s 'as pretty as
a pink.' Perhaps Fate was going to strike him through her. Perhaps when
he got home he would find that she was dead. There were tears in my
eyes when I alighted on my doorstep.

Thus, within a little space of time, did I experience two deep
emotions, for neither of which was there any real justification. I
experienced terror, though there was nothing to be afraid of, and I
experienced sorrow, though there was nothing at all to be sorry about.
And both my terror and my sorrow were, at the time, overwhelming.

You have no patience with me? Examine yourselves. Examine one another.
In every one of us the deepest emotions are constantly caused by some
absurdly trivial thing, or by nothing at all. Conversely, the great
things in our lives--the true occasions for wrath, anguish, rapture,
what not--very often leave us quite calm. We never can depend on any
right adjustment of emotion to circumstance. That is one of many
reasons which prevent the philosopher from taking himself and his
fellow-beings quite so seriously as he would wish.

PORRO UNUM...

By graceful custom, every newcomer to a throne in Europe pays a round
of visits to his neighbours. When King Edward came back from seeing the
Tsar at Reval, his subjects seemed to think that he had fulfilled the
last demand on his civility. That was in the days of Abdul Hamid. None
of us wished the King to visit Turkey. Turkey is not internationally
powerful, nor had Abdul any Guelph blood in him; and so we were able to
assert, by ignoring her and him, our humanitarianism and passion for
liberty, quite safely, quite politely. Now that Abdul is deposed from
'his infernal throne,' it is taken as a matter of course that the King
will visit his successor. Well, let His Majesty betake himself and his
tact and a full cargo of Victorian Orders to Constantinople, by all
means. But, on the way, nestling in the very heart of Europe, perfectly
civilised and strifeless, jewelled all over with freedom, is another
country which he has not visited since his accession--a country which,
oddly enough, none but I seems to expect him to visit. Why, I ask,
should Switzerland be cold-shouldered?

I admit she does not appeal to the romantic imagination. She never has,
as a nation, counted for anything. Physically soaring out of sight,
morally and intellectually she has lain low and said nothing. Not one
idea, not one deed, has she to her credit. All that is worth knowing of
her