it had always been, repulsive. It
tasted no better than beer did when I was five, than bitter claret did
when I was seven. When I was alone, writing or studying, I had no need
for it. But--I was growing old, or wise, or both, or senile as an
alternative. When I was in company I was less pleased, less excited,
with the things said and done. Erstwhile worth-while fun and stunts
seemed no longer worth while; and it was a torment to listen to the
insipidities and stupidities of women, to the pompous, arrogant sayings
of the little half-baked men. It is the penalty one pays for reading the
books too much, or for being oneself a fool. In my case it does not
matter which was my trouble. The trouble itself was the fact. The
condition of the fact was mine. For me the life, and light, and sparkle
of human intercourse were dwindling.

I had climbed too high among the stars, or, maybe, I had slept too hard.
Yet I was not hysterical nor in any way overwrought. My pulse was
normal. My heart was an amazement of excellence to the insurance
doctors. My lungs threw the said doctors into ecstasies. I wrote a
thousand words every day. I was punctiliously exact in dealing with all
the affairs of life that fell to my lot. I exercised in joy and
gladness. I slept at night like a babe. But--

Well, as soon as I got out in the company of others I was driven to
melancholy and spiritual tears. I could neither laugh with nor at the
solemn utterances of men I esteemed ponderous asses; nor could I laugh,
nor engage in my old-time lightsome persiflage, with the silly
superficial chatterings of women, who, underneath all their silliness and
softness, were as primitive, direct, and deadly in their pursuit of
biological destiny as the monkeys women were before they shed their furry
coats and replaced them with the furs of other animals.

And I was not pessimistic. I swear I was not pessimistic. I was merely
bored. I had seen the same show too often, listened too often to the
same songs and the same jokes. I knew too much about the box office
receipts. I knew the cogs of the machinery behind the scenes so well
that the posing on the stage, and the laughter and the song, could not
drown the creaking of the wheels behind.

It doesn't pay to go behind the scenes and see the angel-voiced tenor
beat his wife. Well, I'd been behind, and I was paying for it. Or else
I was a fool. It is immaterial which was my situation. The situa