ne. What is
Reality? I ask myself almost daily: how does the External World exist,
materialised in mid-air, apart from my perceptions? This show of streets
and skies, of policemen and perambulators and hard pavements, is it a
mere vision, a figment of the Mind; or does it remain there, permanent
and imposing, when I stop thinking about it?

Often, as I saunter along Piccadilly or Bond Street, I please myself
with the Berkeleian notion that Matter has no existence; that this so
solid-seeming World is all idea, all appearance--that I am carried soft
through space inside an immense Thought-bubble, a floating, diaphanous,
opal-tinted Dream.

LONELINESS

Is there, then, no friend? No one who hates Ibsen and problem plays, and
the Supernatural, and Switzerland and Adultery as much as I do? Must I
live all my life as mute as a mackerel, companionless and uninvited, and
never tell anyone what I think of my famous contemporaries? Must I
plough always a solitary furrow, and tread the winepress alone?

THE WELSH HARP

What charming corners one can find in the immense dinginess of London,
and what curious encounters become a part of the London-lover's
experience! The other day, when I walked a long way out of the Edgware
Road, and stopped for tea at the Welsh Harp, on the banks of the Brent
Reservoir, I found, beyond the modern frontage of this inn, an old
garden adorned with sham ruins and statues, and full of autumn flowers
and the shimmer of clear water. Sitting there and drinking my tea--alone
as I thought at first, in the twilight--I became aware that the garden
had another occupant; that at another table, not far from me, a vague
and not very prosperous-looking woman in a shabby bonnet was sitting,
with her reticule lying by her, also drinking tea and gazing at the
after-glow of the sunset. An elderly spinster I thought her, a
dressmaker perhaps, or a retired governess, one of those maiden ladies
who live alone in quiet lodgings, and are fond of romantic fiction and
solitary excursions.

As we sat there, we two alone in the growing dusk, more than once our
glances met, and a curious relation of sympathy and understanding seemed
to establish itself between us; we seemed to carry on a dialogue full
of tacit avowals, 'Yes,' we seemed to say, as our eyes met over our
suspended tea-cups, 'yes, Beauty, Romance, the Blue Bird that sings of
Happiness--these are the things we care for--the only things that, in