
 under no obligation to their hosts, and seldom wish 
 to remember them if they meet them in Europe. 
 This is specially the case with English notabilities, 
 who seem to think that they have a prescriptive 
 right, not only to waste a man's time, but also to 
 use his house, stables, and servants, as at an hotel 
 where the visitor exercises every privilege except 
 that of making payment. Unfortunately for me, I 
 had to go beyond the region of even occasional 
 civilians, those isolated exiles whose houses the 
 stranger occupies, whether the master is present or 
 absent, and for some days I had to put up with the 
 Dak Bungalow and the chicken of happy despatch. 
 
 It was the very hottest time of the morning when 
 I arrived at such a bungalow in a small mining 
 village. I had been riding since dawn, and was 
 glad enough to turn into that weedy compound and 
 get off my pony. Whew ! the heat of it ! The 
 two or three sinewy hens, which by-and-by would 
 be slaughtered to make the traveller's holiday, 
 were sitting half-buried and wallowing in the dust, 
 with their wings spread out and their mouths open, 
 gasping for breath. It was a day when solids 
 liquefy, when inanimate objects develop an extra- 
 ordinary faculty for sticking to each other, and 
 
 280 
 
IN EXILE 
 
 when water no longer feels wet. There was not 
 a sign of any human being anywhere, and I went 
 round to the back premises to try and find the care- 
 taker. After a diligent search I discovered him, 
 fast asleep of course, and, while he went to prepare 
 a room, I unsaddled the pony and put it in the 
 stable. Then I went into the house and told the 
 servant to get me some food while I had a bath. 
 The process of catching the hen and cooking her 
 was a long one, and I was sleeping in a chair when 
 the man came to tell me the feast was ready. I 
 had an idea that I was not alone in the house, and, 
 when I questioned the caretaker, he said that there 
 was a lady who had arrived the night before and 
 had not appeared that morning. Our means of 
 conversation was limited to a few words, and I 
 could not make out who the lady was, or even 
 whether he knew her; but it seemed to me a curious 
 thing that a white woman should be there, and I 
 supposed she came from one of the big ruby mines ; 
 but even then it was strange that she should be 
 alone. I made further inquiries about the neigh- 
 bourhood, and learned that I was not more than a 
 day's journey from Phatmah. I knew it was some- 
 where about, but had not thought it so near; it 
 
 was not on the line of my objective, and I was not 
 281 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 interested in its exact position. Then some of my 
 bearers arrived with luggage, and I deliberately 
 settled myself for a siesta. 
 
 It was late afternoon when I awoke, and I deter- 
 mined to push on to another small place, which I 
 could just reach before darkness made further pro- 
 gress impossible. Even a short stage by night 
 would be preferable to the frightful heat and the 
 oppressive atmosphere of this lonely house, in its 
 neglected and overgrown garden, where one lean 
 chicken now scratched alone. Just then the care- 
 taker came to me and asked my advice about the 
 other guest. He had seen and heard nothing of 
 her for the whole day, and was afraid there must 
 be something amiss. That, I felt, was extremely 
 likely, especially when he told me he had knocked 
 at the door of her room and received no answer. I 
 did not at all like the mission, but there was nothing 
 for it but to go and see what was the matter. A 
 few steps took us to the door of the lady's room, and 
 I knocked, first gently, then loudly, but no sound 
 broke the ominous silence. Then I turned the 
 handle, only to find that the door was locked. As I 
 could not force it open without making a great 
 clatter, I went outside to try the windows. There 
 
 were two of these some height from the ground, and 
 282 
 
IN EXILE 
 
 it was difficult to get at them. The first was fast, 
 and from my insecure footing I could not force it ; 
 but with the second I was more fortunate, and as a 
 half-shutter sprang open, and a stream of light 
 poured into the dark room, I saw the form of a girl, 
 or woman, lying oathe bed, in an attitude that some- 
 how did not suggest sleep. I shouted at her, but she 
 never moved, and then I climbed into the room. I 
 noticed instantly that there was hardly anything 
 lying about the ill-furnished room, but, on a small 
 table near the bed, was an almost empty brandy 
 bottle and a glass. The woman was dressed in a 
 blouse and skirt, the only things she had taken off 
 being apparently her hat and shoes. She had her 
 back towards me, and the sunlight centred on a mass 
 of fair hair and gave it a deeper tinge. Before I put 
 my hand on her cold fingers I felt certain she was 
 dead, and as I gently turned her head and recognised 
 in the now grey features the face of the only white 
 woman in Phatmah, I don't think I was very much 
 surprised, though I was terribly shocked. Held 
 tightly in her other hand was a small empty bottle 
 that had once held chloral, and the faint sickly smell 
 of it hung in the heavy stifling atmosphere of that 
 bare and comfortless room. Poor lonely child, she 
 
