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 1871); "Translations of the Mostellaria and Captivi of Plautus," with introduction; "The Student's English Grammar" (Melbourne), in conjunction with Dr. Pearson; "The Student's Handbook to Classical Literature," and a "Translation of Juvenal," in conjunction with (Macmillan); the Clarendon Press edition of Juvenal, which is now being wholly rewritten (notes by Professor Strong, introduction by Dr. Pearson); translation and edition of Paul's great work, "Principles of Language" (Sonnenschein, second edition); "Historical Outlines of German Grammar," in conjunction with Dr. Meyer (Sonnenschein); "History of Language," by Strong, Logeman, and Wheeler (Longmans, 1890). Prof. Strong is now engaged on an edition of Friedländer's "Sittengeschichte." He has received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Glasgow University, and that of Officier d'Instruction Publique from the French Government. Since his return from Melbourne he has done much to make the resources and advantages of Australia known to Englishmen at home. With that object in view he has taken as the theme of several series of university extension lectures the British Empire, and particularly dwelt upon the importance of the Australian colonies to the empire. He helped to found the Self-Help Emigration Society in Liverpool, of which Lord Derby is president, and has given yearly in the large Rotunda Hall a public lecture to about two thousand working men upon the subject of emigration. He has thus been the means of sending out some good men with capital, and preventing many useless hands from leaving England.

Strzelecki, Sir Paul Edmund de, K.C.M.G., C.B., D.C.L., F.R.S. (better known as Count de Strzelecki), the well-known scientist and explorer, was a native of Poland, and travelled abroad in order to escape the Russian yoke. On his way from China he called in at Sydney, where he was introduced to the then Governor of New South Wales, Sir George Gipps, who persuaded him to undertake the exploration of the interior of Australia. He devoted years of research and a large sum of money to the scientific examination of the geology, mineralogy, flora and fauna of the great Darling range. In the course of an expedition, undertaken in 1840, he explored Gippsland in Victoria, previously discovered by, and after great hardships penetrated through the bush to Melbourne. He gave its name to Gippsland. He discovered gold-bearing quartz in the year 1839 in the district of Wellington, 200 miles west of Sydney. The Count subsequently published "A Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land," but without mentioning his actual discovery of gold in the Bathurst district, which he had promised the Governor, Sir George Gipps, not to divulge for fear of rousing the cupidity of the prisoners and labourers. He returned to Europe in 1846, and on his arrival in England was welcomed by the Colonial Secretary. He was selected as one of the commissioners for the distribution of the Irish famine relief fund in 1847-8, and assisted in promoting the emigration of many impoverished families to Australia. In consideration of his Irish services he was created C.B. in 1849, and was made K.C.M.G. in 1869. In June 1853 he was elected F.R.S., and was given the D.C.L. of the university of Oxford. He died in Savile Row, London, on Oct. 6th 1877.

Stuart, Hon. Sir Alexander, M.L.A., sometime Premier of New South Wales, son of Alexander Stuart of Edinburgh, was born in that city in 1825, and educated at the Edinburgh Academy, and subsequently at the University there. He was engaged in mercantile pursuits in Leith, Glasgow and London, and afterwards went to India, whence he came to Sydney in 1851, and entered the service of the Bank of New South Wales as assistant secretary. In 1855 he resigned the latter post, and went into partnership with the late Captain Towns in the firm of Towns & Co. In 1876 he was elected to the Assembly for East Sydney, and was Colonial Treasurer in the Robertson Government from February of that year till March 1877, when the Ministry resigned. In Jan. 1883, on the defeat of the - coalition, he accepted the task of forming a cabinet, and was Premier and Colonial Secretary till Oct. 1885. It was during his absence through indisposition in the latter year that his locum tenens, Mr. Dalley, on his own responsibility, made the bold coup of offering to despatch the Soudan  444


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Rh, arrived. Was glad to escape to our little schooner Belle again, weary and heavy laden with excitement and tempting fruits.

As night came on, a thousand lights starred the great town. I was now in one of my happy dreamlands, the fairest of West India islands. But how, I wondered, shall I be able to escape from this great city confusion? How shall I reach nature in this delectable land? Consulting my map, I longed to climb the central mountain range of the island and trace it through all its forests and valleys and over its summit peaks, a distance of seven or eight hundred miles. But alas! though out of Florida swamps, fever was yet weighing me down, and a mile of city walking was quite exhausting. The weather too was oppressively warm and sultry.

January 16. During the few days since our arrival the sun usually has risen unclouded, pouring down pure gold, rich and dense, for one or two hours. Then islandlike masses of white-edged cumuli suddenly appeared, grew to storm size, and in a few minutes discharged

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Rh rain in tepid plashing bucketfuls, accompanied with high wind. This was followed by a short space of calm, half-cloudy sky, delightfully fragrant with flowers, and again the air would become hot, thick, and sultry.

This weather, as may readily be perceived, was severe to one so weak and feverish, and after a dozen trials of strength over the Morro Hill and along the coast northward for shells and flowers, I was sadly compelled to see that no enthusiasm could enable me to walk to the interior. So I was obliged to limit my researches to within ten or twelve miles of Havana. Captain Parsons offered his ship as my headquarters, and my weakness prevented me from spending a single night ashore.

The daily programme for nearly all the month that I spent here was about as follows: After breakfast a sailor rowed me ashore on the north side of the harbor. A few minutes walk took me past the Morro Castle and out of sight of the town on a broad cactus common, about as solitary and untrodden as the tangles of


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OR close upon a month Soames performed the duties imposed upon him in the household of Henry Leroux. He was unable to discover, despite a careful course of inquiry from the cook and the housemaid, that Mrs. Leroux frequently absented herself. But the servants were newly engaged, for the flat in Palace Mansions had only recently been leased by the Leroux. He gathered that they had formerly lived much abroad, and that their marriage had taken place in Paris. Mrs. Leroux had been to visit a friend in the French capital once, he understood, since the housemaid had been in her employ.

The mistress (said the housemaid) did not care twopence-ha’penny for her husband; she had married him for his money, and for nothing else. She had had an earlier love (declared the cook) and was pining away to a mere shadow because of her painful memories. During the last six months (the period of the cook’s service) Mrs. Leroux had altered out of all recognition. The cook was of opinion that she drank secretly.

Of Mr. Leroux, Soames formed the poorest opinion. He counted him a spiritless being, whose

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 world was bounded by his book-shelves, and whose wife would be a fool if she did not avail herself of the liberty which his neglect invited her to enjoy. Soames felt himself, not a snake in the grass, but a benefactor—a friend in need—a champion come to the defense of an unhappy and persecuted woman.

He wondered when an opportunity should arise which would enable him to commence his chivalrous operations; almost daily he anticipated instructions to the effect that Mrs. Leroux would be leaving for Paris immediately. But the days glided by and the weeks glided by, without anything occurring to break the monotony of the Leroux household.

Mr. Soames sought an opportunity to express his respectful readiness to Mrs. Leroux; but the lady was rarely visible outside her own apartments until late in the day, when she would be engaged in preparing for the serious business of the evening: one night a dance, another, a bridge-party; so it went. Mr. Leroux rarely joined her upon these festive expeditions, but clung to his study like Diogenes to his tub.

Great was Mr. Soames’ contempt; bitter were the reproaches of the cook; dark were the predictions of the housemaid.

At last, however, Soames, feeling himself neglected, seized an opportunity which offered to cement the secret bond (the too secret bond) existing between himself and the mistress of the house.

Meeting her one afternoon in the lobby, which

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 she was crossing on the way from her bedroom to the drawing-room, he stood aside to let her pass, whispering:

“At your service, whenever you are ready, madam!”

It was a non-committal remark, which, if she chose to keep up the comedy, he could explain away by claiming it to refer to the summoning of the car from the garage—for Mrs. Leroux was driving out that afternoon.

She did not endeavor to evade the occult meaning of the words, however. In the wearily dreamy manner which, when first he had seen her, had aroused Soames’ respectful interest, she raised her thin hand to her hair, slowly pressing it back from her brow, and directed her big eyes vacantly upon him.

“Yes, Soames,” she said (her voice had a faraway quality in keeping with the rest of her personality), “Mr. King speaks well of you. But please do not refer again to”—she glanced in a manner at once furtive and sorrowful, in the direction of the study-door—“to the…little arrangement of”…

She passed on, with the slow, gliding gait, which, together with her fragility, sometimes lent her an almost phantomesque appearance.

This was comforting, in its degree; since it proved that the smiling Gianapolis had in no way misled him (Soames). But as a man of business, Mr.

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 Soames was not fully satisfied. He selected an evening when Mrs. Leroux was absent—and indeed she was absent almost every evening, for Leroux entertained but little. The cook and the housemaid were absent, also; therefore, to all intents and purposes, Soames had the flat to himself; since Henry Leroux counted in that establishment, not as an entity, but rather as a necessary, if unornamental, portion of the fittings.

Standing in the lobby, Soames raised the telephone receiver, and having paused with closed eyes preparing the exact form of words in which he should address his invisible employer, he gave the number: East 18642.

Following a brief delay:—

“Yes,” came a nasal voice, “who is it?”

“Soames! I want to speak to Mr. King!”

The words apparently surprised the man at the other end of the wire, for he hesitated ere inquiring:—

“What did you say your name was?”

“Soames—Luke Soames.”

“Hold on!”

Soames, with closed eyes, and holding the receiver to his ear, silently rehearsed again the exact wording of his speech. Then:—

“Hullo!” came another voice—“is that Mr. Soames?”

“Yes! Is that Mr. Gianapolis speaking?”

