rests always ultimately with them, while I, a man, can but look on and
marvel.

Well, I am tired with my jaunt. One's feet are not inured to walking
after months at sea. And I hear my friend the Mate overhead.

"Mr. McAlnwick, ye should have been there! The _elite_ o' the Mission
was on show. An' we had an anthem. 'Twas good!"

I slip ashore with my letter before turning in.

XXXIV

Though I had no intention of buying many books, the dreary loneliness
of the tavern where I supped drove me out upon the streets, and
insensibly I drifted towards my favourite second-hand book-shop, where
the little maiden behind the mountains of Welsh theology reminds me of
someone I know. My Welsh Divinity I call her, hovering bright-winged
above the dust-clouds of old literature, with clear grey eyes and
nervous mouth. Not "the heir of all the ages," I fear, though the
potentiality in her must be infinite and beyond my ken. "What do you,
oh, young man?" So I seem to read the query in her eyes. "Are you only
a hodman in this book-yard, then? Where is _she_? What is _she_? Who
is _she_?" As I stand and thumb the serried ranks of corpses, I feel
her gaze upon me. Quite inarticulate, both of us, you understand--I as
shy as she.

I must seem extraordinarily sensitive to you, I think. Merely the
presence of this child stirs my soul to nobler ideals. I feel
invigorated and refreshed. So my lady stirs me; so even the mere
presence of some men we know. In like manner, I imagine, is my friend
influenced by superb music. They affect me like an essay by Pater, a
Watts portrait, or a Dulwich Cuyp, a feeling which I can only call a
passionate intellectualism, a loosening of corporeal encumbrances. My
friend will not carp because I seem to place my love for my mistress
in a category with a Dutch landscape and an aesthetic essay--he will
understand.

I have no desire to be proud, but I confess I have never appreciated
that amorousness which prompts the lovers to exchange hats as well as
vows. Indeed, I scarcely understand what the older poets mean by vows
even. What are these vows? By whom are they kept? Of what avail are
they when they are most needed? Nearly as useless as marriage vows,
these of the trysting-place, I fancy. You hold up your hands in horror
at this, not because you disagree, but because of my audacity in
applying general modernisms to myself. Well, I am tired of people who
pose as advanced thinkers and remain as conve