rn
of moderate dimensions, still then had I lived upon the lips of men;
still had my plays on words been echoed, my sayings handed down in
memoirs to ensuing ages.

MORAL TRIUMPH

When I see motors gliding up at night to great houses in the fashionable
squares, I journey in them: I ascend in imagination the grand stairways
of those palaces; and ushered with eclat into drawing-rooms of
splendour, I sun myself in the painted smiles of the Mayfair Jezebels,
and glitter in that world of wigs and rouge and diamonds like a star.
There I quaff the elixir and sweet essence of mundane triumph, eating
truffles to the sound of trumpets, and feasting at sunrise on
lobster-salad and champagne.

But it's all dust, it's all emptiness and ashes; and I retire to an
imagined desert to contend with Demons; to overcome in holy combats
unspeakable temptations, and purge, by prodigious abstinences, my heart
of base desire. For this is the only imperishable victory, this is the
true immortal garland; this triumph over the predilections of our fallen
nature crowns us with a satisfaction which the vain glory of the world
can never give.

A VOW

Like the Aztec Emperors of ancient Mexico, who took a solemn oath to
make the Sun pursue his wonted journey, I too have vowed to corroborate
and help sustain the Solar System; vowed that by no vexed thoughts of
mine, no attenuating doubts, nor incredulity, nor malicious scepticism,
nor hypercritical analysis, shall the great frame and first principles
of things be compromised or shaken.

THE SPRINGS OF ACTION

'What am I? What is man?' I had looked into a number of books for an
answer to this question, before I came on Jeremy Bentham's simple and
satisfactory explanation: Man is a mechanism, moved by just so many
springs of Action. These springs he enumerates in elaborate tables; and
glancing over them this morning before getting up, I began with
_Charity_, _All-embracing Benevolence_, _Love of Knowledge_, _Laudable
Ambition_, _Godly Zeal_. Then I waited, but there was no sign or buzz of
any wheel beginning to move in my inner mechanism. I looked again: I saw
_Arrogance_, _Ostentation_, _Vainglory_, _Abomination_, _Rage_, _Fury_,
_Revenge_, and I was about to leap from my bed in a paroxysm of
passions, when fortunately my eye fell on another set of motives, _Love
of Ease_, _Indolence_, _Procrastination_, _Sloth_.

IN THE CAGE

'What I say is, what I say!' I vo