e.g. who composed tales of human conduct, had no concern with
ethics--that is to say with the principles of human conduct: that
"Art's only business was to satisfy Art," and so forth. Well, it is all
over now, and packed away in the rag-bag of out-worn paradoxes; and we are
left to enjoy the revived freshness of the simple truth that an artist
exists to serve his art, and his art to serve men and women.

AUGUST.

As it was reported to me, the story went that one Sunday morning in August
a family stood in a window not far from this window of mine--the window of
an hotel coffee-room--and debated where to go for divine worship.
They were three: father, mother, and daughter, arrived the night before
from the Midlands, to spend their holiday. "The fisher-folk down here are
very religious," said the father, contemplating the anchored craft--
yachts, trading-steamers, merchantmen of various rigs and nationalities--
in which he supposed the native population to go a-fishing on week-days:
for he had been told in the Midlands that we were fisher-folk.
"Plymouth Brethren mostly, I suppose," said the wife: "we changed at
Plymouth." "Bristol." "Was it Bristol? Well, Plymouth was the last big
town we stopped at: I am sure of _that_. And this is on the same coast,
isn't it?" "What _are_ Plymouth Brethren?" the daughter asked.
"Oh, well, my dear, I expect they are very decent, earnest people.
It won't do us any harm to attend their service, if they have one.
What I say is, when you're away on holiday, do as the Romans do."
The father had been listening with an unprejudiced air, as who should say,
"I am here by the seaside for rest and enjoyment." He called to the
waiter, "What places of worship have you?" The waiter with professional
readiness hinted that he had some to suit all tastes, "Church of England,
Wesleyan, Congregational, Bible Christian--" "Plymouth Brethren?"
The waiter had never heard of them: they had not, at any rate, been asked
for within his recollection. He retired crestfallen. "That's the worst
of these waiters," the father explained: "they get 'em down for the season
from Lord knows where, Germany perhaps, and they can tell you nothing of
the place." "But this one is not a German, and he told me last night he'd
been here for years." "Well, the question is, Where we are to go?
Here, Ethel,"--as a second daughter entered, buttoning her gloves--"your
mother can't make up her mind what place of wors