built to suit me, I shall have no occasion to imitate the poet's
plaint. I suspect there is no better fun in life than in building a
world of one's own.




CHAPTER XXV

THIS OR THAT

One day in London a friend told me that on the market in that city
they have eggs of five grades--new-laid eggs, fresh eggs, imported
fresh eggs, good eggs, and eggs. A few days later we were in the
Tate Gallery looking at the Turner collection when he told me a story
of Turner. It seems that a friend of the artist was in his studio
watching him at his work, when suddenly this friend said: "Really,
Mr. Turner, I can't see in nature the colors that you portray on
canvas." The artist looked at him steadily for a moment, and then
replied: "Don't you wish you could?" Life, even at its best,
certainly is a maze. I find myself in the labyrinth, all the while
groping about, but quite unable to find the exit. Theseus was most
fortunate in having an Ariadne to furnish him with the thread to
guide him. But there seems to be no second Ariadne for me, and I
must continue to grope with no thread to guide. There in the Tate
Gallery I was standing enthralled before pictures by Watts and
Leighton, and paying small heed to the Turners, when the story of my
friend held a mirror before me, and as I looked I asked myself the
question: "Don't you wish you could?"