f
departure, one's own or that of others, which constant repetition seems,
if anything, merely to strengthen. I cannot become familiar with the
fact that a moment, the time necessary for a carriage, as in this case,
to turn a corner, or for those two steel muscles of the engine to play
upon each other, can do so complete and wonderful a thing as to break
the continuity of intercourse, to remove a living presence. The
substitution of an image for a reality, the present broken off short and
replaced by the past; enumerating this by no means gives the equivalent
of that odd and unnatural word GONE. And the terror of death itself lies
surely in its being the most sudden and utter act of _going away_.

I suppose there must be people who do not feel like this, as there are
people also who do not feel, apparently, the mystery of change of place,
of watching the familiar lines of hill or valley transform themselves,
and the very sense of one's bearings, what was in front or to the other
side, east or west, getting lost or hopelessly altered. Such people's
lives must be (save for misfortune) funnily undramatic; and, trying to
realize them, I understand why such enormous crowds require to go and
see plays.

It is usually said that in such partings as these--partings with
definite hope of meeting and with nothing humanly tragic about them, so
that the last interchange of voice is expected to be a laugh or a
joke--the sadder part is for those who stay. But I think this is
mistaken. There is indeed a little sense of flatness--almost of
something in one's chest--when the train is gone or the carriage rolled
off; and one goes back into one's house or into the just-left room,
throwing a glance all round as if to measure the emptiness. But the
accustomed details--the book we left open, the order we had to give, the
answer brought to the message, and breakfast and lunch and dinner and
the postman, all the great eternities--gather round and close up the
gap: close the gone one, and that piece of past, not merely _up_, but,
alas! _out_.

It is the sense of this, secret even in the most fatuous breast, which
makes things sadder for the goer. He knows from experience, and, if he
have imagination, he feels, this process of closing him out, this rapid
adaptation to doing without him. And meanwhile he, in his carriage or
train, is being hurled into the void; for even the richest man and he of
the most numerous clients, is turned adrift witho