th of contents, and in that labyrinth nothing to
explain the preface.

'Lean near to life. Lean very near--nearer.

'Life is web, and therein nor warp nor woof is, but web only.

'It is for this I am Catholick in church and in thought, yet do let
swift Mood weave there what the shuttle of Mood wills.'

These were the opening phrases of the preface, but those which followed
were less easy to understand. Then came 'Stark: A Conte,' about a
midinette who, so far as I could gather, murdered, or was about to
murder, a mannequin. It was rather like a story by Catulle Mendes in
which the translator had either skipped or cut out every alternate
sentence. Next, a dialogue between Pan and St. Ursula--lacking, I felt,
in 'snap.' Next, some aphorisms (entitled 'Aphorismata' [spelled in
Greek]). Throughout, in fact, there was a great variety of form; and
the forms had evidently been wrought with much care. It was rather the
substance that eluded me. Was there, I wondered, any substance at all?
It did now occur to me: suppose Enoch Soames was a fool! Up cropped a
rival hypothesis: suppose _I_ was! I inclined to give Soames the benefit
of the doubt. I had read 'L'Apres-midi d'un Faune' without extracting a
glimmer of meaning. Yet Mallarme--of course--was a Master. How was I to
know that Soames wasn't another? There was a sort of music in his
prose, not indeed arresting, but perhaps, I thought, haunting, and laden
perhaps with meanings as deep as Mallarme's own. I awaited his poems
with an open mind.

And I looked forward to them with positive impatience after I had had a
second meeting with him. This was on an evening in January. Going into
the aforesaid domino room, I passed a table at which sat a pale man with
an open book before him. He looked from his book to me, and I looked
back over my shoulder with a vague sense that I ought to have recognised
him. I returned to pay my respects. After exchanging a few words, I said
with a glance to the open book, 'I see I am interrupting you,' and was
about to pass on, but 'I prefer,' Soames replied in his toneless voice,
'to be interrupted,' and I obeyed his gesture that I should sit down.

I asked him if he often read here. 'Yes; things of this kind I read
here,' he answered, indicating the title of his book--'The Poems of
Shelley.'

'Anything that you really'--and I was going to say 'admire?' But I
cautiously left my sentence unfinished, and was glad that I had done so,
for he s