 had managed to "get into mischief" after all. 
 283 
 
XXXIV 
 OF LOVE NOT IN FICTION 
 
 YOU have sent me the answer which I expected. 
 Now tell me how to write a love-letter that 
 shall speak no word of love a letter as full of 
 the passion, the boundless adoration, and the 
 faith of love, as the Chaurapanchasika, those fifty 
 distichs of Chauras that proclaimed his forbidden 
 worship of the lovely daughter of King Sundava. 
 The Brahman's lament won the king's heart and 
 saved the poet's life ; and I would learn of you 
 how to win a heart, and perhaps save more than 
 one life from shipwreck. After all, our civilisation 
 may, in its comparative refinement, be more cruel 
 than the unfettered caprice of an Eastern king 
 nineteen centuries ago. Tell me, tell me, you who 
 know, how can pen and ink be made to speak 
 with the force and persuasion of spoken words, 
 when half the world divides the writer from the 
 
 reader of poor halting sentences that must, of 
 
 284 
 
OF LOVE NOT IN FICTION 
 
 necessity, leave unsaid all that the heart yearns 
 to utter? 
 
 When eye can look into eye, when the stretched- 
 out hand meets a responsive touch, timid and 
 uncertain, or confident with the knowledge of 
 passionate love passionately returned, the words 
 that are spoken may be feeble, but the influence 
 of a loved presence will carry conviction, and 
 one voice awaken in one heart the music of the 
 spheres. Then the dullest day is bright, the 
 lovers' feet tread on air, day is a joy and night a 
 gladness, or at least a dream of delight. Then 
 life is divided between anticipation and reality. 
 No wonder the hours fly on wings ; no wonder the 
 thoughts suggested by brief absences are forgotten 
 in the wonder and delight of briefer meetings, till 
 the dread moment of separation comes, and aching 
 hearts too late realise the appalling suddenness of 
 the actual parting and the ceaseless regret for oppor- 
 tunities lost. You understand that my thoughts 
 are not of the devout lover who is going through a 
 short apprenticeship before signing a bond of per- 
 petual servitude or partnership, as the case may be. 
 That is a phase which, if it occasionally deserves 
 sympathy, seldom receives it; indeed, it hardly 
 
 awakens interest, except in those who wish to see 
 285 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 the preliminaries concluded, that their interest in the 
 principals may either cease, and give themselves 
 more freedom, or begin, and bring them some profit. 
 I appeal to you to tell me how to keep alive the 
 divine flame when oceans and continents divide two 
 loving hearts ; how to tell of longing and bitter 
 regret, of faith and love and worship, when such 
 words may not be written ; how to make personal 
 influence felt across five seas and through many 
 weary months ; how to kill doubt and keep strong 
 and faithful a priceless love, against which the stars 
 in their courses may seem ready to fight ; how, above 
 all, to help one who needs help, and warm sympathy, 
 and wise advice, so that, if it be possible, she may 
 escape some of life's misery and win some of 
 life's joy. 
 
 Journeying through this weary old world, who 
 has not met the poor struggling mortal, man or 
 woman, old or young, for whom the weal or woe of 
 life hangs in the balance, to turn one way or the 
 other, when the slightest weight is cast into either 
 scale ? Who has not been asked for sympathy or 
 advice, or simply to lend an ear to the voice of a 
 hopeless complaint ? Some feel the iron in their 
 souls far more keenly than others. While the strong 
 
 fight, the weak succumb, and the shallow do not 
 286 
 
OF LOVE NOT IN FICTION 
 
 greatly mind, after they have gone through a short 
 torture of what seems to them profound emotion. 
 But in their case sympathy is rather wasted, for, 
 however violent their grief, their tears are soon 
 dried, and it must have been written for them that 
 "joy cometh with the morning." 
 
