h his face to the
tail of his galloping horse. Athwart the Victorian dykes the waters
were rolling on property, manners, and morals, on melody and the old
forms of art--waters bringing to his mouth a salt taste as of blood,
lapping to the foot of this Highgate Hill where Victorianism lay
buried. And sitting there, high up on its most individual spot,
Soames--like a figure of Investment--refused their restless sounds.
Instinctively he would not fight them--there was in him too much
primeval wisdom, of Man the possessive animal. They would quiet down
when they had fulfilled their tidal fever of dispossessing and
destroying; when the creations and the properties of others were
sufficiently broken and dejected--they would lapse and ebb, and fresh
forms would rise based on an instinct older than the fever of
change--the instinct of Home.

"Je m'en fiche," said Prosper Profond. Soames did not say "Je m'en
fiche"--it was French, and the fellow was a thorn in his side--but deep
down he knew that change was only the interval of death between two
forms of life, destruction necessary to make room for fresher property.
What though the board was up, and cosiness to let?--some one would come
along and take it again some day.

And only one thing really troubled him, sitting there--the melancholy
craving in his heart--because the sun was like enchantment on his face
and on the clouds and on the golden birch leaves, and the wind's rustle
was so gentle, and the yew-tree green so dark, and the sickle of a moon
pale in the sky.

Ah! He might wish and wish and never get it--the beauty and the loving
in the world!

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of To Let, by John Galsworthy

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TO LET ***

***** This file should be named 3817.txt or 3817.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/1/3817/

Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Us