“It is, my dear Soames!” replied the sing-song

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 voice; and Soames, closing his eyes again, had before him a mental picture of the radiantly smiling Greek.

“Yes, my dear Soames,” continued Gianapolis; “here I am. I hope you are quite well—perfectly well?”

“I am perfectly well, thank you; but as a man of business, it has occurred to me that failing a proper agreement—which in this case I know would be impossible—a trifling advance on the first quarter’s”…

“On your salary, my dear Soames! On your salary? Payment for the first quarter shall be made to you to-morrow, my dear Soames! Why ever did you not express the wish before? Certainly, certainly!”…

“Will it be sent to me?”

“My dear fellow! How absurd you are! Can you get out to-morrow evening about nine o’clock?”

“Yes, easily.”

“Then I will meet you at the corner of Victoria Street, by the hotel, and hand you your first quarter’s salary. Will that be satisfactory?”

“Perfectly,” said Soames, his small eyes sparkling with avarice. “Most decidedly, Mr. Gianapolis. Many thanks.”…

“And by the way,” continued the other, “it is rather fortunate that you rang me up this evening, because it has saved me the trouble of ringing you up.”

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 “What?”—Soames’ eyes half closed, from the bottom lids upwards:—“there is something”…

“There is a trifling service which I require of you—yes, my dear Soames.”

“Is it?”…

“We will discuss the matter to-morrow evening. Oh! it is a mere trifle. So good-by for the present.”

Soames, with the fingers of his two hands interlocked before him, and his thumbs twirling rapidly around one another, stood in the lobby, gazing reflectively at the rug-strewn floor. He was working out in his mind how handsomely this first payment would show up on the welcome side of his passbook. Truly, he was fortunate in having met the generous Gianapolis.…

He thought of a trifling indiscretion committed at the expense of one Mr. Mapleson, and of the wine-bill of Colonel Hewett; and he thought of the apparently clairvoyant knowledge of the Greek. A cloud momentarily came between his perceptive and the rosy horizon.

But nearer to the foreground of the mental picture, uprose a left-hand page of his pass book; and its tidings of great joy, written in clerkly hand, served to dispel the cloud.

Soames sighed in gentle rapture, and, soft-footed, passed into his own room.

Certainly his duties were neither difficult nor unpleasant. The mistress of the house lived

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 in a hazy dream-world of her own, and Mr. Leroux was the ultimate expression of the non-commercial. Mr. Soames could have robbed him every day had he desired to do so; but he had refrained from availing himself even of those perquisites which he considered justly his; for it was evident, to his limited intelligence, that greater profit was to be gained by establishing himself in this household than by weeding-out five shillings here, and half-a-sovereign there, at the risk of untimely dismissal.

Yet—it was a struggle! All Mr. Soames’ commercial instincts were up in arms against this voice of a greater avarice which counseled abstention. For instance: he could have added half-a-sovereign a week to his earnings by means of a simple arrangement with the local wine merchant. Leroux’s cigars he could have sold by the hundreds; for Leroux, when a friend called, would absently open a new box, entirely forgetful of the fact that a box from which but two—or at most three—cigars had been taken, lay already on the bureau.

Mr. Soames, in order to put his theories to the test, had temporarily abstracted half-a-dozen such boxes from the study and the dining-room and had hidden them. Leroux, finding, as he supposed, that he was out of cigars, had simply ordered Soames to get him some more.

“Er—about a dozen boxes—er—Soames,” he had said; “of the same sort!”

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 Was ever a man of business submitted to such an ordeal? After receiving those instructions, Soames had sat for close upon an hour in his own room, contemplating the six broken boxes, containing in all some five hundred and ninety cigars; but the voice within prevailed; he must court no chance of losing his situation; therefore, he “discovered” these six boxes in a cupboard—much to Henry Leroux’s surprise!

Then, Leroux regularly sent him to the Charing Cross branch of the London County and Suburban Bank with open checks! Sometimes, he would be sent to pay in, at other times to withdraw; the amounts involved varying from one guinea to £150! But, as he told himself, on almost every occasion that he went to Leroux’s bank, he was deliberately throwing money away, deliberately closing his eyes to the good fortune which this careless and gullible man cast in his path. He observed a scrupulous honesty in all these dealings, with the result that the bank manager came to regard him as a valuable and trustworthy servant, and said as much to the assistant manager, expressing his wonder that Leroux—whose account occasioned the bank more anxiety, and gave it more work, than that of any other two depositors—had at last engaged a man who would keep his business affairs in order!

And these were but a few of the golden apples which Mr. Soames permitted to slip through his fingers, so steadfast was he in his belief that

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 Gianapolis would be as good as his word, and make his fortune.

Leroux employed no secretary; and his MSS. were typed at his agent’s office. A most slovenly man in all things, and in business matters especially, he was the despair, not only of his banker, but of his broker; he was a man who, in professional parlance, “deserved to be robbed.” It is improbable that he had any but the haziest ideas, at any particular time, respecting the state of his bank balance and investments. He detested the writing of business letters, and was always at great pains to avoid anything in the nature of a commercial rendezvous. He would sign any document which his lawyer or his broker cared to send him, with simple, unquestioned faith.

His bank he never visited, and his appearance was entirely unfamiliar to the staff. True, the manager knew him slightly, having had two interviews with him: one when the account was opened, and the second when Leroux introduced his solicitor and broker—in order that in the future he might not be troubled in any way with business affairs.

Mr. Soames perceived more and more clearly that the mild deception projected was unlikely to be discovered by its victim; and, at the appointed time, he hastened to the corner of Victoria Street, to his appointment with Gianapolis. The latter was prompt, for Soames perceived his radiant smile afar off.

The saloon bar of the Red Lion was affably

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 by Mr. Gianapolis as a suitable spot to discuss the business. Soames agreed, not without certain inward qualms; for the proximity of the hostelry to New Scotland Yard was a disquieting circumstance.

However, since Gianapolis affected to treat their negotiations in the light of perfectly legitimate business, he put up no protest, and presently found himself seated in a very cozy corner of the saloon bar, with a glass of whisky-and-soda on a little table before him, bubbling in a manner which rendered it an agreeable and refreshing sight in the eyes of Mr. Soames.

“You know,” said Gianapolis, the gaze of his left eye bisecting that of his right in a most bewildering manner, “they call this ‘the ’tec’s tabernacle!’”

“Indeed,” said Soames, without enthusiasm; “I suppose some of the Scotland Yard men do drop in now and then?”

“Beyond doubt, my dear Soames.”

Soames responded to his companion’s radiant smile with a smile of his own by no means so pleasant to look upon. Soames had the type of face which, in repose, might be the face of an honest man; but his smile would have led to his instant arrest on any racecourse in Europe: it was the smile of a pick-pocket.

“Now,” continued Gianapolis, “here is a quarter’s salary in advance.”

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 From a pocket-book, he took a little brown paper envelope and from the brown paper envelope counted out four five-pound notes, five golden sovereigns, one half-sovereign, and ten shillings’ worth of silver. Soames’ eyes glittered, delightedly.

“A little informal receipt?” smiled Gianapolis, raising his eyebrows, satanically. “Here on this page of my notebook I have written: ‘Received from Mr. King for service rendered, £26, being payment, in advance, of amount due on 31st October 19’ I have attached a stamp to the page, as you will see,” continued Gianapolis, “and here is a fountain-pen. Just sign across the stamp, adding to-day’s date.”

Soames complied with willing alacrity; and Gianapolis having carefully blotted the signature, replaced the notebook in his pocket, and politely acknowledged the return of the fountain-pen. Soames, glancing furtively about him, replaced the money in the envelope, and thrust the latter carefully into a trouser pocket.

“Now,” resumed Gianapolis, “we must not permit our affairs of business to interfere with our amusements.”

He stepped up to the bar and ordered two more whiskies with soda. These being sampled, business was resumed.

“To-morrow,” said Gianapolis, leaning forward across the table so that his face almost touched that

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 of his companion, “you will be entrusted by Mr. Leroux with a commission.”…

Soames nodded eagerly, his eyes upon the speaker’s face.

“You will accompany Mrs. Leroux to the bank,” continued Gianapolis, “in order that she may write a specimen signature, in the presence of the manager, for transmission to the Crédit Lyonnais in Paris.”…

Soames nearly closed his little eyes in his effort to comprehend.

“A draft in her favor,” continued the Greek, “has been purchased by Mr. Leroux’s bank from the Paris bank, and, on presentation of this, a check-book will be issued to Mrs. Leroux by the Credit Lyonnais in Paris to enable her to draw at her convenience upon that establishment against the said order. Do you follow me?”

Soames nodded rapidly, eager to exhibit an intelligent grasp of the situation.

“Now”—Gianapolis lowered his voice impressively—“no one at the Charing Cross branch of the London County and Suburban Bank has ever seen Mrs. Leroux!—Oh! we have been careful of that, and we shall be careful in the future. You are known already as an accredited agent of Leroux; therefore”—he bent yet closer to Soames’ ear—“you will direct the chauffeur to drop you, not at the Strand entrance, but at the side entrance. You follow?”

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 Soames, almost holding his breath, nodded again.

“At the end of the court, in which the latter entrance is situated, a lady dressed in the same manner as Mrs. Leroux (this is arranged) will be waiting. Mrs. Leroux will walk straight up the court, into the corridor of Bank Chambers by the back entrance, and from thence out into the Strand. You will escort the second lady into the manager’s office, and she will sign ‘Mira Leroux’ instead of the real Mira Leroux.”…

Soames became aware that he was changing color. This was a superior felony, and as such it awed his little mind. It was tantamount to burning his boats. Missing silver spoons and cooked petty cash were trivialities usually expiable at the price of a boot-assisted dismissal; but this—!

