young men of my day grow lavish in the use of unguents when they are
preparing for natural selection; and I flatter myself that even my own
garments--in their superficial aspects at least, and during my long
pursuit of Georgiana--have not been very far from somewhat slightly
ingratiating.

This pursuit is now drawing to a close. It is nearly the last of June.
She has given me her word that she will marry me early in September.
Two months for her to get the bridal feathers ready; two for me to
prepare the nest.

II

I have forgotten nature. I barely know that July, now nearly gone, has
passed, sifted with sweetness and ablaze with light. Time has swept
on, the world run round; but I have stood motionless, abiding the hour
of my marriage as a tree the season of its leaves. For all that it
looks so calm, within goes on a tremendous surging of sap against its
moments of efflorescence.

After which I pray that, not as a tree, but as a man, I may have a
little peace. When Georgiana confessed her love, I had supposed this
confession to mark the end of her elusiveness. When later on she
presented to me the symbol of a heart pierced with needles, I had taken
it for granted that thenceforth she would settle down into something
like a state of prenuptial domestication, growing less like a swift and
more like a hen. But there is nothing gallinaceous about my Georgiana.
I took possession of her vow and the emery-ball, not of her; the
privilege was merely given to plant my flag-staff on the uncertain edge
of an unknown land. In war it sometimes becomes necessary to devastate