-pervading
Principle can harmonise these things! And the old words 'good' and
'evil' seemed to me more than ever quaint.

It was almost dark, and the dew falling fast; I roused my spaniel to go
in.

Over the high-walled yard, the barns, the moon-white porch, dusk had
brushed its velvet. Through an open window came a roaring sound. Mr.
Molton was singing "The Happy Warrior," to celebrate the finish of the
shearing. The big doors into the garden, passed through, cut off the
full sweetness of that song; for there the owls were already masters of
night with their music.

On the dew-whitened grass of the lawn, we came on a little dark beast.
My spaniel, liking its savour, stood with his nose at point; but, being
called off, I could feel him obedient, still quivering, under my hand.

In the field, a wan huddle in the blackness, the dismantled sheep lay
under a holly hedge. The wind had died; it was mist-warm.
1910

EVOLUTION

Coming out of the theatre, we found it utterly impossible to get a
taxicab; and, though it was raining slightly, walked through Leicester
Square in the hope of picking one up as it returned down Piccadilly.
Numbers of hansoms and four-wheelers passed, or stood by the curb,
hailing us feebly, or not even attempting to attract our attention, but
every taxi seemed to have its load. At Piccadilly Circus, losing
patience, we beckoned to a four-wheeler and resigned ourselves to a long,
slow journey. A sou'-westerly air blew through the open windows, and
there was in it the scent of change, that wet scent which visits even the
hearts of towns and inspires the watcher of their myriad activities with
thought of the restless Force that forever cries: "On, on!" But
gradually the steady patter of the horse's hoofs, the rattling of the
windows, the slow thudding of the wheels, pressed on us so drowsily that
when, at last, we reached home we were more than half asleep. The fare
was two shillings, and, standing in the lamplight to make sure the coin
was a half-crown before handing it to the driver, we happened to look up.
This cabman appeared to be a man of about sixty, with a long, thin face,
whose chin and drooping grey moustaches seemed in permanent repose on the
up-turned collar of his old blue overcoat. But the remarkable features
of his face were the two furrows down his cheeks, so deep and hollow that
it seemed as though that face were a collection of bones without coherent
flesh, among wh