“You understand?” Gianapolis was not smiling, now. “There is not the slightest danger. The signature of the lady whom you will meet will be an exact duplicate of the real one; that is, exact enough to deceive a man who is not looking for a forgery. But it would not be exact enough to deceive the French banker—he will be looking for a forgery. You follow me? The signature on the checks drawn against the Credit Lyonnais will be the same as the specimen forwarded by the London County and Suburban, since they will be written by the same lady—the duplicate Mrs. Leroux. Therefore, the French bank will have no means of detecting the harmless little deception practised

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 upon them, and the English bank, if it should ever see those checks, will raise no question, since the checks will have been honored by the Crédit Lyonnais.”

Soames finished his whisky-and-soda at a gulp.

“Finally,” concluded Gianapolis, “you will escort the lady out by the front entrance to the Strand. She will leave you and walk in an easterly direction—making some suitable excuse if the manager should insist upon seeing her to the door; and the real Mrs. Leroux will come out by the Strand end of Bank Chambers’ corridor, and walk back with you around the corner to where the car will be waiting. Perfect?”

“Quite,” said Soames, huskily.…

But when, some twenty minutes later, he returned to Palace Mansions, he was a man lost in thought; and he did not entirely regain his wonted composure, and did not entirely shake off the incubus, Doubt, until in his own room he had re-counted the contents of the brown paper envelope. Then:—

“It’s safe enough,” he muttered; “and it’s worth it!”

Thus it came about that, on the following morning, Leroux called him into the study and gave him just such instructions as Gianapolis had outlined the evening before.

“I am—er—too busy to go myself, Soames,” said Leroux, “and—er—Mrs. Leroux will shortly be paying a visit to friends in—er—in

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 Paris. So that I am opening a credit there for her. Save so much trouble—and—such a lot of—correspondence—international money orders—and such worrying things. Mr. Smith, the manager, knows you and you will take this letter of authority. The draft I understand has already been purchased.”

Mr. Soames was bursting with anxiety to learn the amount of this draft, but could find no suitable opportunity to inquire. The astonishing deception, then, was carried out without anything resembling a hitch. Mrs. Leroux went through with her part in the comedy, in the dreamy manner of a somnambulist; and the duplicate Mrs. Leroux, who waited at the appointed spot, had achieved so startling a resemblance to her prototype, that Mr. Soames became conscious of a craving for a peg of brandy at the moment of setting eyes upon her. However, behe [sic] braced himself up and saw the business through.

As was to be expected, no questions were raised and no doubts entertained. The bank manager was very courteous and very reserved, and the fictitious Mrs. Leroux equally reserved, indeed, cold. She avoided raising her motor veil, and, immediately the business was concluded, took her departure, Mr. Smith escorting her as far as the door.

She walked away toward Fleet Street, and the respectful attendant, Soames, toward Charing Cross; he rejoined Mrs. Leroux at the door of Bank Chambers, and the two turned the corner and

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 the waiting car. Soames was rather nervous; Mrs. Leroux quite apathetic.

Shortly after this event, Soames learnt that the date of Mrs. Leroux’s departure to Paris was definitely fixed. He received from her hands a large envelope.

“For Mr. King,” she said, in her dreamy fashion; and he noticed that she seemed to be in poorer health than usual. Her mouth twitched strangely; she was a nervous wreck.

Then came her departure, attended by a certain bustle, an appointment with Mr. Gianapolis; and the delivery of the parcel into that gentleman’s keeping.

Mrs. Leroux was away for six days on this occasion. Leroux sent her three postcards during that time, and re-addressed some ten or twelve letters which arrived for her. The address in all cases was:

East 18642 was much in demand that week; and there were numerous meetings between Soames and Gianapolis at the corner of Victoria Street, and numerous whiskies-and-sodas in the Red Lion; for Gianapolis persisted in his patronage of that establishment, apparently for no other reason than

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 it was dangerously near to Scotland Yard, and an occasional house of call for members of the Criminal Investigation Department.

Thus did Mr. Soames commence his career of duplicity at the flat of Henry Leroux; and for some twelve months before the events which so dramatically interfered with the delightful scheme, he drew his double salary and performed his perfidious work with great efficiency and contentment. Mrs. Leroux paid four other visits to Paris during that time, and always returned in much better spirits, although pale and somewhat haggard looking. It fell to the lot of Soames always to meet her at Charing Cross; but never once, by look or by word, did she proffer, or invite, the slightest exchange of confidence. She apathetically accepted his aid in conducting this intrigue as she would have accepted his aid in putting on her opera-cloak.

The curious Soames had read right through the telephone directory from A to Z in quest of East 18642—only to learn that no such number was published. His ingenuity not being great, he could think of no means to learn the address of the mysterious Mr. King. So keenly had he been impressed with the omniscience of that shadowy being who knew all his past, that he feared to inquire of the Eastern Exchange. His banking account was growing handsomely, and, above all things, he dreaded to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Then came the night which shattered all.

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 rung up East 18642 and made an appointment with Gianapolis in regard to some letters for Mrs. Leroux, he had been surprised, on reaching the corner of Victoria Street, to find that Gianapolis was not there! He glanced up at the face of Big Ben. Yes—for the first time during their business acquaintance, Mr. Gianapolis was late!

For close upon twenty minutes, Soames waited, walking slowly up and down. When, at last, coming from the direction of Westminster, he saw the familiar spruce figure.

Eagerly he hurried forward to meet the Greek; but Gianapolis—to the horror and amazement of Soames—affected not to know him! He stepped aside to avoid the stupefied butler, and passed. But, in passing, he hissed these words at Soames:—

“Follow to Victoria Street Post Office! Pretend to post letters at next box to me and put them in my hand!”

He was gone!

Soames, dazed at this new state of affairs, followed him at a discreet distance. Gianapolis ran up the Post Office steps briskly, and Soames, immediately afterwards, ascended also—furtively. Gianapolis was taking out a number of letters from his pocket.

Soames walked across to the “Country” box on his right, and affected to scrutinize the addresses on the envelopes of Mrs. Leroux’s correspondence.

Gianapolis, on the pretense of posting a country

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 letter, reached out and snatched the correspondence from Soames’ hand. The gaze of his left eye crookedly sought the face of the butler.

“Go home!” whispered Gianapolis; “be cautious!”

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N a pitiable state of mind, Soames walked away from the Post Office. Gianapolis had hurried off in the direction of Victoria Station. Something was wrong! Some part of the machine, of the dimly divined machine whereof he formed a cog, was out of gear. Since the very nature of this machine—its construction and purpose, alike—was unknown to Soames, he had no basis upon which to erect surmises for good or ill.

His timid inquiries into the identity of East 18642 had begun and terminated with his labored perusal of the telephone book, a profitless task which had occupied him for the greater part of an evening.

The name, Gianapolis, did not appear at all; whereas there proved to be some two hundred and ninety Kings. But, oddly, only four of these were on the Eastern Exchange; one was a veterinary surgeon; one a boat-builder; and a third a teacher of dancing. The fourth, an engineer, seemed a “possible” to Soames, although his published number was not 18642; but a brief—a very brief—conversation, convinced the butler that this was not his man.

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 He had been away from the flat for over an hour, and he doubted if even the lax sense of discipline possessed by Mr. Leroux would enable that gentleman to overlook this irregularity. Soames had a key of the outer door, and he built his hopes upon the possibility that Leroux had not noticed his absence and would not hear his return.

He opened the door very quietly, but had scarcely set his foot in the lobby ere the dreadful, unforgettable scene met his gaze.

For more years than he could remember, he had lived in dread of the law; and, in Luke Soames’ philosophy, the words Satan and Detective were interchangeable. Now, before his eyes, was a palpable, unmistakable police officer; and on the floor…

Just one glimpse he permitted himself—and, in a voice that seemed to reach him from a vast distance, the detective was addressing him!…

Slinking to his room, with his craven heart missing every fourth beat, and his mind in chaos, Soames sank down upon the bed, locked his hands together and hugged them, convulsively, between his knees.

It was come! He had overstepped that almost invisible boundary-line which divides indiscretion from crime. He knew now that the voice within him, the voice which had warned him against Gianapolis and against becoming involved in what dimly he had perceived to be an elaborate scheme,

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 had been, not the voice of cowardice (as he had supposed) but that of prudence.

And it was too late. The dead woman, he told himself—he had been unable to see her very clearly—undoubtedly was Mrs. Leroux. What in God’s name had happened! Probably her husband had killed her…which meant? It meant that proofs—proofs—were come into his possession; and who should be involved, entangled in the meshes of this fallen conspiracy, but himself, Luke Soames!

As must be abundantly evident, Soames was not a criminal of the daring type; he did not believe in reaching out for anything until he was well assured that he could, if necessary, draw back his hand. This last venture, this regrettable venture—this ruinous venture—had been a mistake. He had entered into it under the glamour of Gianapolis’ personality. Of what use, now, to him was his swelling bank balance?

But in justice to the mental capacity of Soames, it must be admitted that he had not entirely overlooked such a possibility as this; he had simply refrained, for the good of his health, from contemplating it.

Long before, he had observed, with interest, that, should an emergency arise (such as a fire), a means of egress had been placed by the kindly architect adjacent to his bedroom window. Thus, his departure on the night of the murder was not the fruit of a sudden scheme, but of one well matured.

