ll Gwen's,
and forthwith I am happy beyond the wildest dreams of the Poets--though
really that isn't saying much, because their wildest dreams are usually
unintelligible, and frequently ungrammatical...."

"Never mind them! Go on with how selfish you are."

"Can't you let a poor beggar get to the end of his parenthesis? I was
endeavouring to sketch the situation, as a preliminary to going on with
how selfish I am. I was remarking that however dissatisfied I feel with
the Most High, however sulky I am with the want of foresight in the
Primum Mobile--or his indifference to my interests; it comes to the same
thing--however inclined to cry out against the darkness, the darkness
that once was light, I no sooner hear that voice that I call Gwen's than
I am at least in the seven-hundredth heaven of happiness. When I hear
that voice, I am all Christian forgiveness towards my Maker. When it
goes, my heart is dumb and the darkness gains upon me. That I beg to
state, is a simple prosaic statement of an everyday fact. When I have
added that the powers that I ascribe to the voice that I know to be
Gwen's are also inherent in the hand that I believe to be Gwen's....
Don't pull it away!"

"I only wanted to look at it. Just to see why you shouldn't know it was
mine, as well as the voice."

"I _know_ I couldn't be mistaken about the voice. I don't _think_ I
could be wrong about the hand, but I don't know that I couldn't."

"Well--now you've got it again! Now go on. Go on to how selfish you
are--that's what I want!"

"I will endeavour to do so. I hope my imperfect indication of my view of
my own position...."

"Don't be prosy. It is not fair to expect any girl to keep a popular
lecturer's head in her lap...."

"I agree--I agree. It was my desire to be strictly practical. I will
come to the point. I want to make it perfectly clear that you _are_ my
life...."

"Don't get too loud!"

"All right!... that you are my life--my life--my glorious life! I want
you to see and know that but for you I am nothing--a wisp of straw blown
about by all the winds of Heaven--a mere unit of consciousness in a
blank, black void. See what comes of it! Here was I, before this
unfortunate result of what is from my point of view a lamentable
miscarriage of Destiny, a tolerably well-informed ... English male!...
Well--what else am I?... Sonneteer, suppose we say...."

"Goose--suppose we say--or gander!"

"All right! Here was I, before this mishap,