insomnia of the hot summer night.... She threw herself over and over
in her burning bed, until at last her soul cried out in lucid misery:
'Give me a passion for god or man, but give me a passion. I cannot
live without one.'" For her "mad and sane are the same misprint." And
on this lyric note the book closes.

I believe if Hedda Gabler had hesitated and her father's pistol hadn't
been hard by, she would have recovered her poise and deceived her
husband. I believe that if Emma Bovary had escaped that snag of debt
she would have continued to fool Charles. And I believe Mildred Lawson
married at last and fooled herself into the belief that she had a
superior soul, misunderstood by the world and her husband. There is no
telling how vermicular are the wrigglings of mean souls. Mildred was a
snob, therefore mean of soul; and she was a cold snob, hence her
cruelty. That she was an eminently disagreeable girl I need hardly
emphasise. Nevertheless the young chaps found her dainty and her poor
girl friends, the artists, envied her pretty frocks. She had small
shell-like ears, ears that are danger-signals to experienced men.

When I reread her history I was reminded of the princess in the
allegory of Ephraim Mikhael, called The Captive. She was the cold
princess held captive in the hall with the wall of brass. Wherever she
turns or walks she sees a welcome visitor: it is always her own
insolent image in the mirrors on the walls. These mirrors make of
herself her own eternal jailer. When she gazes from the window of her
prison tower she sees no one. No conquering lover comes to deliver her
from the bondage of self. In the slave who offers rare fruits and
precious wines in cups of emerald she sees only a mockery of herself,
the words of consolation remind her of her own voice. "And that is why
the sorrowful Princess drives away the beautiful loving slave, more
cruel even than the mirrors." Egotist to the end, both Mildred and the
Princess see naught in the universe save the magnified image of
themselves.

III

UNDINE

Perhaps there is more than a nuance of caricature in the choice of
such a name as "Undine Spragg" for the heroine of Edith Wharton's The
Custom of the Country. Throughout that book, with its brilliant
enamel-like surfaces, there is a tendency to make sport of our
national weakness for resounding names. Undine Spragg--hideous
collocation--is not t