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 Closing and locking his bedroom door, Soames threw out upon the bed the entire contents of his trunk; selected those things which he considered indispensable, and those which might constitute clues. He hastily packed his grip, and, with a last glance about the room and some seconds of breathless listening at the door, he attached to the handle a long piece of cord, which at some time had been tied about his trunk, and, gently opening the window, lowered the grip into the courtyard beneath. The light he had already extinguished, and with the conviction dwelling in his bosom that in some way he was become accessory to a murder—that he was a man shortly to be pursued by the police of the civilized world—he descended the skeleton lift-shaft, picked up his grip, and passed out under the archway into the lane at the back of Palace Mansions and St. Andrew’s Mansions.

He did not proceed in the direction which would have brought him out into the Square, but elected to emerge through the other end. At exactly the moment that Inspector Dunbar rushed into his vacated room, Mr. Soames, grip in hand, was mounting to the top of a southward bound ’bus at the corner of Parliament Street!

He was conscious of a need for reflection. He longed to sit in some secluded spot in order to think. At present, his brain was a mere whirligig, and all things about him seemingly danced to the same tune. Stationary objects were become unstable in the eyes

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 of Soames, and the solid earth, burst free of its moorings, no longer afforded him a safe foothold. There was a humming in his ears; and a mist floated before his eyes. By the time that the motor-’bus was come to the south side of the bridge, Soames had succeeded in slowing down his mental roundabout in some degree; and now he began grasping at the flying ideas which the diminishing violence of his brain storm enabled him, vaguely, to perceive.

The first fruits of his reflections were bitter. He viewed the events of the night in truer focus; he saw that by his flight he had sealed his fate—had voluntarily outlawed himself. It became frightfully evident to him that he dared not seek to draw from his bank, that he dared not touch even his modest Post Office account. With the exception of some twenty-five shillings in his pocket, he was penniless!

How could he hope to fly the country, or even to hide himself, without money?

He glanced suspiciously about the ’bus; for he perceived that an old instinct had prompted him to mount one which passed the Oval—a former point of debarkation when he lived in rooms near Kennington Park. Someone might recognize him!

Furtively, he scanned his fellow passengers, but perceived no acquaintance.

What should he do—where should he go? It was a desperate situation.

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 The inspector who had cared to study that furtive, isolated figure, could not have failed to mark it for that of a hunted man.

At Kennington Gate the ’bus made a halt. Soames glanced at the clock on the corner. It was close upon one Where in heaven’s name should he go? What a fool he had been to come to this district where he was known!

Stay! There was one man in London, surely, who must be almost as keenly interested in the fate of Luke Soames as Luke Soames himself…Gianapolis!

Soames sprang up and hurried off the ’bus. No public telephone box would be available at that hour, but dire need spurred his slow mind and also lent him assurance. He entered the office of the taxicab depot on the next corner, and, from the man whom he found in charge, solicited and obtained the favor of using the telephone. Lifting the receiver, he asked for East 18642.

The seconds that elapsed, now, were as hours of deathly suspense to the man at the telephone. If the number should be engaged!…If the exchange could get no reply!…

“Hullo!” said a nasal voice—“who is it?”

“It is Soames—and I want to speak to Mr. King!”

He lowered his tone as much as possible, almost whispering his own name. He knew the voice which had answered him; it was the same that he

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 always heard when ringing up East 18642. But would Gianapolis come to the telephone? Suddenly—

“Is that Soames?” spoke the sing-song voice of the Greek.

“Yes, yes!”

“Where are you?”

“At Kennington.”

“Are they following you?”

“No—I don’t think so, at least; what am I to do? Where am I to go?”

“Get to Globe Road—near Stratford Bridge, East, without delay. But whatever you do, see that you are not followed! Globe Road is the turning immediately beyond the Railway Station. It is not too late, perhaps, to get a ’bus or tram, for some part of the way, at any rate. But even if the last is gone, don’t take a cab; walk. When you get to Globe Road, pass down on the left-hand side, and, if necessary, right to the end. Make sure you are not followed, then walk back again. You will receive a signal from an open door. Come right in. Good-by.”

Soames replaced the receiver on the hook, uttering a long-drawn sigh of relief. The arbiter of his fortunes had not failed him!

“Thank you very much!” he said to the man in charge of the office, who had been bending over his books and apparently taking not the slightest interest in the telephone conversation. Soames placed

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 twopence, the price of the call, on the desk. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

He hastened out of the gate and across the road. An electric tramcar which would bear him as far as the Elephant-and-Castle was on the point of starting from the corner. Grip in hand, Soames boarded the car and mounted to the top deck. He was in some doubt respecting his mode of travel from the next point onward, but the night was fine, even if he had to walk, and his reviving spirits would cheer him with visions of a golden future!

His money!—That indeed was a bitter draught; the loss of his hardly earned savings! But he was now established—linked by a common secret—in partnership with Gianapolis; he was one of that mysterious, obviously wealthy group which arranged drafts on Paris—which could afford to pay him some hundreds of pounds per annum for such a trifling service as juggling the mail!

Mr. King!—If Gianapolis were only the servant, what a magnificent man of business must be hidden beneath the cognomen, Mr. King! And he was about to meet that lord of mystery. Fear and curiosity were oddly blended in the anticipation.

By great good fortune, Soames arrived at the Elephant-and-Castle in time to catch an eastward bound motor-’bus, a ’bus which would actually carry him to the end of Globe Road. He took his seat on top, and with greater composure than he had

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 known since his dramatic meeting with Gianapolis in Victoria Street, lighted one of Mr. Leroux’s cabanas (with which he invariably kept his case filled) and settled down to think about the future.

His reflections served apparently to shorten the journey; and Soames found himself proceeding along Globe Road—a dark and uninviting highway—almost before he realized that London Bridge had been traversed. It was now long past one o’clock; and that part of the east-end showed dreary and deserted. Public houses had long since ejected their late guests, and even those argumentative groups, which, after closing-time, linger on the pavements, within the odor Bacchanalian, were dispersed. The jauntiness was gone, now, from Soames’ manner, and aware of a marked internal depression, he passed furtively along the pavement with its long shadowy reaches between the islands of light formed by the street lamps. From patch to patch he passed, and each successive lamp that looked down upon him found him more furtive, more bent in his carriage.

Not a shop nor a house exhibited any light. Sleeping Globe Road, East, served to extinguish the last poor spark of courage within Soames’ bosom. He came to the extreme end of the road without having perceived a beckoning hand, without having detected a sound to reveal that his advent was observed. In the shadow of a wall he stopped,

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 his grip upon the pavement and looking back upon his tracks.

No living thing moved from end to end of Globe Road.

Shivering slightly, Soames picked up the bag and began to walk back. Less than half-way along, an icy chill entered into his veins, and his nerves quivered like piano wires, for a soft crying of his name came, eerie, through the silence, and terrified the hearer.

“Soames!…Soames!”…

Soames stopped dead, breathing very rapidly, and looking about him right and left. He could hear the muted pulse of sleeping London. Then, in the dark doorway of the house before which he stood, he perceived, dimly, a motionless figure. His first sensation was not of relief, but of fear. The figure raised a beckoning hand. Soames, conscious that his course was set and that he must navigate it accordingly, opened the iron gate, passed up the path and entered the house to which he thus had been summoned.…

He found himself surrounded by absolute darkness, and the door was closed behind him.

“Straight ahead, Soames!” said the familiar voice of Gianapolis out of the darkness.

Soames, with a gasp of relief, staggered on. A hand rested upon his shoulder, and he was guided into a room on the right of the passage. Then an

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 electric lamp was lighted, and he found himself confronting the Greek.

But Gianapolis was no longer radiant; all the innate evil of the man shone out through the smirking mask.

“Sit down, Soames!” he directed.

Soames, placing his bag upon the floor, seated himself in a cane armchair. The room was cheaply furnished as an office, with a roll-top desk, a revolving chair, and a filing cabinet. On a side-table stood a typewriter, and about the room were several other chairs, whilst the floor was covered with cheap linoleum. Gianapolis sat in the revolving chair, staring at the lowered blinds of the window, and brushing up the points of his black mustache.

With a fine white silk handkerchief Soames gently wiped the perspiration from his forehead and from the lining of his hat-band. Gianapolis began abruptly:—

“There has been an—accident” (he continued to brush his mustache, with increasing rapidity). “Tell me all that took place after you left the Post Office.”

Soames nervously related his painful experiences of the evening, whilst Gianapolis drilled his mustache to a satanic angle. The story being concluded:

“Whatever has happened?” groaned Soames; “and what am I to do?”

“What you are to do,” replied Gianapolis, “will

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 be arranged, my dear Soames, by—Mr. King. Where you are to go, is a problem shortly settled: you are to go nowhere; you are to stay here.”…

“Here!”

Soames gazed drearily about the room.

“Not exactly here—this is merely the office; but at our establishment proper in Limehouse.”…

“Limehouse!”

“Certainly. Although you seem to be unaware of the fact, Soames, there are some charming resorts in Limehouse; and your duties, for the present, will confine you to one of them.”

“But—but,” hesitated Soames, “the police”…

“Unless my information is at fault,” said Gianapolis, “the police have no greater chance of paying us a visit, now, than they had formerly.”…

“But Mrs. Leroux”…

“Mrs. Leroux!”

Gianapolis twirled around in the chair, his eyes squinting demoniacally:—“Mrs. Leroux!”

“She—she”…

“What about Mrs. Leroux?”

“Isn’t she dead?”

“Dead! Mrs. Leroux! You are laboring under a strange delusion, Soames. The lady whom you saw was not Mrs. Leroux.”

Soames’ brain began to fail him again.

“Then who,” he began.…

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 “That doesn’t concern you in the least, Soames. But what does concern you is this: your connection, and my connection, with the matter cannot possibly be established by the police. The incident is regrettable, but the emergency was dealt with—in time. It represents a serious deficit, unfortunately, and your own usefulness, for the moment, becomes nil; but we shall have to look after you, I suppose, and hope for better things in the future.”

