urgeon, however ill-wishing, care to perform a drastic
operation on a patient by whose death he himself would forthwith perish?
Labour is wise enough--surely?--not to will us destruction. Russia has
been an awful example. Surely! And yet, Labour does not seem to think
the example so awful as I do. Queer, this; queer and disquieting. I rose
from my bench, strolled to the railing, and gazed forth.

The unrestful, the well-organised and minatory sea had been advancing
quickly. It was not very far now from the cottage. I thought of all the
civilisations that had been, that were not, that were as though they had
never been. Must it always be thus?--always the same old tale of growth
and greatness and overthrow, nothingness? I gazed at the cottage, all
so solid and seemly, so full of endearing character, so like to the
'comf'table' polity of England as we have known it. I gazed away from
it to a large-ish castle that the sea was just reaching. A little, then
quickly much, the waters swirled into the moat. Many children stood by,
all a-dance with excitement. The castle was shedding its sides, lapsing,
dwindling, landslipping--gone. O Nineveh! And now another--O Memphis?
Rome?--yielded to the cataclysm. I listened to the jubilant screams of
the children. What rapture, what wantoning! Motionless beside his work
stood the builder of the cottage, gazing seaward, a pathetic little
figure. I hoped the other children would have the decency not to
exult over the unmaking of what he had made so well. This hope was not
fulfilled. I had not supposed it would be. What did surprise me, when
anon the sea rolled close up to the cottage, was the comportment of the
young artist himself. His sobriety gave place to an intense animation.
He leapt, he waved his spade, he invited the waves with wild gestures
and gleeful cries. His face had flushed bright, and now, as the garden
walls crumbled, and the paths and lawns were mingled by the waters'
influence and confluence, and the walls of the cottage itself began to
totter, and the gables sank, and all, all was swallowed, his leaps
were so high in air that they recalled to my memory those of a strange
religious sect which once visited London; and the glare of his eyes was
less indicative of a dreamer than of a triumphant fiend.

I myself was conscious of a certain wild enthusiasm within me. But this
was less surprising for that I had not built the cottage, and my fancy
had not enabled me to dwell in