deeds. One day, perhaps, the ineffectual angel will find his wings and
outsoar the spider point of view.... And, by the way, suppose we go and
see how the spider is getting on."

We went out into the garden and found the web. But the little green corpse
had gone, and the spider was digesting his meal somewhere out of sight.

_(Note._--This article should be read in connection with that entitled "On
the Downs.")




ON BEER AND PORCELAIN


I was reading an American journal just now when I came across the remark
that "one would as soon think of drinking beer out of porcelain as of
slapping Nietzsche on the back." Drinking beer out of porcelain! The phrase
amused me, and set me idly wondering why you don't drink beer out of
porcelain. You drink it (assuming that you drink it at all) with great
enjoyment out of a thick earthenware mug or a pewter pot or a vessel of
glass, but out of china, never. If you were offered a drink of beer out of
a china basin or cup you would feel that the liquor had somehow lost its
attraction, just as, if you were offered tea out of a pewter pot, you would
feel that the drink was degraded and unpleasant. The explanation that the
one drink is coarse and the other fine does not meet the case. People drink
beer out of glass, and the finer the glass the better they like it. But
there is something fundamentally discordant between beer and porcelain.