 You know what it is when the heart seems to 
 struggle for more freedom, because it is choking 
 with a love it may not, or will not, express ; when, 
 in the absence of one face, all other companionship 
 is irksome, all conversation stale and unprofitable ; 
 when daylight wearies and night is cruelly wel- 
 come, because the struggle to play a part, and 
 pretend an interest one does not feel, is over, 
 and one stretches out one's arms to the darkness, 
 and whispers, "Come to me," to ears that cannot 
 hear. What strange unnatural creatures we are, 
 for we stifle the voices of our souls, and seem to 
 delight in torturing ourselves for the sake of some 
 idea born of a tradition, the value of which we 
 dare not even submit to the test of argument. If 
 in response to your heart's cry there came the one 
 whose presence you desire, you would instantly 
 torture yourself rather than confess your message. 
 Whatever it cost you, you would not only pretend 
 
 that the sudden appearance of the greatly beloved 
 287 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 was the last thing you wished for, but you might 
 even send him away with the impression that he 
 had deeply offended you. And yet Ah well ! this 
 artificial fortress we take such pains to build, and to 
 keep in repair, is not proof against every assault. 
 There are crises of life an imminent danger, the 
 presence or appearance of death, a sudden and 
 irresistible wave of passionate feeling, or a separa- 
 tion that has no promise of reunion before these 
 the carefully constructed rampart of convention and 
 outward seeming goes down like a house of cards. 
 
 " When a beloved hand is laid in ours, 
 When, jaded by the rush and glare 
 Of the interminable hours, 
 Our eyes within another's eyes see clear ; 
 When one world-deafened ear 
 Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed, 
 A bolt is shot back somewhere in the heart, 
 And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again ; 
 The eye sinks inward and the heart lies plain, 
 And what we mean we say, 
 And what we would we know." 
 
 There was a day which, to me, will ever be my 
 day of days halcyon hours of joy and gladness, 
 coloured by a setting of wondrous beauty, and 
 burdened by the fateful shadow of an inevitable 
 parting that would, in all human probability, be the 
 
 point where two lives, which had grown strangely 
 288 
 
OF LOVE NOT IN FICTION 
 
 and sweetly close, must divide, without any hope 
 of re-uniting. You remember how in that early 
 dawn we drove through the dewy grass, covered 
 with the fairies' dainty white gossamer kerchiefs, 
 lace cobwebs spread out to dry in the morning sun ; 
 and, as we left the town and made for the distant 
 mountains, the dark red road wound up and down 
 hills, through orchards and grass-land and forest, 
 till we gained a little village, where the road forked, 
 and a clear, rain-swollen stream slipped swiftly 
 past the picturesque brown cottages. Whilst the 
 horses were being changed, we strolled a little way 
 down the road, and watched a group of laughing 
 urchins, playing in that lilied stream like water- 
 babies. How they screamed with delight as their 
 small glistening bodies emerged from the shining 
 water to struggle up a crazy ladder that led from 
 the back of a hut down into the winding stream ; 
 and how the sun shone ! lighting the snow-white 
 plumage of a brood of solemn-looking ducks, sailing 
 majestically round the sedge-girt edges of a tiny 
 pool beneath the bridge. In that pool was mirrored 
 a patch of clear blue sky, and across it fell the 
 shadows cast by a great forest tree. That was " a 
 day in spring, a day with thee and pleasure!" 
 
 Then, as we drove on, there were heavenly glimpses 
 289 T 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 of sapphire hills, seen down long vistas through the 
 forest. For the last few miles, the road followed 
 the bank of a deep and rapid river, whose clear 
 waters reflected the graceful overhanging trees, 
 while the banks were buried in a thick maze of 
 ferns and grasses, and great shining patches of 
 buttercups and marigolds. 
 
 Were you sorry when the drive was over, and 
 our sweet converse perforce ended ? I wonder 
 would you have enjoyed it better had that exquisite 
 spot, in the depths of the forest, been ours alone 
 for that one day ? One day is so little in a life- 
 time, and yet what was ours was good ! Do you 
 remember how, in that far-off place, we met on the 
 road one whom you recognised, but whose face and 
 manner gave no clue to the romantic story of his 
 life, a story that would have brought him great 
 renown in the days when valour was accounted of 
 the highest worth ? You have not forgotten that, 
 nor yet the return drive, when, as we crested the 
 last hill, and began the steep and tortuous descent 
 into the plain, the lurid rays of the setting sun 
 threw crimson stains across dark pools of lotus- 
 bearing water, half-hidden by overhanging grasses 
 and the dank leaves of white-blossomed lilies. 
 
