they are not its purpose.
They are things side by side with beef and mutton, the scent of the sea,
the touch of a hand, the memory of a hope, and all the other items in
the sum total of our three-score years and ten. Yet we speak of them as
though they were the voice of life instead of merely its faint,
distorted echo. Tales are delightful _as_ tales--sweet as primroses
after the long winter, restful as the cawing of rooks at sunset. But we
do not write 'tales' now; we prepare 'human documents' and dissect
souls."

He broke off abruptly in the midst of his tirade. "Do you know what
these 'psychological studies' that are so fashionable just now always
make me think of?" he said. "One monkey examining another monkey for
fleas.

[Illustration: "'REMEMBER FOR THE FUTURE, SIR.'"]

"And what, after all, does our dissecting pen lay bare?" he continued.
"Human nature? or merely some more or less unsavoury undergarment,
disguising and disfiguring human nature? There is a story told of an
elderly tramp, who, overtaken by misfortune, was compelled to retire for
a while to the seclusion of Portland. His hosts, desiring to see as much
as possible of their guest during his limited stay with them, proceeded
to bath him. They bathed him twice a day for a week, each time learning
more of him; until at last they reached a flannel shirt. And with that
they had to be content, soap and water proving powerless to go further.

"That tramp appears to me symbolical of mankind. Human Nature has worn
its conventions for so long that its habit has grown on to it. In this
nineteenth century it is impossible to say where the clothes of custom
end and the man begins. Our virtues are taught to us as a branch of
'Deportment'; our vices are the recognised vices of our reign and set.
Our religion hangs ready made beside our cradle to be buttoned upon us
by loving hands. Our tastes we acquire, with difficulty; our sentiments
we learn by rote. At cost of infinite suffering, we study to love
whiskey and cigars, high art and classical music. In one age we admire
Byron and drink sweet champagne: twenty years later it is more
fashionable to prefer Shelley, and we like our champagne dry. At school
we are told that Shakespeare was a great poet, and that the Venus di
Medici is a fine piece of sculpture; and so for the rest of our lives we
go about saying what a great poet we think Shakespeare, and that there
is no piece of sculpture, in our opinion, so fine a