destinies of Europe; if I wasn't bound to vindicate the Truth on all
occasions, and shout down every falsehood, standing alone in arms
against a sea of error, and holding desperately in place the hook from
which Truth and Righteousness and Good Taste hang as by a thread and
tremble over the unspeakable abyss; if but for a day or two;--it cannot
be, I cannot let Art and Civilisation go crashing into chaos. Suppose
the skies should fall in while I was napping; suppose the round world
should take its chance to collapse into Stardust again?

SUPERANNUATION

'What an intolerable young person!' I exclaimed, the moment he had left
the room. 'How can one sit and listen to such folly? The arrogance and
ignorance of these young men! And the things they write, and their
pictures!'

'It's all pose and self-advertisement, I tell you--'

'They have no reverence!' I gobbled.

Now why do I do it? I know it turns the hair grey and stiffens the
joints--why, then, by denouncing them in this unhygienic fashion, do I
talk myself into an invalid and old fogey before my time?

AT THE CLUB

'It's the result of Board School Education--'

'It's the popular Press--'

'It's the selfishness of the Working Classes--'

'It's the Cinema--'

'It's the Jews--'

'Paid Agitators!--'

'The decay of faith--'

'The disintegration of family life--'

'I put it down,' I said, 'to sun-spots. If you want to know what I
think,' I went inexorably on, 'if you ask me the cause of all this
modern unrest--'

DELAY

I was late for breakfast this morning, for I was delayed in my heavenly
hot bath by the thought of all the other Earnest Thinkers, who, at that
very moment--I had good reason to believe it--were blissfully soaking
the time away in hot baths all over London.

SMILES

When people smile to themselves in the street, when I see the face of an
ugly man or uninteresting woman light up (faces, it would seem, not
exactly made for happy smiling), I wonder from what visions within those
smiles are reflected; from what footlights, what gay and incredible
scenes they gleam of glory and triumph.

THE DAWN

My Imagination has its dancing-places, like the Dawn in Homer; there are
terraces, with balustrades and marble fountains, where Ideal Beings
smile at my approach; there are ilex-groves and beech trees in whose
shadows I hold forth for ever; gardens fairer than all earthly gardens
where groups of lad