If there is a look of human eyes that tells of perpetual loneliness, so
there is also the familiar look that is the sign of perpetual crowds. It
is the London expression, and, in its way, the Paris expression. It is
the quickly caught, though not interested, look, the dull but ready
glance of those who do not know of their forfeited place apart; who have
neither the open secret nor the close; no reserve, no need of refuge, no
flight nor impulse of flight; no moods but what they may brave out in the
street, no hope of news from solitary counsels.




THE LADY OF THE LYRICS


She is eclipsed, or gone, or in hiding. But the sixteenth century took
her for granted as the object of song; she was a class, a state, a sex.
It was scarcely necessary to waste the lyrist's time--time that went so
gaily to metre as not to brook delays--in making her out too clearly. She
had no more of what later times call individuality than has the rose, her
rival, her foil when she was kinder, her superior when she was cruel, her
ever fresh and ever conventional paragon. She needed not to be devised
or divined; she was ready. A merry heart goes all the day; the lyrist's
never grew weary. Honest men never grow tired of bread or of any other
daily things whereof the sweetness is in their own simplicity.

The lady of the lyrics was not loved in mortal earnest, and her
punishment now and then for her ingratitude was to be told that she was
loved in jest. She did not love; her fancy was fickle; she was not moved
by long service, which, by the way, was evidently to be taken for granted