.
When men are weary they fall into anarchy; but while they are gay
and vigorous they invariably make rules. This, which is true of all
the churches and republics of history, is also true of the most
trivial parlour game or the most unsophisticated meadow romp.
We are never free until some institution frees us; and liberty
cannot exist till it is declared by authority. Even the wild
authority of the harlequin Smith was still authority, because it
produced everywhere a crop of crazy regulations and conditions.
He filled every one with his own half-lunatic life; but it was not
expressed in destruction, but rather in a dizzy and toppling construction.
Each person with a hobby found it turning into an institution.
Rosamund's songs seemed to coalesce into a kind of opera;
Michael's jests and paragraphs into a magazine. His pipe and her
mandoline seemed between them to make a sort of smoking concert.
The bashful and bewildered Arthur Inglewood almost struggled against his
own growing importance. He felt as if, in spite of him, his photographs
were turning into a picture gallery, and his bicycle into a gymkhana.
But no one had any time to criticize these impromptu estates and offices,
for they followed each other in wild succession like the topics
of a rambling talker.

Existence with such a man was an obstacle race made out of
pleasant obstacles. Out of any homely and trivial object he could drag
reels of exaggeration, like a conjurer. Nothing could be more shy
and impersonal than poor Arthur's photography. Yet the preposterous
Smith was seen assisting him eagerly through sunny morning hours,
and an indefensible sequence described as "Moral Photography"
began to unroll about the boarding-house. It was only a version of the old
photographer's joke which produces the same figure twice on one plate,
making a man play chess with himself, dine with himself, and so on.
But these plates were more hysterical and ambitious--as, "Miss Hunt
forgets Herself," showing that lady answering her own too
rapturous recognition with a most appalling stare of ignorance;
or "Mr. Moon questions Himself," in which Mr. Moon appeared as one
driven to madness under his own legal cross-examination, which was
conducted with a long forefinger and an air of ferocious waggery.
One highly successful trilogy--representing Inglewood recognizing
Inglewood, Inglewood prostrating himself before Inglewood,
and Inglewood severely beating Inglewood with an