away behind, and
always somewhere else. I am not really here now with you, though I am
talking to you. And why should I go to the party? I shouldn't be there,
either, if I went. My life is all reminiscence and anticipation--if you
can call it life, if I am not rather a kind of ghost, haunting a past
that has ceased to be, or a future that is still more shadowy and
unreal. It's ghastly in a way, this exile and isolation. But why speak
of it, after all?'

They rose, and their images too were reflected in the great mirror, as
they passed out of the drawing-room, and dispersed, each on his or her
way, into the winter night.

AT SOLEMN MUSIC

I sat there, hating the exuberance of her bust, and her high-coloured
wig. And how could I listen to music in the close proximity of those
loud stockings?

Then our eyes met: in both of us the enchanted chord was touched; we
both looked through the same window into Heaven. In that moment of
musical, shared delight, my soul and the soul of that large lady, joined
hands and sang like the morning stars together.

THE GOAT

In the midst of my anecdote a sudden misgiving chilled me--had I told
them about this Goat before? And then as I talked there gaped upon
me--abyss opening beneath abyss--a darker speculation: when goats are
mentioned, do I automatically and always tell this story about the Goat
at Portsmouth?

SELF-CONTROL

Still I am not a pessimist, nor misanthrope, nor grumbler; I bear it
all, the burden of Public Affairs, the immensity of Space, the brevity
of Life, and the thought of the all-swallowing Grave--all this I put up
with without impatience. I accept the common lot. And if now and then
for a moment it seems too much; if I get my feet wet, or have to wait
too long for tea, and my soul in these wanes of the moon cries out in
French _C'est fini!_ I always answer _Pazienza!_ in Italian--_abbia la
santa Pazienza!_

THE COMMUNION OF SOULS

'So of course I bought it! How could I help buying it?' Then, lifting
the conversation, as with Lady Hyslop one always lifts it, to a higher
level, 'this notion of Free Will,' I went on, 'the notion, for instance,
that I was free to buy or not to buy that rare edition, seems, when you
think of it--at least to me it seems--a wretched notion really. I like
to feel that I must follow the things I desire as--how shall I put
it?--as the tide follows the Moon; that my actions are due to necessary
cause