 Beneath us lay a wide stretch of swamp-land, the 
 290 
 
OF LOVE NOT IN FICTION 
 
 very picture of abandonment, desolation, and soli- 
 tude; heaps of up-turned earth, green with rank 
 vegetation, and pools of dead water, whose dark 
 shadows reflected the lambent fires of the western 
 horizon. A broken line of black trees stood clear 
 against the rapidly-darkening sky, but, as we reached 
 the foot of the hill, heaven and earth were wrapped 
 in the shadows of night. And then my day was 
 done. Doubt was buried, and the " big word " 
 bound our hearts in the joy of that priceless sym- 
 pathy which carries human aspirations beyond 
 the storm and stress of human life to a knowledge 
 of the Divine. We said little; when hearts are at 
 one, few words are needed, for either knows the 
 other's thoughts. But you were slow to unbend, 
 making a brave fight against fate, and keeping 
 true to your creed, though seven days would bring 
 the end. To me, the light of that one brilliant 
 day had been intensified by the rapidly approaching 
 shadow of the inevitable parting. I wonder now 
 that the bitterness of separation has come, now that 
 I vaguely ask myself what has happened to Time 
 since I lost you whether, if we could have that 
 day again, you would again be so merciless in your 
 determination to hold love in leash, and give no 
 
 sign of either the passion or the pain that was 
 291 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 tearing your heart. I think it was a hard fight, 
 for, though you concealed your thoughts, you could 
 not hide the physical effects of the struggle. Did 
 you know how your weariness distressed me, and 
 what I would have given to have the right to try 
 to comfort you ? 
 
 I have a confused memory of those other days. 
 Brief meetings and partings; insane desires to 
 make any excuse to write to you, or hear from 
 you, though I had but just left your presence; a 
 hopeless and helpless feeling that I had a thousand 
 things to say to you, and yet that I never could 
 say one of them, because the time was so short 
 that every idea was swallowed up in the ever- 
 present dread of your departure, and the ceaseless 
 repetition of your cry, " I cannot bear it, I cannot 
 bear it." From out that vague background shine 
 two stars, two brilliant memories to light the dark- 
 ness of the weary months until I see your face 
 again a blissful memory and a sign. All the 
 rest seems swallowed up in the bitterness of 
 that parting, which comes back like some horrible 
 nightmare. 
 
 Only black water under a heavy overcast sky; 
 only the knowledge that the end had come; that 
 
 what should be said must be said then, with the 
 292 
 
OF LOVE NOT IN FICTION 
 
 instant realisation that the pain of the moment, 
 the feeling of impotent rebellion against fate, de- 
 stroyed all power of reflection, and the impulse 
 to recklessness was only choked back by the cold 
 words of a publicly spoken farewell. Then rapid 
 motion, and in one minute the envious darkness 
 had taken everything but the horrible sense of loss 
 and inconsolable regret. Whatever my suffering, 
 it was worse for you; I at least was alone, alone 
 with a voice which ever murmured in my ears 
 that despairing cry, " I cannot bear it, I cannot 
 bear it." 
 
 When two who have been brought together, so 
 close together that they have said the " big word " 
 without faltering, are suddenly swept asunder by 
 the receding wave of adverse circumstances, there 
 must ever arise in their hearts that evil question, 
 " How is it now ? Is it the same ? Or have time, 
 and distance, and a thousand other enemies, so 
 filled the space between us that the memory of 
 either is growing dim, and the influence of the 
 other waning, waning till the absence of all binding 
 tie begins to feel like a very bond. Will the vision 
 simply fade gradually out of sight ? " For us there 
 is no promise, no tie, no protestations of fealty; 
 only knowledge, and that forced upon us rather 
 293 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 than sought. You give or you don't give, that is 
 all; if you also take away, you are within your 
 right. There may be reasons and reasons, I under- 
 stand them all; and I have only one desire, that 
 whatever prevails may secure you happiness. What 
 you can give seems to me so unlike what others 
 ever have to give, so infinitely beyond price, that, 
 where I might gain, it is not right that I should 
 speak. Therefore I cannot urge, I dare not even 
 plead, a cause that has less to recommend it than 
 the forlornest hope. 
 
 294 
 
XXXV 
 OF OBSESSION 
 
 IF that is irrevocable why, then, no more. You 
 can only decide, and while I would not have 
 you consider me, I do ask you to think of your- 
 self. I have no title to be considered, not the 
 remotest ; if I had, it might be different. Possibly, 
 even, I had better not write now, and yet I must, 
 though you say " Don't." It cannot matter for 
 this once, and after well, there may be no after. 
 We are curiously inconsistent and very hard to 
 understand; even when we think we know each 
 other well, we speak to conceal our thoughts ; and, 
 when we write (and it is often easier to write what 
 we mean than to say it) I wonder whether it occurs 
 to us how marvellously contradictory we can be, 
 and what difficult riddles we can frame, in two or 
 three pages of a letter that comes straight from the 
 heart and cries to be understood. Verily we are 
 the slaves of circumstance; but whilst we accept 
 295 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 that position, whilst we make sacrifices that can 
 be absolutely heroic, and dumbly suffer the cruci- 
 fixion of a lifetime, we want one other heart to 
 know and understand. There are few things harder 
 to bear than to stifle every strongest inclination, 
 every dearest hope, to shut the gate of life, to lock 
 it and throw away the key, with a determina- 
 tion to accept existence and make the best of it. 
 God knows how bitter is that renunciation, but, if 
 it be for another, and that other misunderstands, 
 then the cruelty of it all seems almost beyond 
 endurance. 
 
