ON A TOP HAT
ON LOSING ONE'S MEMORY
ON WEARING A FUR-LINED COAT
IN PRAISE OF WALKING
ON REWARDS AND RICHES
ON TASTE
ON A HAWTHORN HEDGE




PEBBLES ON THE SHORE




ON CHOOSING A NAME


"As for your name, I offer you the whole firmament to choose from." In that
prodigal spirit the editor of the _Star_ invites me to join the
constellation that he has summoned from the vasty deeps of Fleet Street. I
am, he says, to shine punctually every Wednesday evening, wet or fine, on
winter nights and summer eves, at home or abroad, until such time as he
cries: "Hold, enough!" and applies the extinguisher that comes to all.

The invitation reaches me in a tiny village on a spur of a range of beech
clad hills, whither I have fled for a breathing space from the nightmare of
the war and the menacing gloom of the London streets at night. Here the
darkness has no terrors. In the wide arch of the sky our lamps are lit