He took up the telephone.

“East 39951,” he said, whilst Soames listened, attentively. Then:—

“Is that Kan-Suh Concessions?” he asked. “Yes—good! Tell Said to bring the car past the end of the road at a quarter-to-two. That’s all.”

He hung up the receiver.

“Now, my dear Soames,” he said, with a faint return to his old manner, “you are about to enter upon new duties. I will make your position clear to you. Whilst you do your work, and keep yourself to yourself, you are in no danger; but one indiscretion—just one—apart from what it may mean for others, will mean, for you, immediate arrest as accessory to a murder!”

Soames shuddered, coldly.

“You can rely upon me, Mr. Gianapolis,” he protested, “to do absolutely what you wish—absolutely. I am a ruined man, and I know it—I know

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 it. My only hope is that you will give me a chance.”…

“You shall have every chance, Soames,” replied Gianapolis—“every chance.”

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Rh Florida. Here I zigzagged and gathered prizes among unnumbered plants and shells along the shore, stopping to press the plant specimens and to rest in the shade of vine-heaps and bushes until sundown. The happy hours stole away until I had to return to the schooner. Either I was seen by the sailors who usually came for me, or I hired a boat to take me back. Arrived, I reached up my press and a big handful of flowers, and with a little help climbed up the side of my floating home.

Refreshed with supper and rest, I recounted my adventures in the vine tangles, cactus thickets, sunflower swamps, and along the shore among the breakers. My flower specimens, also, and pocketfuls of shells and corals had to be reviewed. Next followed a cool, dreamy hour on deck amid the lights of the town and the various vessels coming and departing.

Many strange sounds were heard: the vociferous, unsmotherable bells, the heavy thundering of cannon from the Castle, and the


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Rh shouts of the sentinels in measured time. Combined they made the most incessant sharp-angled mass of noise that I ever was doomed to hear. Nine or ten o clock found me in a small bunk with the harbor wavelets tinkling outside close to my ear. The hours of sleep were filled with dreams of heavy heat, of fruitless efforts for the disentanglement of vines, or of running from curling breakers back to the Morro, etc. Thus my days and nights went on.

Occasionally I was persuaded by the captain to go ashore in the evening on his side of the harbor, accompanied perhaps by two or three other captains. After landing and telling the sailors when to call for us, we hired a carriage and drove to the upper end of the city, to a fine public square adorned with shady walks and magnificent plants. A brass band in imposing uniform played the characteristic lance-noted martial airs of the Spanish. Evening is the fashionable hour for aristocratic drives about the streets and squares, the only time that is delightfully cool. I never saw elsewhere people


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Rh so neatly and becomingly dressed. The proud best-family Cubans may fairly be called beautiful, are under- rather than over-sized, with features exquisitely moulded, and set off with silks and broadcloth in excellent taste. Strange that their amusements should be so coarse. Bull-fighting, brain-splitting bell-ringing, and the most piercing artificial music appeal to their taste.

The rank and wealth of Havana nobility, when out driving, seems to be indicated by the distance of their horses from the body of the carriage. The higher the rank, the longer the shafts of the carriage, and the clumsier and more ponderous are the wheels, which are not unlike those of a cannon-cart. A few of these carriages have shafts twenty-five feet in length, and the brilliant-liveried negro driver on the lead horse, twenty or thirty feet in advance of the horse in the shafts, is beyond calling distance of his master.

Havana abounds in public squares, which in all my random strolls throughout the big town


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Rh I found to be well watered, well cared for, well planted, and full of exceedingly showy and interesting plants, rare even amid the exhaustless luxuriance of Cuba. These squares also contained fine marble statuary and were furnished with seats in the shadiest places. Many of the walks were paved instead of graveled.

The streets of Havana are crooked, labyrinthic, and exceedingly narrow. The sidewalks are only about a foot wide. A traveler experiences delightful relief when, heated and wearied by raids through the breadth of the dingy yellow town, dodging a way through crowds of men and mules and lumbering carts and carriages, he at length finds shelter in the spacious, dustless, cool, flowery squares; still more when, emerging from all the din and darkness of these lanelike streets, he suddenly finds himself out in the middle of the harbor, inhaling full-drawn breaths of the sea breezes.

The interior of the better houses which came under my observation struck me with the profusion of dumpy, ill-proportioned pillars at the


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Rh entrances and in the halls, and with the spacious open-fielded appearance of their enclosed square house-gardens or courts. Cubans in general appear to me superfinely polished, polite, and agreeable in society, but in their treatment of animals they are cruel. I saw more downright brutal cruelty to mules and horses during the few weeks I stayed there than in my whole life elsewhere. Live chickens and hogs are tied in bunches by the legs and carried to market thus, slung on a mule. In their general treatment of all sorts of animals they seem to have no thought for them beyond cold-blooded, selfish interest.

In tropical regions it is easy to build towns, but it is difficult to subdue their armed and united plant inhabitants, and to clear fields and make them blossom with breadstuff. The plant people of temperate regions, feeble, unarmed, unallied, disappear under the trampling feet of flocks, herds, and man, leaving their homes to enslavable plants which follow the will of man and furnish him with food. But the


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Rh armed and united plants of the tropics hold their rightful kingdom plantfully, nor, since the first appearance of Lord Man, have they ever suffered defeat.

A large number of Cuba's wild plants circle closely about Havana. In five minutes walk from the wharf I could reach the undisturbed settlements of Nature. The field of the greater portion of my rambling researches was a strip of rocky common, silent and unfrequented by anybody save an occasional beggar at Nature’s door asking a few roots and seeds. This natural strip extended ten miles along the coast northward, with but few large-sized trees and bushes, but rich in magnificent vines, cacti-composites, leguminous plants, grasses, etc. The wild flowers of this seaside field are a happy band, closely joined in splendid array. The trees shine with blossoms and with light reflected from the leaves. The individuality of the vines is lost in trackless, interlacing, twisting, overheaping union.

Our American "South" is rich in flowery


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Rh vines. In some districts almost every tree is crowned with them, aiding each other in grace and beauty. Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee have the grapevine in predominant numbers and development. Farther south dwell the greenbriers and countless leguminous vines. A vine common among the Florida islets, perhaps belonging to the dogbane family, over runs live-oaks and palmettos, with frequently more than a hundred stems twisted into one cable. Yet in no section of the South are there such complicated and such gorgeously flowered vine-tangles as flourish in armed safety in the hot and humid wild gardens of Cuba.

The longest and the shortest vine that I found in Cuba were both leguminous. I have said that the harbor side of the Morro Hill is clothed with tall yellow-flowered composites through which it is difficult to pass. But there are smooth, velvety, lawnlike patches in these Compositæ forests. Coming suddenly upon one of these open places, I stopped to admire its greenness and smoothness, when I observed a


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Rh sprinkling of large papilionaceous blossoms among the short green grass. The long composites that bordered this little lawn were entwined and almost smothered with vines which bore similar corollas in tropic abundance.

I at once decided that these sprinkled flowers had been blown off the encompassing tangles and had been kept fresh by dew and by spray from the sea. But, on stooping to pick one of them up, I was surprised to find that it was attached to Mother Earth by a short, prostrate, slender hair of a vine stem, bearing, besides the one large blossom, a pair or two of linear leaves. The flower weighed more than stem, root, and leaves combined. Thus, in a land of creeping and twining giants, we find also this charming, diminutive simplicity—the vine reduced to its lowest terms.

The longest vine, prostrate and untwined like its little neighbor, covers patches of several hundred square yards with its countless branches and close growth of upright, trifoliate, smooth green leaves. The flowers are as plain and


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Rh in size and color as those of the sweet peas of gardens. The seeds are large and satiny. The whole plant is noble in its motions and features, covering the ground with a depth of unconfused leafage which I have never seen equaled by any other plant. The extent of leaf-surface is greater, I think, than that of a large Kentucky oak. It grows, as far as my observation has reached, only upon shores, in a soil composed of broken shells and corals, and extends exactly to the water-line of the highest-reaching waves. The same plant is abundant in Florida.

The cacti form an important part of the plant population of my ramble ground. They are various as the vines, consisting now of a diminutive joint or two hid in the weeds, now rising into bushy trees, wide-topped, with trunks a foot in diameter, and with glossy, dark-green joints that reflect light like the silex-varnished palms. They are planted for fences, together with the Spanish bayonet and agave.

In one of my first walks I was laboriously


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Rh fringed, jagged, and one-sided, like those of Adiantum. Hundreds of the most gorgeous-flowered plants, some of them large trees, belonging to the Leguminosæ. Compared with what I have before seen in artificial flower-gardens, this is past comparison the grandest. It is a perfect metropolis of the brightest and most exuberant of garden plants, watered by handsome fountains, while graveled and finely bordered walks slant and curve in all directions, and in all kinds of fanciful playground styles, more like the fairy gardens of the Arabian Nights than any ordinary man-made pleasure-ground.

In Havana I saw the strongest and the ugliest negroes that I have met in my whole walk. The stevedores of the Havana wharf are muscled in true giant style, enabling them to tumble and toss ponderous casks and boxes of sugar weighing hundreds of pounds as if they were empty. I heard our own brawny sailors, after watching them at work a few minutes, express unbounded admiration of their strength,


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Rh and wish that their hard outbulging muscles were for sale. The countenances of some of the negro orange-selling dames express a devout good-natured ugliness that I never could have conceived any arrangement of flesh and blood to be capable of. Besides oranges they sold pineapples, bananas, and lottery tickets.


