ble toils, the sounding
tumult of battle, and perilous seapaths, resting there, tranquil and
satisfied and glorious, amid the epitaphs and allegorical figures of
their tombs--those high-piled, trophied, shapeless Abbey tombs, that
long ago they toiled for, and laid down their gallant lives to win.

DESPERANCE

'Yes, as you say, life is so full of disappointment, disillusion! More
and more I ask myself, as I grow older, what is the good of it all? We
dress, we go out to dinner,' I went on, 'but surely we walk in a vain
show. How good this asparagus is! I often say asparagus is the most
delicious of all vegetables. And yet, I don't know--when one thinks of
fresh green peas. One can get tired of asparagus, as one can of
strawberries--but tender peas I could eat forever. Then peaches, and
melons;--and there are certain pears, too, that taste like heaven. One
of my favourite daydreams for the long afternoon of life is to live
alone, a formal, greedy, selfish old gentleman, in a square house, say
in Devonshire, with a square garden, whose walls are covered with
apricots and figs and peaches: and there are precious pears, too, of my
own planting, on espaliers along the paths. I shall walk out with a
gold-headed cane in the autumn sunshine, and just at the right moment I
shall pick another pear. However, that isn't at all what I was going to
say--'

CHAIRS

In the streets of London there are door-bells I ring (I see myself
ringing them); in certain houses there are chairs covered with chintz or
cretonne in which I sit and talk about life, explaining often after tea
what I think of it.

A GRIEVANCE

They are all persons of elegant manners and spotless reputations; they
seem to welcome my visits, and they listen to my anecdotes with
unflinching attention. I have only one grievance against them; they will
keep in their houses mawkish books full of stale epithets, which, when I
only seem to smell their proximity, produce in me a slight feeling of
nausea.

There are people, I believe, who are affected in this way by the
presence of cats.

THE MOON

I went in and shook hands with my hostess, but no one else took any
special notice; no one screamed or left the room; the quiet murmur of
talk went on. I suppose I seemed like the others; observed from outside
no doubt I looked more or less like them.

But inside, seen from within...? Or was it a conceivable hypothesis that
we were all alike