 If I may write no more to you, you may never 
 understand. If I saw you, later, under other 
 circumstances, I could not speak; so there can be 
 no explanation for me. I do not plead, I may not. 
 Not once, but often you have heard my profession 
 of faith a gift is good, because it is given freely. 
 The greatest good, the most priceless gift, is love. 
 It is valuable because it is free. You cannot buy 
 it or compel it; even when given, you cannot lock 
 it up, or chain it down, and say, " It is mine for 
 ever." It comes, and it is the joy of life ; it goes, 
 and it is pity, misery, despair. It is as useless 
 to rave against the loss, as to shake one's fist at 
 
 Zeus and his thunderbolts. If I ever had, then 
 296 
 
OF OBSESSION 
 
 I was thrice-blessed. If I have no longer, the fault 
 is probably mine, and I have still the knowledge of 
 what was. Not God Himself can deprive me of 
 that. I would have liked that you should know all 
 I yearn to say, but because you are not here to 
 tell me, " Say it, say it all," therefore I must keep 
 silence. Perhaps I do not read aright all you 
 mean ; but some at least I know, and that is what 
 you would have me understand without any shadow 
 of doubt. That I realise, down to the very lowest 
 depths of the suffering which is dumb for sheer 
 pain ; and I can say nothing, absolutely nothing, 
 because I have no right; nay, more, you tell me 
 to be silent. Surely you know, you know, what 
 I would say ? You remember how one evening 
 we rode out by the rocks, and we talked of a 
 story of faith and high resolve, and you said you 
 did not think I was capable of a like devotion. 
 That was a fairy tale ; but what I said then, I 
 repeat, with greater confidence, now ; with hope, 
 yes, I could stand and wait with none, per- 
 haps not. 
 
 That is all of me. What your letters have been 
 you know, or at least you can guess, for I have 
 answered them, and in those answers you could 
 
 read all I might not say. " There must be an end, 
 297 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 and it is not because of the trouble, but it is because 
 of the pleasure." You could not tell me that and 
 think, because you bid me, I would not answer? 
 Nor does one forget fortunately though if to 
 forget be fortunate, I suppose to remember must 
 be unfortunate, only it does not seem so to me. 
 " Silence is a great barrier " yes, death is silence, 
 and the greatest barrier of all, and the silence of 
 the living is, in a way, harder to bear, for it seems 
 so needlessly unkind. Silence, determined, un- 
 broken silence, will, I think, kill all feeling. I will 
 not accept that as your last word, not yet ; but if, 
 when you receive this, you make that the beginning 
 of silence, then I shall know, and I will not break 
 it. Only I beg of you not to do so hard a thing as 
 this, for I will gladly accept any less cruel sentence 
 if you will not make yourself as dead to me. I 
 have not done anything that need drive you to issue 
 such an edict. Will not some less hopeless judg- 
 ment, something short of eternal silence, serve until 
 I bring on myself this ghastly doom ? You are 
 thinking that it was I who said, "All or nothing," 
 I who said friendship was too hard a road to tread. 
 That was before before I had tried; before I 
 knew all I know now. You hid your heart far out 
 
 of sight, and I never dared to guess I do not now. 
 298 
 
OF OBSESSION 
 
 But you went, and I, remembering how you went, 
 catch at straws; for, as the Eastern says, I am 
 drowning in the deepest sea. Do not think that is 
 extravagant; it is because I have learned to count 
 the unattainable at its true value that I also realise 
 the immensity of the loss. We stood on either side 
 of a wall, and because the wall was near to me I 
 looked over it and almost forgot its existence. 
 You, standing farther off, saw always the wall, 
 and it shut me out. Then I, thinking it could 
 be nothing to you, tried to get across the in- 
 tervening space, and so fell, hurting myself, as 
 those who fall must do. It was not a caprice, not 
 an impulse that took me, it was the victory of the 
 uncontrollable. So, doubting me, and to do right 
 for both, you said, " I will build a wall too, stronger 
 and higher, and then we can sometimes look over 
 and talk to each other, and everything will be well." 
 But it is not well. Only you have vowed yourself 
 to the work, and, if it seems hard, you say that all 
 things are hard, and this must be good because it 
 costs so much. To suffer is bad enough ; to give 
 suffering where you would strain every nerve to 
 give only joy is so hard that, to help the other, 
 seems worth any conceivable pain to oneself. What 
 
