iful "Denys
L'Auxerrois," the imaginary portrait of a young vine-dresser, who
was attractive beyond ordinary mortals and lived, until his fall
and deterioration, on fruit and water. The words, "a natural
simplicity in living" remained in my memory. I resolved to read
more carefully the book on scientific diet. Who can say, I
thought, what changes for the better may come to me if I live on
a strictly scientific and natural diet?

I fasted one whole day, and then had a breakfast of cherries, in
the middle of the day a meal of fruit, and walking in the
afternoon--a gray, rainy day--I felt so light, so different, and
the gray sky looked so sweet and familiar, that I was reminded of
the luminous visions of my boyhood. It was a distinct revelation.
This Pan-like, almost Bacchic feeling, did not last, however, nor
was I always able to maintain my new method of diet, though I
tried to do so. I made the attempt, however, but I imagine I was
more than usually run down. I would walk miles in the hope of
feeling less restless. One holiday I walked down to Glenelg,
having only had grapes for my dinner, and lying on the beach I
looked through a strong binocular glass I had borrowed at the
girls bathing. And the beauty of their faces in their frames of
hair, of their arms, of their figures, seen through their wet
clinging dresses, satisfied me and filled me with joy, gave me
for a short time that peace and content--in harmony with the
strong sunlight on the waves and the rhythmic surf on the
shore--I was seeking. The summer evenings on the pier or along
the beach had a peculiar savor; one felt the youth and beauty
there even on dark nights, the air was fragrant with them, white
dresses and summer hats disappearing down the beach or over the
sand hills. It was easy--doubtless justifiable sometimes--to put
a lewd construction on these disappearances; but I felt it need
not have been so; that it was not necessary that youth and
beauty, even the sexual act itself if led up to by love, should
be a subject of giggling and sniggering. I always left the beach
and its flitting summer dresses with a sigh.

A., after writing once, ceased writing at all and once more her
mother and I were left in a state of anxiety and suspense. At
last I determined to go to Melbourne to look for her, the only