misty distance. It had
grown very small but it asserted itself with the appeal of old
associations. It seemed to me that it would be a base thing for me to
slip out of the world leaving it out there all alone, waiting for its
fate--that would never come!

Sentiment, pure sentiment as you see, prompted me in the last instance
to face the pains and hazards of that return. As I moved slowly towards
the abandoned body of the tale it loomed up big amongst the glittering
shallows of the coast, lonely but not forbidding. There was nothing
about it of a grim derelict. It had an air of expectant life. One after
another I made out the familiar faces watching my approach with faint
smiles of amused recognition. They had known well enough that I was
bound to come back to them. But their eyes met mine seriously as was
only to be expected since I myself felt very serious as I stood amongst
them again after years of absence. At once, without wasting words, we
went to work together on our renewed life; and every moment I felt more
strongly that They Who had Waited bore no grudge to the man who however
widely he may have wandered at times had played truant only once in his
life.

J. C.

1920.

NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS

I don't know whether I ought to offer an apology for this collection
which has more to do with life than with letters. Its appeal is made to
orderly minds. This, to be frank about it, is a process of tidying up,
which, from the nature of things, can not be regarded as premature. The
fact is that I wanted to do it myself because of a feeling that had
nothing to do with the considerations of worthiness or unworthiness of
the small (but unbroken) pieces collected within the covers of this
volume. Of course it may be said that I might have taken up a broom and
used it without saying anything about it. That certainly is one way of
tidying up.

But it would have been too much to have expected me to treat all this
matter as removable rubbish. All those things had a place in my life.
Whether any of them deserve to have been picked up and ranged on the
shelf--this shelf--I cannot say, and, frankly, I have not allowed my
mind to dwell on the question. I was afraid of thinking myself into a
mood that would hurt my feelings; for those pieces of writing, whatever
may be the comment on their display, appertain to the character of the
man.

And so here they are, dusted, which was but a decent thing to do, but in