ma
in my life. I had often had my artistic cupidity excited by Mr.
Carville, by the way he was continually having stimulating adventures of
the soul. And what stirred me now was a vision of that sober, drab-grey
little man, going about his business on the great waters, with this
portentous cataclysm hanging over his destiny. And yet, according to my
friend, these perilous things were constantly on the brink in most men's
lives. The smug, complacent commuting folk we knew all had these moments
of almost unendurable stress, yet they gave no sign. I had a sudden
sense of futility. As Mr. Carville had said on one occasion, we grope.
We stumble against each other in the dark, we hear a whisper or two, or
a cry, and the rest is silence. I understood, I thought, why so many
writers avoid life, and content themselves with gay puppets in a puppet
world. Life was too difficult, too dangerous, for play, and they can
only play.

And then I heard the postman's knock, and sat waiting. Footsteps came
down and went up again to the studio. Tea cups clinked. I realized that
I had done nothing to the _brochure_ I was writing since lunch. Lethargy
is cumulative. The longer one idles the more difficult it is to make a
start. I gave it up and put my pen away.

"A letter from Cecil," they said, as I appeared on the landing. Mac was
crouching over an etching by the window, a big magnifying glass in his
hand. I went over to him and he rose and handed the print to me.

"Oh!" I said. "This is indeed _apropos_."

It was an etching, by the painter-cousin, of the wrecked aeroplane of
which he had spoken. As was fit and proper, it was a small plate, yet
the effect upon the mind was of a vast open sky and infinite, rolling
distances of land and sea. It brought to mind the grey flatness of
Essex, the lonely reaches of mud, the solitary house and the neighbourly
hedges of the narrow roads. And it did this quite independently of the
bizarre structure that lay athwart the foreground, like some immense
disabled insect in a moment of exhaustion. It lay there, prone and
motionless, a sprawling emblem of despair. And aloft, high up, as though
in subtle mockery of the poor human endeavour below, a sea-bird soared
with wings atilt, sweeping with effortless grace towards the grey sea.

"I don't care for remarques," muttered Mac, pointing to a sketch on the
margin.

"Nor I," I agreed, "but this isn't on the plate, my friend. Moreover, I
think it's rather i