 can it matter how it affects me, if I can do some 
 299 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 little good for you ; something that may save you 
 a little pain, win you a little joy ? Believe me, I 
 have no wish but this. Whatever my selfishness 
 would suggest is not really me, for "Thy law is 
 my delight"; nay more, it is my delight to try 
 to anticipate your wish. I have no fear except 
 that you should misunderstand me, that I should 
 misunderstand you. I am my own to offer, yours 
 to accept equally if, by effacement, I can save 
 you the smallest regret, help you for a few 
 yards over the stony path of life by keeping 
 silence, you will neither see nor hear from me 
 again. I would you did not doubt, perhaps you 
 do not now; at least you cannot distrust, and in 
 this I shall not fail. I shall not say farewell. 
 I will never say that; but through the silence, 
 if so it must be, sometimes, on a day in spring, 
 perhaps, will come the echo of a past that you 
 can recall with nothing more than regret. And 
 that is what I do not quite understand. You say, 
 "In all the years to come I shall not regret." Not 
 regret what has been, what might have been, or 
 what will be then ? Therein lies all the difference, 
 and therein lies the riddle, there and in those words, 
 " I am sometimes " How am I to supply the 
 
 rest? It might be any one of so many things. 
 300 
 
OF OBSESSION 
 
 Could it ever be that you are sometimes driven to 
 wonder whether everything I could offer is worth 
 anything you would give ? " Many waters cannot 
 quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if a man 
 would give all the substance of his house for love, it 
 would be utterly contemned." If that be true, and 
 it has high authority, then in that one sentence 
 is contained the conclusion of the whole matter. 
 It tells you all that you can wish to know for your- 
 self and myself and even for others. I have done ; 
 an accident drew from me an acknowledgment of 
 my own hurt when it seemed unlikely that the fact 
 should interest you. Now I am so unfortunate that, 
 hurt myself, I have made you suffer as well. I have 
 nothing to offer to help you, for all I had is yours 
 already. And so the end : if so you deem it best. 
 " St fttais Dieu" I would use what power I had 
 to spare you a moment's pain and give you such 
 happiness that you should forget the meaning of 
 the word " suffering." How utterly powerless we 
 are, how impotent to save those we love, when no 
 offer of the best we have, no devotion, no self- 
 effacement, will secure the happiness of one other 
 being, whose every pulse throbs in unison with ours, 
 yet between whom and us there is fixed the great 
 
 gulf of our own conventions. Is the end of all 
 301 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 human hopes, all human sorrows, described in these 
 two lines ? 
 
 " Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee 
 There was, and then no more of Thee and Me." 
 
 " Let me say it whilst I have the courage." 
 Suppose you had the greater courage to write, "I 
 will never say it." Let me rather cry with Saul, 
 " Farewell to others, but never we part." And 
 yet I know that we have already parted to meet 
 no more. 
 
 302 
 
XXXVI 
 OF PARADISE LOST 
 
 BY a dispensation of that Providence which, if 
 seldom kind, is sometimes less than malignant, 
 I received your two letters together the poison 
 and the antidote. I looked at the dates on the 
 postmarks, and I took the poison first. It did not 
 take long to read, and I am glad now that I can 
 truly tell you that my impulse was to ignore your 
 expressed wish, your command, and to at once tell 
 you that I did not believe a single word of those 
 lines, which, if meant to hurt, could not have been 
 better conceived, for truly they were coldly cruel. 
 Indeed, the note was hateful, and so absolutely 
 unlike you, that it must have defeated its object, 
 had that been really as you declared it. If you 
 know me at all, you must have realised that, if I 
 know the Kingdom of Heaven may not be taken 
 by storm, I should never seek for the charity which 
 is thrown to the importunate. But the other letter 
 303 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 was there, and in it I found such measure of con- 
 solation as is vouchsafed to those who find that, 
 if their path is difficult, they will not tread it alone, 
 and it tends upward. It may not be all we desire 
 how should it be in a world which is full of 
 
 " Infinite passion 
 And the pain of finite hearts that yearn " ? 
 
 Still, it is much ; and, at the worst, it is death 
 without its sting. 
 
