. George;
whereas St. George would have felt a strong distaste for eating the
Dragon. In most of the stories he killed the Dragon. In many of the
stories he not only spared, but baptised it. But in neither case did the
Christian have any appetite for cold dragon. The Dragon, however,
really has an appetite for cold Christian—and especially for cold
Christianity. This blind intention to absorb, to change the shape of
everything and digest it in the darkness of a dragon's stomach; this is
what is really meant by the Pantheism and Cosmic Unity of the East. The
Cosmos as such is cannibal; as old Time ate his children. The Eastern
saints were saints because they wanted to be swallowed up. The Western
saint, like St. George, was sainted by the Western Church precisely
because he refused to be swallowed. The same process of thought that has
prevented nationalities disappearing in Christendom has prevented the
complete appearance of Pantheism. All Christian men instinctively resist
the idea of being absorbed into an Empire; an Austrian, a Spanish, a
British, or a Turkish Empire. But there is one empire, much larger and
much more tyrannical, which free men will resist with even stronger
passion. The free man violently resists being absorbed into the empire
which is called the Universe. He demands Home Rule for his nationality,
but still more Home Rule for his home. Most of all he demands Home
Rule for himself. He claims the right to be saved, in spite of Moslem
fatalism. He claims the right to be damned in spite of theosophical
optimism. He refuses to be the Cosmos; because he refuses to forget it.

THE MUMMER

The night before Christmas Eve I heard a burst of musical voices so
close that they might as well have been inside the house instead of
just outside; so I asked them inside, hoping that they might then seem
farther away. Then I realised that they were the Christmas Mummers, who
come every year in country parts to enact the rather rigid fragments of
the old Christmas play of St. George, the Turkish Knight, and the Very
Venal Doctor. I will not describe it; it is indescribable; but I will
describe my parallel sentiments as it passed.

One could see something of that half-failure that haunts our artistic
revivals of mediaeval dances, carols, or Bethlehem Plays. There are
elements in all that has come to us from the more morally simple
society of the Middle Ages: elements which moderns, even when they are
media