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FTER passing a month in this magnificent island, and finding that my health was not improving, I made up my mind to push on to South America while my stock of strength, such as it was, lasted. But fortunately I could not find passage for any South American port. I had long wished to visit the Orinoco basin and in particular the basin of the Amazon. My plan was to get ashore anywhere on the north end of the continent, push on southward through the wilderness around the headwaters of the Orinoco, until I reached a tributary of the Amazon, and float down on a raft or skiff the whole length of the great river to its mouth. It seems strange that such a trip should ever have entered the dreams of any person, however enthusiastic and full of youthful daring, particularly under the disadvantages of poor health, of funds less than a


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Charnwood Forest


text:
User talk:24.128.89.244

Welcome
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title: User talk:24.128.89.244


text:
A Letter from Freud (to a mother of a homosexual)

April 9$th$ 1935

PROF. D$R$ Freud WIEN IX., BERGGASSE 19

Dear Mrs. [Erased]

I gather from your letter that your son is a homosexual. I am most impressed by the fact, that you do not mention this term yourself in your information about him. May I question you why you avoid it? Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them (Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.) It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime and cruelty too. If you do not believe me, read the books of Havelock Ellis.

By asking me if I can help, you mean, I suppose, if I can abolish homosexuality and make normal heterosexuality take its place. The answer is, in a general way, we cannot promise to achieve this. In a certain number of cases we succeed in developing the blighted germs of heterosexual tendencies, which are present in every homosexual; in the majority of cases it is no more possible. It is a question of the quality and the age of the individual. The result of treatment cannot be predicted.

What analysis can do for your son runs in a different line. If he is unhappy, neurotic, torn by conflicts, inhibited in his social life, analysis may bring him harmony, peace of mind, full efficiency, whether he remains a homosexual or gets changed. If you make up your mind he should have analysis with me—I don’t expect you will—, he has to come over to Vienna. I have no intention of leaving here. However, don’t neglect to give me your answer.

Sincerely yours with best wishes, Freud

P.S.

HEREWITH I enclose a letter from a Great and Good man which you may retain.

List Freuda (do matki homoseksualisty)


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 Rh hundred dollars, and of the insalubrity of the Amazon Valley.

Fortunately, as I said, after visiting all the shipping agencies, I could not find a vessel of any sort bound for South America, and so made up a plan to go North, to the longed-for cold weather of New York, and thence to the forests and mountains of California. There, I thought, I shall find health and new plants and mountains, and after a year spent in that interesting country I can carry out my Amazon plans.

It seemed hard to leave Cuba thus unseen and unwalked, but illness forbade my stay and I had to comfort myself with the hope of returning to its waiting treasures in full health. In the mean time I prepared for immediate departure. When I was resting in one of the Havana gardens, I noticed in a New York paper an advertisement of cheap fares to California. I consulted Captain Parsons concerning a passage to New York, where I could find a ship for California. At this time none of the California ships touched at Cuba.


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 duties of a council for the government and a provisional legislative body ad interim. It was also authorized to draw up the plan of a new constitution on the basis of such general principles as might be agreed upon by the cabildos and provincial assemblies.

There had been trouble meanwhile with the old enemies of Chile, the Araucanian Indians. They were incited to war by Mariloan, Pincheira, and other old royalists, who, when the patriots had come into power, had taken refuge with the Indians, maintaining afterward on the frontiers a desultory war of robbery and pillage.

Being now hard-pressed (1828) by the Chilean forces under General Borgoño and Colonel Beauchef, many of these Spanish refugees living with the Indians made overtures with the government of Chile for a return. Pincheira and many of his followers escaped; the Chileans recaptured many of the stolen cattle and set free about three hundred captives.

In 1827, Chile had dispatched two war frigates to assist Buenos Ayres in her war with Brazil. One of these was wrecked off Cape Horn and all on board perished ; the other put back to Chile, so that the expedition came to naught.

Considerable excitement followed an affair in a Valparaíso theatre in the latter part of 1827. A British officer struck a Chilean, and soldiers were called in. One of them touched the officer with a bayonet, when the latter drew his pistol and shot him dead. All the British officers were arrested. Sir John Sinclair, the British admiral, and Mr. Nugent, consul-general, applied to the government for the release of the officers. The authorities were slow in giving up the prisoners and the admiral landed his marines. Then the British subjects were all released, save the one who

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Rh "Well," said he, pointing toward the middle of the harbor, "there is a trim little schooner loaded with oranges for New York, and these little fruiters are fast sailers. You had better see her captain about a passage, for she must be about ready to sail." So I jumped into the dinghy and a sailor rowed me over to the fruiter. Going aboard, I inquired for the captain, who soon appeared on deck and readily agreed to carry me to New York for twenty-five dollars. Inquiring when he would sail, "To-morrow morning at daylight," he replied, "if this norther slacks a little; but my papers are made out, and you will have to see the American consul to get permission to leave on my ship."

I immediately went to the city, but was unable to find the consul, whereupon I determined to sail for New York without any formal leave. Early next morning, after leaving the Island Belle and bidding Captain Parsons good-bye, I was rowed to the fruiter and got aboard. Notwithstanding the north wind was still as boisterous as ever, our Dutch captain


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 shot the soldier; he was retained for trial, but was released subsequently. Feeling for a time ran high.

On the 5th of April a decree was promulgated making Valparaíso the capital of the maritime department, and the port at which foreign men-of-war should receive and answer salutes.

Congress was inaugurated August 15th, 1828. It assembled first in Santiago but soon retired to Valparaíso. In time a new constitution was adopted which it was hoped would give satisfaction and bring stability to the government. It was a liberal constitution and unsatisfactory to the conservative party.

In July of the following year, 1829, General Pinto resigned, but two months afterward resumed his office, having been reelected in the general elections, which also returned the congress.

The new assembly passed diverse laws bearing upon social and political reforms, but the passions of leaders and party spirit became more irritated and aggressive and made it almost impossible to carry on the government in the regular way. The pelucones, or conservatives, accused the president and congress of abuses and irregularities, and, unwilling to submit to the successes of the pipiolas, or liberals, began to conspire against them. Pinto divined the gathering storm and a month and a half after his reelection, resigned his office into the hands of the president of the senate, Don Francisco Ramón Vicuña, in the midst of general disorder, November 2nd, 1829.

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 Rh was resolved to face it, confident in the strength of his all-oak little schooner.

Vessels leaving the harbor are stopped at the Morro Castle to have their clearance papers examined; in particular, to see that no runaway slaves were being carried away. The officials came alongside our little ship, but did not come aboard. They were satisfied by a glance at the consul’s clearance paper, and with the declaration of the captain, when asked whether he had any negroes, that he had "not a dd one." "All right, then," shouted the officials, "farewell! A pleasant voyage to you!" As my name was not on the ship’s papers, I stayed below, out of sight, until I felt the heaving of the waves and knew that we were fairly out on the open sea. The Castle towers, the hills, the palms, and the wave-white strand, all faded in the distance, and our mimic sea-bird was at home in the open stormy gulf, curtsying to every wave and facing bravely to the wind.

Two thousand years ago our Saviour told Nicodemus that he did not know where the


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Rh scrambling among some low rocks gathering ferns and vines, when I was startled by finding my face close to a great snake, whose body was disposed carelessly like a castaway rope among the weeds and stones. After escaping and coming to my senses, I discovered that the snake was a member of the vegetable kingdom, capable of no dangerous amount of locomotion, but possessed of many a fang, and prostrate as though under the curse of Eden, "Upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat."

One day, after luxuriating in the riches of my Morro pasture, and pressing many new specimens, I went down to the bank of brilliant wave-washed shells to rest awhile in their beauty, and to watch the breakers that a powerful norther was heaving in splendid rank along the coral boundary. I gathered pocketfuls of shells, mostly small but fine in color and form, and bits of rosy coral. Then I amused myself by noting the varying colors of the waves and the different forms of their curved and blossoming crests. While thus alone and free it was


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bouverie, William Pleydell-


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Rh interesting to learn the richly varied songs, or what we mortals call the roar, of expiring breakers. I compared their variation with the different distances to which the broken wave-water reached landward in its farthest-flung foam-wreaths, and endeavored to form some idea of the one great song sounding forever all around the white-blooming shores of the world.

Rising from my shell seat, I watched a wave leaping from the deep and coming far up the beveled strand to bloom and die in a mass of white. Then I followed the spent waters in their return to the blue deep, wading in their spangled, decaying fragments until chased back up the bank by the coming of another wave. While thus playing half studiously, I discovered in the rough, beaten deathbed of the wave a little plant with closed flowers. It was crouching in a hollow of the brown wave-washed rock, and one by one the chanting, dying waves rolled over it. The tips of its delicate pink petals peered above the clasping green calyx. "Surely," said I, as I stooped over it for a


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bouverie, Henry Frederick


text:
Some of These Days

Lyrics
Two sweethearts in a country town, the neighbors say, Lived happily the whole day long, Until one day he told her he must go away; She wondered then what could be wrong.

He said "You know it's true I love you best of all, And yet it's best that we should part." Just as he went away they heard his sweetheart say, Though it 'most broke her heart:

Some of these days You'll miss me, honey, Some of these days You'll feel so lonely; You'll miss my hugging, You'll miss my kissing, You'll miss me, honey, When you're away.

I feel so lonely Just for you only, For you know, honey, You've had your way, And when you leave me, You know 't will grieve me; I'll miss my little dad-dad-daddy, Yes some of these days.

He went away, and from that day the world's been sad, He realizes his mistake, He listened to the gossips, and that's always bad, For they don't care whose heart they break.

