miles. There was the rattle of a returning waggon, mixed with
the smacks of the waggoner's whip: the team must have been at
least three miles off. From far over the hill came the faint
periodic yell of kennelled hounds; while from the nearest
village resounded the voices of boys at play in the twilight.
Then a powerful clock struck the hour; it was not from the
direction of the church, but rather from the wood behind him;
and he thought it must be the clock of some mansion that way.

But the mind of man cannot always be forced to take up
subjects by the pressure of their material presence, and
Somerset's thoughts were often, to his great loss, apt to be
even more than common truants from the tones and images that
met his outer senses on walks and rides. He would sometimes
go quietly through the queerest, gayest, most extraordinary
town in Europe, and let it alone, provided it did not meddle
with him by its beggars, beauties, innkeepers, police,
coachmen, mongrels, bad smells, and such like obstructions.
This feat of questionable utility he began performing now.
Sitting on the three-inch ash rail that had been peeled and
polished like glass by the rubbings of all the small-clothes
in the parish, he forgot the time, the place, forgot that it
was August--in short, everything of the present altogether.
His mind flew back to his past life, and deplored the waste of
time that had resulted from his not having been able to make
up his mind which of the many fashions of art that were coming
and going in kaleidoscopic change was the true point of
departure from himself. He had suffered from the modern
malady of unlimited appreciativeness as much as any living man
of his own age. Dozens of his fellows in years and