dhood. With his rumpty-iddity, rumpty-iddity;" and so on. Or
we might read: "Uriel Maybloom stared gloomily down at his sandals, as
he realized for the first time how senseless and anti-social are all
ties between man and woman; how each must go his or her way without any
attempt to arrest the head-long separation of their souls." And then
would come in one deafening chorus of everlasting humanity "But I'll be
true to my love, if my love'll be true to me."

In the records of the first majestic and yet fantastic developments
of the foundation of St. Francis of Assisi is an account of a certain
Blessed Brother Giles. I have forgotten most of it, but I remember
one fact: that certain students of theology came to ask him whether
he believed in free will, and, if so, how he could reconcile it with
necessity. On hearing the question St. Francis's follower reflected a
little while and then seized a fiddle and began capering and dancing
about the garden, playing a wild tune and generally expressing a violent
and invigorating indifference. The tune is not recorded, but it is the
eternal chorus of mankind, that modifies all the arts and mocks all the
individualisms, like the laughter and thunder of some distant sea.

A Romance of the Marshes

In books as a whole marshes are described as desolate and colourless,
great fields of clay or sedge, vast horizons of drab or grey. But this,
like many other literary associations, is a piece of poetical injustice.
Monotony has nothing to do with a place; monotony, either in its
sensation or its infliction, is simply the quality of a person. There
are no dreary sights; there are only dreary sightseers. It is a matter
of taste, that is of personality, whether marshes are monotonous; but it
is a matter of fact and science that they are not monochrome. The tops
of high mountains (I am told) are all white; the depths of primeval
caverns (I am also told) are all dark. The sea will be grey or blue
for weeks together; and the desert, I have been led to believe, is the
colour of sand. The North Pole (if we found it) would be white with
cracks of blue; and Endless Space (if we went there) would, I suppose,
be black with white spots. If any of these were counted of a monotonous
colour I could well understand it; but on the contrary, they are always
spoken of as if they had the gorgeous and chaotic colours of a cosmic
kaleidoscope. Now exactly where you can find colours like those of a
tulip ga