n and sometimes Queen Anne,
apparently under the impression that the two sovereigns were identical.
It was described with some justice as an artistic colony, though
it never in any definable way produced any art. But although its
pretensions to be an intellectual centre were a little vague, its
pretensions to be a pleasant place were quite indisputable. The stranger
who looked for the first time at the quaint red houses could only think
how very oddly shaped the people must be who could fit in to them. Nor
when he met the people was he disappointed in this respect. The place
was not only pleasant, but perfect, if once he could regard it not as a
deception but rather as a dream. Even if the people were not "artists,"
the whole was nevertheless artistic. That young man with the long,
auburn hair and the impudent face--that young man was not really a poet;
but surely he was a poem. That old gentleman with the wild, white
beard and the wild, white hat--that venerable humbug was not really a
philosopher; but at least he was the cause of philosophy in others.
That scientific gentleman with the bald, egg-like head and the bare,
bird-like neck had no real right to the airs of science that he assumed.
He had not discovered anything new in biology; but what biological
creature could he have discovered more singular than himself? Thus, and
thus only, the whole place had properly to be regarded; it had to be
considered not so much as a workshop for artists, but as a frail but
finished work of art. A man who stepped into its social atmosphere felt
as if he had stepped into a written comedy.

More especially this attractive unreality fell upon it about nightfall,
when the extravagant roofs were dark against the afterglow and the whole
insane village seemed as separate as a drifting cloud. This again was
more strongly true of the many nights of local festivity, when the
little gardens were often illuminated, and the big Chinese lanterns
glowed in the dwarfish trees like some fierce and monstrous fruit.
And this was strongest of all on one particular evening, still vaguely
remembered in the locality, of which the auburn-haired poet was the
hero. It was not by any means the only evening of which he was the hero.
On many nights those passing by his little back garden might hear his
high, didactic voice laying down the law to men and particularly
to women. The attitude of women in such cases was indeed one of the
paradoxes of the place. M