of delight ran
from her.

The voice was doing its best. It sank to despair, it leaped to lyric
passion, it caressed a low note of ecstatic pain, and then, like a
dew-delighted bird, it fled up and hovered on a timid note of appeal.
The girl giggled. As the voice died on a long, soft note, she laughed
aloud, and swallowed. She looked around and caught my eye. It seemed
that she had something about which she must talk.

... "Not bad, eh?" she said.

"No," I answered. "Not so dusty."

"Makes you feel ... kind of rummy, you know, don't it? Wonder what it
feels like to sing like that, eh? Makes me ... sort of ... 'fyou
understand ... funny like. Makes me want to...."

From the window came one of the Oxford voices. "_No_ EARTHLY, dear old
girl. You'll _never_ sing. Your _values_, you know, and _all_ that
are...."

A RUSSIAN NIGHT

SPITALFIELDS AND STEPNEY

_STEPNEY CAUSEWAY_

_Beyond the pleading lip, the reaching hand,
Laughter and tear;
Beyond the grief that none would understand;
Beyond all fear.
Dreams ended, beauty broken,
Deeds done, and last words spoken,
Quiet she lies._

_Far, far from our delirious dark and light,
She finds her sleep.
No more the noisy silences of night
Shall hear her weep.
The blossomed boughs break over
Her holy breast to cover
From any eyes.
Till the stark dawn shall drink the latest star,
So let her be.
O Love and Beauty! She has wandered far
And now comes home to thee._

A RUSSIAN NIGHT

SPITALFIELDS AND STEPNEY

The Russian quarter always saddens me. For one thing, it has
associations which scratch my heart regularly every month when my
affairs take me into those parts. Forgetting is the most wearisome of
all pains to which we humans are subject; and for some of us there is so
much to forget. For some of us there is Beatrice to forget, and Dora,
and Christina, and the devastating loveliness of Isabel. For another
thing, its atmosphere is so depressingly Slavonic. It is as dismal and
as overdone as Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C sharp minor. How shall I give
you the sharp flavour of it, or catch the temper of its streets?

It seems impossible that one should ensnare its elusive spirit. Words
may come, but they are words, hard and stiff-necked and pedestrian. One
needs symbols and butterflies.

* * * *