 Do I know ? I think I do. You see, if the future 
 contains nothing for me, I have still the past and, 
 in that past, I have learnt to implicitly trust you, 
 and you have let me see enough of your very self to 
 make me disregard even what comes from you, when 
 it has nothing in common with your real character. 
 But I shall not forget I do not do that easily at 
 any time and, if all else faded, I could not forget 
 our friendship. Do you think the first man and 
 woman ever forgot that once they dwelt in Paradise ? 
 It was the recollection of all they had lost which was 
 the beginning of mortal suffering. If that " pleasant 
 place " is closed to me, I am not likely to forget that 
 I have seen the gate, that I know where to find it, 
 and that there is but one. Yes, I understand ; and 
 the proof is, that in my regret there is no bitterness 
 34 
 
OF PARADISE LOST 
 
 now. I also remember what I said when we leant 
 over the balustrade of a verandah and looked out 
 into the silver sheen of a ravishing Eastern night, 
 wherein the frail chalices of the moonflower shone 
 like great, milk-white stars in their leafy sky, while 
 from the trellis-work beneath us rose the faint, sweet 
 scent of those strange blossoms. You have taught 
 me how great the exception can be. The cynicism 
 is only skin-deep, and I shall never swell the ranks 
 of the Faithful though I still think there is much 
 to be said for the Faith. The creed, like other 
 creeds, suffers by the perfunctory service of those 
 who profess to be true believers. As for the way 
 you have chosen, I think it is the right way, at 
 least it is the best to follow now ; and, to help you 
 tread it well, I also say, " God be with you." They 
 need not be my last words to you, for, if ever my 
 loyal service can further any wish of yours, our 
 friendship is not so poor a thing that you would 
 hesitate to give me the satisfaction of doing for you 
 anything that lies in my power. That was in the 
 bond we made long ago. If we cannot forget what 
 came into our dream of mutual trust and intellectual 
 companionship, is it not better to bravely accept the 
 fiat of Destiny and make the past a link to bind us 
 more closely to the terms of our bond ? Even so 
 305 u 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 we may still help each other, still cleave to the 
 sympathy which we know will never fail us ; and, 
 if our paths divide, the earth is not wide enough 
 to keep us asunder, should we ever try to say 
 " Adieu." 
 
 306 
 
XXXVII 
 "TO MARY, IN HEAVEN" 
 
 THIS is my last letter to you, Carina, and 
 I am writing in the belief that you are in 
 heaven. But are you really there, and, if you are, 
 is all well with you ? Have you everything you 
 desire and no regrets ? It seems such a very long 
 way off, you have such small control over the 
 means of transport, and so much depends on hear- 
 say, that one may, I trust, be pardoned for enter- 
 taining doubt where all is so indefinite. Then the 
 accounts of that blessed place that have come to 
 different parts of the world, though always inspired, 
 differ so materially. To mortals, immortality is a 
 difficult conception. To finite minds, conscious of 
 the grasp of a limited intelligence, but still very 
 much alive to the evidence of the senses we possess, 
 the idea of a heaven, somewhere beyond the reach 
 of earthly imagination, is perhaps more difficult still. 
 So many millions come into the world, and we 
 307 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 realise fairly well how and why they come; they 
 all, without exception, go, and none ever return, 
 and some, we are told, are in heaven, and some 
 elsewhere. The time here is so absurdly short, 
 and the eternity there is so impossibly long, that, 
 if our chances of spending the latter in joy, or 
 sorrow, depend on what we do in the former, it 
 is only natural that this one idea should occupy 
 our thoughts to the exclusion of all others. Yet 
 there, again, we are such frail things, that in this 
 way lies what we call madness. 
 
 If you have solved the great problem, can you 
 not enlighten my darkness, my craving for exact 
 knowledge? Write to me, Carina, write and tell 
 me what it is all like. If I have wearied you with 
 my feeble, little tales, my stupid questions, my 
 pictures that must seem to you so flat and colour- 
 less in the glory of that better world, my vain 
 imaginings and poor human longings, will you not 
 take pity on me and gladden my weary eyes with 
 a word-painted vision of the Heavenly City, the 
 fields of Elysium, or at least the houris who are 
 to be the portion of the Faithful ? I do not know 
 which paradise you are in. See, I wait with the 
 pencil on the paper : will you not make it write ? 
 
