he problems of Evelyn's soul, but I kept on to
the end, and then sank back on my pillow exhausted. I think I shall stop
reading for a while, lest I have literary indigestion. I'll try to be
satisfied for the time with Swinburne and Shelley. Our anarchistic poet
lectured on Shelley, the Poet of Revolution, the other night, and I was
disappointed. He did not do justice to Shelley either as a revolutionary
poet or as a poet of beauty. I think Shelley should be spoken of with a
delicate passion, which our anarchist poet lacks. He tried hard to speak
with fervour, but there is no fire in him, and what is a poet without
fire? Perhaps it was as well, for what's the use in casting pearls
before swine? For the critics in the audience arose and condemned
Shelley because he was a socialist, or because he was not one. Some of
these critics seized upon the word libidinous. Oh! there was their clue!
The lecturer arose like an outraged moralist to repudiate the scandalous
charge of libidinousness. I was so disgusted I vowed I would never go to
another meeting.

"I have indeed been going to so many 'humanity lectures,' and clubs,
such as the Shelley Club, where the divine anarchist B----misinterprets
the great bard every week to his flock of female admirers, and had been
reading so much Swinburne and other sublime things that recently I have
had a reaction, and there is nothing now at the Salon except Nietzsche.
He is a relief, although I feel that if I were to keep on with him I
should go mad. When I feel my brain begin to turn, I start scrubbing or
some other stupid thing.

"Though Nietzsche says some very bitter things about women, who have no
place whatever in his scheme of things, except perhaps for the
relaxation of the warriors, yet there is something dignified in his very
denunciation. His attitude toward our sex is so different from that of
Schopenhauer, and many other philosophers. They usually take the 'rag
and a bone and a hank of hair' attitude, and are disgusting. But
Nietzsche warns men that women are dangerous, and danger, in Nietzsche's
philosophy, is a sublime thing. Also, we must become the mothers of his
Overmen.

"Terry, too, is much interested just now in Nietzsche; quite naturally,
for Terry is one of those 'men of resolute indolence' who will not work
without delight in his labour. He talks a great deal just now of a plan
to seek some cave and there try to become an 'Overman.' I pointed out to
him that that w