As time went on he longed to see his girl again, And so by chance one day they met. As they met face to face, there was a fond embrace, Though these words haunt him yet:

Some of these days You'll miss me, honey, Some of these days You'll feel so lonely; You'll miss my hugging, You'll miss my kissing, You'll miss me, honey, When you're away.

I feel so lonely Just for you only, For you know, honey, You've had your way, And when you leave me, You know 't will grieve me; I'll miss my little dad-dad-daddy, Yes some of these days.

title: Some of These Days


text: Talk:Some of These Days

title: Talk:Some of These Days


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boutflower, Henry Crewe


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boutell, Charles


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boutel, Mrs.


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Rh, before the oncoming of another wave, "surely you cannot be living here! You must have been blown from some warm bank, and rolled into this little hollow crack like a dead shell." But, running back after every retiring wave, I found that its roots were wedged into a shallow wrinkle of the coral rock, and that this wave-beaten chink was indeed its dwelling-place.

I had oftentimes admired the adaptation displayed in the structure of the stately dulse and other seaweeds, but never thought to find a highbred flowering plant dwelling amid waves in the stormy, roaring domain of the sea. This little plant has smooth globular leaves, fleshy and translucent like beads, but green like those of other land plants. The flower is about five eighths of an inch in diameter, rose-purple, opening in calm weather, when deserted by the waves. In general appearance it is like a small portulaca. The strand, as far as I walked it, was luxuriantly fringed with woody Compositæ, two or three feet in height, their tops purple


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Rh and golden with a profusion of flowers. Among these I discovered a small bush whose yellow flowers were ideal; all the parts were present regularly alternate and in fives, and all separate, a plain harmony.

When a page is written over but once it may be easily read; but if it be written over and over with characters of every size and style, it soon becomes unreadable, although not a single confused meaningless mark or thought may occur among all the written characters to mar its perfection. Our limited powers are similarly perplexed and overtaxed in reading the inexhaustible pages of nature, for they are written over and over uncountable times, written in characters of every size and color, sentences composed of sentences, every part of a character a sentence. There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself. All together form the one grand palimpsest of the world.

One of the most common plants of my


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 A proclamation put in at the court-martial advising the soldiers and inhabitants of co. Down to pay no rent to 'the disaffected landlords, as such rent is confiscated to the use of the National Liberty War,' Madden thinks a fabrication.

Monroe married in 1795 Margaret Johnston, fourth daughter of Robert Johnston of Seymour Hill in Antrim. His widow died at Belfast in February 1840. His daughter married one Hanson, an independent minister.

 MONRO, HENRY (1791–1814), portrait and subject painter, the son of Dr. [q. v.], was born 30 Aug. 1791. After two years at Harrow he entered the navy, but quitted it from distaste, after a few days on board the frigate Amelia. His inclinations then wavered between the army and art, but he finally chose the latter, and was admitted a student of the Royal Academy in 1806. Here and at the colour school of the British Institution he studied with great diligence and distinction. In 1811 he exhibited 'A Laughing Boy,' 'Boys at Marbles,' a portrait of his father, and two other portraits, and in the following year a 'Boy Grinding Colours,' a 'Lace-maker,' and four portraits, including one of Thomas Hearne and another of himself. In 1813 he sent a 'Head,' some studies from nature in pen and ink, and 'Othello, Desdemona, and Iago' to the Royal Academy, and 'The Disgrace of Wolsey' to the British Institution; for the latter he was awarded a premium of a hundred guineas. In 1811 he had visited Scotland, and sustained serious injuries by a fall from his horse, and in January 1814 he was seized with a cold, which affected his lungs, and cut short his promising career at the age of twenty-three. A portrait by him of his father (in coloured chalks) is in the College of Physicians. He died on 5 March 1814, and was buried at Bushey, where a monument was erected to his memory.

 MONRO, HENRY (1817–1891), physician and philanthropist, second son of Edward Thomas Monro, grandson of Dr. [q. v.], and brother of [q. v.], was born in 1817, and was educated at Harrow and at Oriel College, Oxford (B. A. 1839, B. Med. 1844, and D. Med. 1863). He studied medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital; became a fellow of the College of Physicians in 1848, and, devoting himself to the study of insanity, was appointed physician to Bethlehem Hospital in the same year. 'He was the last of a long line of physicians who from father to son followed the same speciality, four being in direct succession physicians to Bethlehem Hospital' [see ; and ]. In 1864 he became president of the Medical Psychological Society. In the midst of the engrossing duties of his profession Monro found time to establish, like his brother Edward, institutions for the benefit of the poor. Assisted by many friends, he was the founder in 1846 of the House of Charity in Rose Street, Soho, which 'still flourishes, with a larger development in Soho Square. It is a home for the destitute and friendless, chiefly those who, by no fault of their own, have been plunged into extreme distress and helplessness.' To this he gave unremitting attention for forty-five years, and also, in a less degree, to the Walton Convalescent Home, which his younger brother, Theodore Monro, founded at about the same time. Monro died in 1891. He married in 1842 Jane, daughter of Sir William Russell, bart., and left several children. He published in 1850 a treatise on 'Stammering,' and in the following year his 'Remarks on Insanity,' the principles of which were accepted by Dr. D. H. Tuke and by Dr. Hughlings Jackson. Monro was no mean artist, a gift which was hereditary in his family. He painted his own portrait and that of his father, for presentation to the College of Physicians, where they hang beside portraits of three earlier members of the family, Alexander, John, and Thomas, who were distinguished as physicians.

 MONRO, JAMES (1680–1752), physician, born in Scotland 2 Sept. 1680, was son of [q. v.] He came to London with his father in 1691, and matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, 8 July 1699, graduating B.A. 15 June 1703, M.A. 3 June 1708, M.B. 25 May 1709. He does not appear to have practised medicine, at least in London, till middle life, since it was not till 9 July 1722 that he took the degree of M.D.,and six years later, 23 Dec. 1728,


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Rh was the agave. It is sometimes used for fencing. One day, in looking back from the top of the Morro Hill, as I was returning to the Island Belle, I chanced to observe two poplar-like trees about twenty-five feet in height. They were growing in a dense patch of cactus and vine-knotted sunflowers. I was anxious to see anything so homelike as a poplar, and so made haste towards the two strange trees, making a way through the cactus and sunflower jungle that protected them. I was surprised to find that what I took to be poplars were agaves in flower, the first I had seen. They were almost out of flower, and fast becoming wilted at the approach of death. Bulbs were scattered about, and a good many still remained on the branches, which gave it a fruited appearance.

The stem of the agave seems enormous in size when one considers that it is the growth of a few weeks. This plant is said to make a mighty effort to flower and mature its seeds and then to die of exhaustion. Now there is not, so far as I have seen, a mighty effort or the need of one,


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Rh in wild Nature. She accomplishes her ends without unquiet effort, and perhaps there is nothing more mighty in the development of the flower-stem of the agave than in the development of a grass panicle.

Havana has a fine botanical garden. I spent pleasant hours in its magnificent flowery arbors and around its shady fountains. There is a palm avenue which is considered wonderfully stately and beautiful, fifty palms in two straight lines, each rigidly perpendicular. The smooth round shafts, slightly thicker in the middle, appear to be productions of the lathe, rather than vegetable stems. The fifty arched crowns, inimitably balanced, blaze in the sunshine like heaps of stars that have fallen from the skies. The stems were about sixty or seventy feet in height, the crowns about fifteen feet in diameter.

Along a stream-bank were tall, waving bamboos, leafy as willows, and infinitely graceful in wind gestures. There was one species of palm, with immense bipinnate leaves and leaflets


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zouch, Thomas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zouche, Alan la


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zouche, Edward la


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zouche, Richard


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zouche, William la


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zuccarelli, Francesco


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zuccaro, Federigo


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zucchi, Antonio Pietro


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zukertort, John Hermann


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zuylestein, William Henry (1645-1709)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zuylestein, William Henry (1717-1781)


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ERE we to cross-cut the Sierra Nevada into blocks a dozen miles or so in thickness, each section would contain a Yosemite Valley and a river, together with a bright array of lakes and meadows, rocks and forests. The grandeur and in exhaustible beauty of each block would be so vast and over-satisfying that to choose among them would be like selecting slices of bread cut from the same loaf. One bread-slice might have burnt spots, answering to craters; another would be more browned; another, more crusted or raggedly cut; but all essentially the same. In no greater degree would the Sierra slices differ in general character. Nevertheless, we all would choose the Merced slice, because, being eaier of access, it has been nibbled and tasted, and


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Rh now generally admitted that there is no ground for these attributions, and that in all probability the earliest of them, from which the others were evidently copied with some difference of detail, are not older than the fourth century For all that, they seem to represent, more or less, an ancient tradition, and it is worth while considering how far some of their statements seem probable in themselves, and fit in with our other sources of information, or present improbabilities which cannot be accepted. The oldest and best form of the Biography is as follows :—

.—''Iunius Iuvenalis, libertini locupletis incertum est filius an alumnus, ad mediam fere aetatem declamavit animi magis causa quam quod se scholae aut foro praepararet. Deinde paucorum versuum satyra non absurde composita in Paridem pantomimum poetamque [eius] semenstribus militiolis tumentem [hoc?] genus scripturae industriose excoluit. Et tamen diu ne modico quidem auditorio quicquam committere est ausus. Mox magna frequentia magnoque successu bis ac ter auditus est, ut ea quoque quae prima fecerat inferciret novis scriptis:'' xvii Rh


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Rh upon their lovely, changing pathways to the sea. And hills rise over hills, and mountains over mountains, heaving, waving, swelling, in most glorious, overpowering, unreadable majesty.

