agreed, though my
local pride was a little hurt by the disdain of that visiting young
woman for our rural society. 'Still we have some interesting neighbours,
when you get to know them. Now that fat lady over there in purple--do
you see her? Mrs. Turnbull--she believes in Hell, believes in Eternal
Torment. And that old gentleman with whiskers and white spats is
convinced that England is tottering on the very brink of the abyss. The
pie-faced lady he is talking to was, she asserts, Mary Queen of Scots in
a previous existence. And our Curate--we're proud of our Curate--he's a
great cricketer, and a kind of saint as well. They say he goes out in
Winter at three o'clock in the morning, and stands up to his neck in a
pond, praying for sinners.'

WELTSCHMERZ

'How depressed you look! What on earth's the matter?'

'Central Europe,' I said, 'and the chaos in China is something awful.
There's a threatened shortage, too, of beer in Copenhagen.'

'But why should that worry you?'

'It doesn't. It's what I said to Mrs. Rumbal--I do say such idiotic
things! She asked me to come to see them. "I shall be delighted," I
said, "as delighted--"

'But it's your fault for lending me that book of Siamese
translations!--"as delighted," I said, "Mrs. Rumbal, as a royal
flamingo, when he alights upon a cluster of lotuses."'

BOGEYS

I remember how charmed I was with these new acquaintances, to whose
house I had been taken that afternoon to call. I remember the gardens
through which we sauntered, with peaches ripening on the sunny walls; I
remember the mellow light on the old portraits in the drawing-room, the
friendly atmosphere and tranquil voices; and how, as the quiet stream of
talk flowed on, one subject after another was pleasantly mirrored on its
surface--till, at a chance remark, there was a sudden change and
darkening, an angry swirl, as if a monster were raising its head above
the waters.

What was it about, the dreadful disputation into which we were plunged,
in spite of desperate efforts to clutch at other subjects? Was it Tariff
Reform or Table-rapping,--Bacon and Shakespeare, Disestablishment,
perhaps--or Anti-Vivisection? What did any of us know or really care
about it? What force, what fury drove us into saying the stupid,
intolerant, denunciatory things we said; that made us feel we would
rather die than not say them? How could a group of humane, polite and
intelligent people be so suddenly transformed