compared with a walk in spring through the Black Forest or the view
from Hampstead Heath on a November afternoon. Had we been less
occupied acquiring 'the advantages of civilisation,' working upward
through the weary centuries to the city slum, the corrugated-iron-
roofed farm, we might have found time to learn to love the beauty of
the world. As it is, we have been so busy 'civilising' ourselves
that we have forgotten to live. We are like an old lady I once
shared a carriage with across the Simplon Pass."

"By the way," I remarked, "one is going to be saved all that bother
in the future. They have nearly completed the new railway line.
One will be able to go from Domo d'Orsola to Brieg in a little over
the two hours. They tell me the tunnelling is wonderful."

"It will be very charming," sighed the Minor Poet. "I am looking
forward to a future when, thanks to 'civilisation,' travel will be
done away with altogether. We shall be sewn up in a sack and shot
there. At the time I speak of we still had to be content with the
road winding through some of the most magnificent scenery in
Switzerland. I rather enjoyed the drive myself, but my companion
was quite unable to appreciate it. Not because she did not care for
scenery. As she explained to me, she was passionately fond of it.
But her luggage claimed all her attention. There were seventeen
pieces of it altogether, and every time the ancient vehicle lurched
or swayed, which on an average was once every thirty seconds, she
was in terror lest one or more of them should be jerked out. Half
her day was taken up in counting them and re-arranging them, and the
only view in which she was interested was the cloud of dust behind
us. One bonnet-box did contrive during the course of the journey to
make its escape, after which she sat with her arms round as many of