When at last, stricken and faint like a crushed insect, you hope to escape from all the terrible grandeur of these mountain powers, other fountains, other oceans break forth before you; for there, in clear view, over heaps and rows of foothills, is laid a grand, smooth, outspread plain, watered by a river, and another range of peaky, snow-capped mountains a hundred miles in the distance. That plain is the valley of the San Joaquin, and those mountains are the great Sierra Nevada. The valley of the San Joaquin is the floweriest piece of world I ever walked, one vast, level, even flower-bed, a sheet of flowers, a smooth sea, ruffled a little in the middle by the tree fringing of the river and of smaller cross-streams here and there, from the mountains.

Florida is indeed a "land of flowers" but


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User talk:188.174.46.208

Thank you for the corrections to 'Der Tyger, I was pleased to find that version, so I'm a little embarrassed that I had not checked it very carefully. cygnis insignis 18:53, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

title: User talk:188.174.46.208


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Author:John Louis Emil Dreyer

Works

 * Tycho Brahe: a picture of scientific life and work in the sixteenth century, 1890
 * History of the Planetary Systems from Thales to Kepler, 1905
 * The Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel, 1912 (Editor)
 * J. L. E. Dreyer and H. H. Turner (eds.), History of the Royal Astronomical Society 1820–1920 (1923, reprinted 1987)

title: Author:John Louis Emil Dreyer


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User:Dee

Autologged user cz:Wikipedista:DeeMusil

title: User:Dee


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1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Erzberger, Matthias

ERZBERGER, MATTHIAS (1875-1921), German politician, was born Sept. 20 1875 at Buttenhausen in Württemberg. He began life as a national school-teacher and in 1896 became a member of the staff of the Deutsches Volksblatt at Stuttgart. In 1903 he was elected as a representative of the Catholic Centre party in the Reichstag, and soon, by virtue of his unusually varied activities, took a leading position in the parliamentary party. He occupied himself in particular with colonial questions. During the World War, although he had at first put forward in letters to leading military authorities, since published, extravagant plans for the German annexations, he soon became a most active agent in attempts to draw the Allies into negotiations for peace. He was the real author of the so-called Peace Resolutions adopted by the Reichstag July 17 1917. He likewise employed his relations with the Austrian Imperial Court in order to work for an early conclusion of peace. In Oct. 1918 he entered the Government as a Secretary of State after he had contributed to bring about the fall of Bethmann-Hollweg. Entrusted with the task of conducting the negotiations for the conclusion of the Armistice, he signed (Nov. 1918) the Armistice agreement in the saloon railway carriage of Marshal Foch in the Forest of Compiègne. After the elections for the National Assembly he entered the new Government of the German Republic in Aug. 1919 and was appointed Finance Minister of the Reich. In the National Assembly he succeeded in forcing through the new measures of taxation, notwithstanding the vigorous attacks made upon him by the Right. He set himself in particularly sharp opposition to the German National party (the old Conservatives), on whom he laid the responsibility for the World War; the result was a personal dispute with the leader of the Nationalists, the former Secretary of State for the Treasury, Dr. Helfferich, and Erzberger was ultimately compelled to bring an action against Dr. Helfferich for slander. The action resulted in Helfferich's being condemned to pay a small fine (the German law does not admit of any damages or penalties for slander);

the court, however, in its judgment took the line that Helfferich's allegations regarding Erzberger's corrupt business practices and untruthful statements on the part of Erzberger were justified. Erzberger was consequently compelled by his party to resign his ministerial office. During the case an attempt was made upon his life as he was leaving the court by a youth who had been brought up under reactionary influences. He was rather seriously wounded by the bullet from the assassin's pistol. Erzberger was once more returned to the Reichstag at the general election of Jan. 1920, but in accordance with the wish of his party abstained from immediate participation in politics, as proceedings had been instituted against him on a charge of evading taxation. In 1920 he published a memorandum endeavouring to justify his policy during the war, and he followed it with interesting disclosures regarding the attitude of the Vatican in 1917 and the mission of the papal legate in Munich, Pacelli, to Berlin. Erzberger's power in German politics was based upon his great influence with the Catholic working classes in the Rhineland and Westphalia, in central Germany and in Silesia. In the industrial regions of these districts the Catholic workmen were organized in their own trade unions on lines of very advanced social policy, and Erzberger became the leading exponent of their views in the Reichstag and on public platforms. On the other hand, he incurred the strong opposition of the conservative and landed section of the Catholics, of some of the higher clergy like Cardinal Archbishop Hartmann of Cologne (d. 1919) and of the Bavarian agricultural interest as represented by the Bavarian Catholic People's party in the Diet at Munich and in the Reichstag in Berlin. Erzberger continued to be pursued by the relentless animosity of the reactionary parties, the Conservatives (now called Deutsch-Nationalen) and the National Liberals (now styling themselves the Deutsche Volkspartei). This hostility, which amounted to a real vendetta, was based, not so much upon the foreign policy of its victim, his negotiation of the Armistice terms and the decisive influence which he exercised in securing the acceptance of the Treaty of Versailles, as upon his financial policy both as Finance Minister in 1919 and as the Democratic Catholic supporter and, it is said, the political adviser of the Catholic Chancellor of the Reich, Dr. Wirth, in the preparation in the summer of 1921 of a fresh scheme of taxation designed to impose new burdens upon capital and upon the prosperous landed interest. The denunciations of the Conservative and National Liberal press undoubtedly went beyond the ordinary limits of party polemics. Thus the Tägliche Rundschau observed, in allusion to Erzberger's personal appearance, “he may be as round as a bullet, but he is not bullet-proof.” The climax of these attacks was that Erzberger was assassinated on Aug. 26 1921 while taking a walk with a parliamentary colleague in a lonely part of the Black Forest near Griesbach. The assassins, two well-dressed young men, were very generally believed to have been at least voluntary agents of the reactionary and military cliques. The assassination caused great political excitement, and exacerbated existing party feuds.

 * (C. K.*; G. S.)


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Rh winds came from, nor where they were going. And now in this Golden Age, though we Gentiles know the birthplace of many a wind and also "whither it is going," yet we know about as little of winds in general as those Palestinian Jews, and our ignorance, despite the powers of science, can never be much less profound than it is at present.

The substance of the winds is too thin for human eyes, their written language is too difficult for human minds, and their spoken language mostly too faint for the ears. A mechanism is said to have been invented whereby the human organs of speech are made to write their own utterances. But without any extra mechanical contrivance, every speaker also writes as he speaks. All things in the creation of God register their own acts. The poet was mistaken when he said, "From the wing no scar the sky sustains." His eyes were simply too dim to see the scar. In sailing past Cuba I could see a fringe of foam along the coast, but could hear no sound of waves, simply because


text: Talk:Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs


text: Index:Chesterton - The Man Who Was Thursday.djvu


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 CHAPTER I.

THE TWO POETS OF SAFFRON PARK.

suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright brick throughout; its skyline was fantastic, and even its ground plan was wild. It had been the outburst of a speculative builder, faintly tinged with art, who called its architecture sometimes Elizabethan and sometimes Queen Anne, apparently under the impression that the two sovereigns were identical. It was described with some justice as an artistic colony, though it never in any definable way produced any art. But although its pretensions to be an intellectual centre were a


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Rh little vague, its pretensions to be a pleasant place were quite indisputable. The stranger who looked for the first time at the quaint red houses could only think how very oddly shaped the people must be who could fit in to them. Nor when he met the people was he disappointed in this respect. The place was not only pleasant, but perfect, if once he could regard it not as a deception but rather as a dream. Even if the people were not "artists," the whole was nevertheless artistic. That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face—that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem. That old gentleman with the wild, white beard and the wild, white hat—that venerable humbug was not really a philosopher; but at least he was the cause of philosophy in others. That scientific gentleman with the bald, egg-like head and the bare, bird-like neck had no real right to the airs of science that he assumed. He had not discovered anything new in biology; but what biological creature could he have discovered more singular than himself? Thus, and thus only, the whole place had properly


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Rh to be regarded; it had to be considered not so much as a workshop for artists, but as a frail but finished work of art. A man who stepped into its social atmosphere felt as if he had stepped into a written comedy.

More especially this attractive unreality fell upon it about nightfall, when the extravagant roofs were dark against the afterglow and the whole insane village seemed as separate as a drifting cloud. This again was more strongly true of the many nights of local festivity, when the little gardens were often illuminated, and the big Chinese lanterns glowed in the dwarfish trees like some fierce and monstrous fruit. And this was strongest of all on one particular evening, still vaguely remembered in the locality, of which the auburn-haired poet was the hero. It was not by any means the only evening of which he was the hero. On many nights those passing by his little back garden might hear his high, didactic voice laying down the law to men and particularly to women. The attitude of women in such cases was indeed one of the paradoxes of the place. Most of


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Rh the women were of the kind vaguely called emancipated, and professed some protest against male supremacy. Yet these new women would always pay to a man the extravagant compliment which no ordinary woman ever pays to him, that of listening while he is talking. And Mr. Lucian Gregory, the red-haired poet, was really (in some sense) a man worth listening to, even if one only laughed at the end of it. He put the old cant of the lawlessness of art and the art of lawlessness with a certain impudent freshness which gave at least a momentary pleasure. He was helped in some degree by the arresting oddity of his appearance, which he worked, as the phrase goes, for all it was worth. His dark red hair parted in the middle was literally like a woman's, and curved into the slow curls of a virgin in a pre-Raphaelite picture. From within this almost saintly oval, however, his face projected suddenly broad and brutal, the chin carried forward with a look of cockney contempt. This combination at once tickled and terrified the nerves of a neurotic population. He seemed like


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