ly to their feet, and stood,
embarrassed. "Well, of course, you know," said Lady Hypatia, with the
really charming smile of the aristocratic hostess. "You know he can't
exactly shake hands... not hands, you know.... The structure, of
course--"

I broke out of all social bounds, and rushed at the door of the room
which I thought to contain the incredible creature. I burst it open; the
room was pitch dark. But from in front of me came a small sad yelp, and
from behind me a double shriek.

"You have done it, now!" cried Dr. Hagg, burying his bald brow in his
hands. "You have let in a draught on him; and he is dead."

As I walked away from Croydon that night I saw men in black carrying
out a coffin that was not of any human shape. The wind wailed above me,
whirling the poplars, so that they drooped and nodded like the plumes of
some cosmic funeral. "It is, indeed," said Dr. Hagg, "the whole universe
weeping over the frustration of its most magnificent birth." But I
thought that there was a hoot of laughter in the high wail of the wind.

The New House

Within a stone's throw of my house they are building another house. I am
glad they are building it, and I am glad it is within a stone's throw;
quite well within it, with a good catapult. Nevertheless, I have not
yet cast the first stone at the new house--not being, strictly speaking,
guiltless myself in the matter of new houses. And, indeed, in such
cases there is a strong protest to be made. The whole curse of the last
century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is the
idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other. It is a
shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of the whole dignity
of mankind. When Man is alive he stands still. It is only when he is
dead that he swings. But whenever one meets modern thinkers (as one
often does) progressing towards a madhouse, one always finds, on
inquiry, that they have just had a splendid escape from another
madhouse. Thus, hundreds of people become Socialists, not because they
have tried Socialism and found it nice, but because they have tried
Individualism and found it particularly nasty. Thus, many embrace
Christian Science solely because they are quite sick of heathen science;
they are so tired of believing that everything is matter that they will
even take refuge in the revolting fable that everything is mind. Man
ought to march somewhere. But modern man (in his sick reaction