sides, as I said before, it is a born actor--and in face of the
big stick it is far safer to pretend faith than show ridicule. If we can
have children in the next world--and I have just received a communication
from an ardent spiritualist informing me that an earthly wife can become
a mother through keeping in touch with her dead husband--I think that,
metaphorically speaking, the paternal cane will be "sloshed" both ways.
That is to say, Little Johnny, who has been laid across mother's knee and
beaten by her with a slipper for stealing jam, will, in his turn, strike
mother across the knuckles with a ruler when she, too, is caught
"pinching" half-a-crown out of father's trouser pocket. If heaven be
nothing else, it will surely be a place of justice. The trouble with
this old earth is that justice is only meted out by those who have not
yet been found out. In heaven I hope that people who preach will be
punished if they do not put their preaching into practice. It will, I
fear, empty any number of pulpits--alike in the churches, the public
parks, and the home.

But heaven will be none the worse for a little silence. As it is, we
earth-wallahs hear such a lot of high-falutin and observe so much low
cunning that no wonder youth, as it grows more "knowing," becomes more
cynical. It is only when a young man has arrived at years of discretion
that he realises that the most discreet thing to do is to be indiscreet
while holding a moral mask up. When he realises this, he will find it
more politic to keep one eye closed. Brotherly love has to be blind in
one eye. Justice finds it safer to be blind in both. And the fool is he
who keeps both eyes open, yet sees nothing. And so most grown-up people
are fools! That is why they stick together in war-time and always
_quarrel_ at a Peace Conference.

_Beginnings_

Beginnings are always difficult--when they are not merely dull. People
worth knowing are always hard to get to know. On the other hand, people
with whom you become friendly at once usually end by boring you unto
death by the end of the first fortnight. People whom it is easy to get
to know, as a rule know so many people that to be counted among their
acquaintances is like belonging to a friendly host, each one of whom
ought to wear around his neck a regimental number to differentiate him
from his neighbour. But the friend who is born a friend--and some people
are born friends, just as other people are