in life that really matter!' I
exclaimed. I was as much chagrined as they were flabbergasted by this
involuntary outbreak; but I have become an expert in that Taoist art of
disintegration which Yen Hui described to Confucius as the art of
'sitting and forgetting.' I have learnt to lay aside my personality in
awkward moments, to dissolve this self of mine into the All Pervading;
to fall back, in fact, into the universal flux, and sit, as I now sat
there, a blameless lump of matter, rolled on according to the heavens'
rolling, with rocks and stones and trees.

THE FETISH

Enshrined in a box of white paste-board upstairs I keep a black,
ceremonial object; 'tis my link with Christendom and the world of grave
custom; only on sacred occasions does it make its appearance, only at
some great tribal dance of my race. To pageants of Woe I convey it, or
of the hugest Felicity: at great Hallelujahs of Wedlock, or at last
Valedictions, I hold it bare-headed as I bow before altars and tombs.

THE ECHO

Now and then, from the other end of the table, words and phrases reached
us as we talked.

'What do they mean by complexes?' she asked. 'Oh, it's only one of the
catchwords of the day,' I answered. 'Everything's a complex just now.'

'The talk of most people,' I went on, 'is simply--how shall I put
it?--simply the ticking of clocks; it marks the hour, but it has no
other interest. But I like to think for myself, to be something more
than a mere mouthpiece of the age I live in--a mere sounding-board and
echo of contemporary chatter.'

'Just listen!' I said as again their raised voices reached our ears.

'It's simply one of the catchwords of the day,' some one was shouting,
'the merest echo of contemporary chatter!'

THE SCAVENGER

'My parlour-maid and cook both gave notice--'

'My stomach is not at all what it should be--'

'Of course the telephone was out of order--'

'The coal they sent was all stones and coal-dust--'

'All the electric wiring has had to be renewed--'

'I find it impossible to digest potatoes--'

'My aunt has had to have eighteen of her teeth extracted--'

Am I nothing but a dust-bin or kitchen-sink for other people's troubles?
Have I no agonies, no indigestions of my own?

THE HOT-BED

It was too much: the news in the paper was appalling; Central Europe and
the Continent of Asia in a state of chaos; no comfort anywhere; tempests
in the Channel, earthquakes, fami