beautiful places on this earth are, according to them, just those
places which you have never visited, nor is there any likelihood of you
ever being fortunate enough to do so. If you tell them that the most
lovely spot you have ever seen is Beaulieu in May, when the visitors
have gone, they will immediately tell you that it isn't half so lovely
as Timbuctoo--even when the visitors are there. Should you talk to
them of charming people, they will describe to you the people they
know, people whom you really would fall violently in love with--only
there is no chance of you ever meeting them, because they have just
gone to Jamaica. They "butt" their "but" into all your little
pleasures, and even when you really are enjoying yourself, and the
"but" would have to be a bomb to upset your equanimity, they will throw
cold water upon your ardour by gently hinting that you had better enjoy
yourself while you can, because you won't be young much longer. Ough!
Even when one is dead, I suppose, these "Goats" will stand round you
and say: "It's very sad . . . _But_ we all have to die some time."
And if they do, I hope I shall come back suddenly to life to butt in
with my own "but" . . . "_But_ I hope I shan't meet YOU in Heaven."

But I suppose these "butters" enjoy themselves, even though other
people don't enjoy them. They love to take you by the hand, as it
were, and lead you from the sunshine into the shady side of every
garden. Not their delight is it to work the limelight. Rather they
prefer to cast a shadow--when they can't turn out the lights
altogether. And, strangely enough, these people are the very people
whose life is passed in the pleasantest places. It may be that,
metaphorically speaking, they have been so long used to the Powers of
existence that they delight in treasuring the weeds. Well, I, for one,
wish that they could live among these weeds for just so long a time as
to become quite sick of them--when, doubtless, they would return to us
only too anxious to see nothing but the simple flowers, and each simple
flower an exquisite joy in itself--although it fades!

_Age that Dyes_

So many women seem to imagine that when they dip their heads in henna
twenty years suddenly slips from off them into the mess. As a matter
of fact, they invariably pick up an additional ten years with the dye
every time. After all, the hair, even at its dullest and greyest,
shows fewer of the painful signs of Anno Domi