 You do not heed. Perhaps, after all, you are 
 308 
 
"TO MARY, IN HEAVEN" 
 
 not there ; or is it possible that you have forgotten 
 this small planet and those you left here, and that 
 you find more congenial friends in the company of 
 the angels ? I dare say it is natural, and I do not 
 upbraid you ; but some day I may reach that desired 
 haven, and I want you to remember that I have 
 earned your consideration by my discretion, if you 
 can spare me no more tender feeling. If, for in- 
 stance, I had sent you these letters while you were 
 still on earth, and you had incautiously left them 
 about (as you would have been certain to do), 
 quite a number of them would have compromised 
 you in the opinion of the servant girl, and she is 
 the origin of a vast deal of earthly gossip. I sup- 
 pose you have no servant girls and no gossip where 
 you are: the absence of effect depending on the 
 want of cause. Happy heaven ! and yet I believe 
 that there are people on this earth who really enjoy 
 being the subject of gossip. To them the sugges- 
 tions of scandal are as the savour of salt, as danger 
 is to the sportsman ; the wilder the suggestion, the 
 more amusing the game ; and there are even those 
 who, when tattle wanes and desire fails, say or 
 insinuate, to their own detriment, the thing that is 
 not, rather than disappear into obscurity. It is 
 
 the same desire for notoriety and attention which 
 309 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 prompted Martin to set fire to York Minster, and 
 led the woman to complain to the vicar that her 
 husband had ceased to beat her. 
 
 Up in the serene atmosphere of those heavenly 
 heights you have no cathedrals, no husbands, no 
 wives, no work, no play, no food, no frocks pardon 
 me, that is a slip of the pen; of course you have 
 frocks, but what else have you ? Is it not some- 
 times just a little monotonous ? If life is so short 
 that it amounts to little more than the constant fear 
 of coming death, are you not sometimes overawed 
 by the contemplation of eternity? But, after all, 
 the dwellers in heaven may never think. Never to 
 remember, and so never to regret ; never to think, 
 and so never to desire that is a possible scheme 
 of existence where a thousand years might be as 
 one day, and to the weary it would mean rest. But 
 so would oblivion, and we are not altogether satisfied 
 with the thought of oblivion. 
 
 " Oh, Threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise ! 
 One thing is certain This Life flies ; 
 
 One thing is certain, and the rest is Lies ; 
 The Flower that once has blown for ever dies." 
 
 That is well enough, but it is not an inspired 
 writing ; it is a cry rather of despair than conviction, 
 
 and oft repeated to make up for want of certainty. 
 
 310 
 
"TO MARY, IN HEAVEN" 
 
 Of things mundane we have acquired a tolerable 
 knowledge, however much there is yet to be learnt ; 
 but that in us which we call the Soul will never 
 be satisfied till it learns something of the hereafter. 
 Who will teach it ? Do we know more now than 
 they did when men fought with bows and arrows, 
 or flint weapons, instead of hundred-ton guns fired 
 by electricity ? 
 
 Standing alone in some vast solitude where man 
 and his doings have no part, have made no mark 
 and left no trace where face to face with Nature, 
 with mountain and plain, forest and sea and a limit- 
 less firmament, man's somewhat puny efforts are 
 forgotten, there comes an intense longing for some- 
 thing higher and nobler than the life we live. The 
 soul of man cries out for light, for some goal to- 
 wards which he may by effort and sacrifice attain ; 
 for he is not lacking in the qualities that have made 
 heroes and martyrs throughout all the ages. If he 
 cannot rend the veil and scale the heights of heaven, 
 he can grasp the things within his reach ; and, realis- 
 ing that there are problems beyond his intelligence, 
 he can yet give his life to make easier the lot of his 
 fellow-creatures, seeking humbly, but courageously, 
 to follow, no matter how far behind, in the footsteps 
 of his Great Exemplar. Nor need his efforts be 
 3" 
 
UNADDRESSED LETTERS 
 
 less strenuous, his object less worthy, because this 
 passionate cry of a voice, stilled centuries ago, strikes 
 a sympathetic chord in his heart. 
 
 " Yet ah ! that Spring should vanish with the Rose ! 
 That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close ! 
 
 The Nightingale, that in the branches sang, 
 Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows ! 
 
 Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield 
 One glimpse if dimly, yet indeed reveaPd, 
 
 To which the fainting Traveller might spring, 
 As springs the trampled herbage of the field ! 
 
 Would but some winged Angel, ere too late, 
 Arrest the yet-unfolded Roll of Fate, 
 
 And make the stern Recorder otherwise 
 Enregister, or quite obliterate ! 
 
 Ah Love, could you and I with Him conspire 
 To grasp this sorry Scheme of things entire, 
 Would not we shatter it to bits and then 
 Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire ! " 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON d^ Co. 
 Edinburgh &* London 
 
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