That Dean Maitland should have taken the political line indicated
in Mr. Rondelet's letter will amaze no reader of 'The Silence of
Dean Maitland.' That Mr. Paul Rondelet flew from his penny paper
to a Paradise meet for him is a matter of congratulation to all but
his creditors. He really is now in the only true Monastery of
Thelema, and is simply dressed in an eye-glass and a cincture of
pandanus flowers. The natives worship him, and he is the First
AEsthetic Beach-comber.


Te-a-Iti, The Pacific.

Dear Maitland,--As my old friend and tutor at Lothian, you ask me
to join the Oxford Home Rule Association. Excuse my delay in
answering. Your letter was sent to that detested and long-deserted
newspaper office in Fleet Street, and from Fleet Street to Te-a-
Iti; thank Heaven! it is a long way. Were I at home, and still
endeavouring to sway the masses, I might possibly accept your
invitation. I dislike crowds, and I dislike shouting; but if shout
I must, like you I would choose to chime in with the dingier and
the larger and the more violent assembly. But, having perceived
that the masses were very perceptibly learning to sway themselves,
I have retired to Te-a-Iti. You have read "Epipsychidion," my dear
Dean? And, in your time, no doubt you have loved? {15} Well,
this is the Isle of Love, described, as in a dream, by the rapt
fancy of Shelley. Urged, perhaps, by a reminiscence of the Great
Aryan wave of migration, I have moved westward to this Paradise.
Like Obermann, I hide my head "from the wild tempest of the age,"
but in a much dearer place than "chalets near the Alpine snow."