alone has forced me to be anywhere a master. Ariel and Caliban, had I
been Prospero on that island, would have had nothing to do and nothing
to complain of; and Man Friday on that other island would have bored me,
had I been Crusoe. When I was a king in Babylon and you were a Christian
slave, I promptly freed you.

Anarchistic? Yes; and I have no defence to offer, except the rather
lame one that I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about
doing just as he pleased--short of altering any of the things to which I
have grown accustomed. Domestic service is not one of those things, and
I should be glad were there no more of it.

GOING OUT FOR A WALK 1918.

It is a fact that not once in all my life have I gone out for a walk. I
have been taken out for walks; but that is another matter. Even while I
trotted prattling by my nurse's side I regretted the good old days when
I had, and wasn't, a perambulator. When I grew up it seemed to me that
the one advantage of living in London was that nobody ever wanted me
to come out for a walk. London's very drawbacks--its endless noise and
hustle, its smoky air, the squalor ambushed everywhere in it--assured
this one immunity. Whenever I was with friends in the country, I knew
that at any moment, unless rain were actually falling, some man might
suddenly say 'Come out for a walk!' in that sharp imperative tone which
he would not dream of using in any other connexion. People seem to think
there is something inherently noble and virtuous in the desire to go for
a walk. Any one thus desirous feels that he has a right to impose his
will on whomever he sees comfortably settled in an arm-chair, reading.
It is easy to say simply 'No' to an old friend. In the case of a mere
acquaintance one wants some excuse. 'I wish I could, but'--nothing ever
occurs to me except 'I have some letters to write.' This formula is
unsatisfactory in three ways. (1) It isn't believed. (2) It compels you
to rise from your chair, go to the writing-table, and sit improvising
a letter to somebody until the walkmonger (just not daring to call you
liar and hypocrite) shall have lumbered out of the room. (3) It won't
operate on Sunday mornings. 'There's no post out till this evening'
clinches the matter; and you may as well go quietly.

Walking for walking's sake may be as highly laudable and exemplary a
thing as it is held to be by those who practise it. My objection to
it is that it stops the brain.