eless, or, rather, on the
other hand, they are puddles--puddles, puddles, puddles, puddles.
The undersigned persons ask you to excuse an emphasis inseparable
from strong conviction."

Inglewood ignored a somewhat wild expression on the faces of some present,
and continued with eminent cheerfulness:--

"Such were the thoughts that failed to cross the mind of
the undergraduate Smith as he picked his way among the stripes
of canal and the glittering rainy gutters into which the water
broke up round the back of Brakespeare College. Had these thoughts
crossed his mind he would have been much happier than he was.
Unfortunately he did not know that his puzzles were puddles.
He did not know that the academic mind reflects infinity and is full
of light by the simple process of being shallow and standing still.
In his case, therefore, there was something solemn, and even evil
about the infinity implied. It was half-way through a starry
night of bewildering brilliancy; stars were both above and below.
To young Smith's sullen fancy the skies below seemed even hollower
than the skies above; he had a horrible idea that if he counted
the stars he would find one too many in the pool.

"In crossing the little paths and bridges he felt like one stepping
on the black and slender ribs of some cosmic Eiffel Tower. For to him,
and nearly all the educated youth of that epoch, the stars were cruel things.
Though they glowed in the great dome every night, they were an enormous
and ugly secret; they uncovered the nakedness of nature; they were a glimpse
of the iron wheels and pulleys behind the scenes. For the young men
of that sad time thought that the god always comes from the machine.
They did not know that in reality the machine only comes from the god.
In short, they were all pessimists, and starlight was atrocious to them--
atrocious because it was true. All their universe was black with white spots.

"Smith looked up with relief from the glittering pools below
to the glittering skies and the great black bulk of the college.
The only light other than stars glowed through one peacock-green
curtain in the upper part of the building, marking where
Dr. Emerson Eames always worked till morning and received
his friends and favourite pupils at any hour of the night.
Indeed, it was to his rooms that the melancholy Smith was bound.
Smith had been at Dr. Eames's lecture for the first half of the morning,
and at pistol practice and fenc