confident of our future goodness, we long-handicap men remain.
Perhaps it would be pleasanter to be a little more certain of
getting the ball safely off the first tee; perhaps at the
fourteenth hole, where there is a right of way and the public
encroach, we should like to feel that we have done with topping;
perhaps---

Well, perhaps we might get our handicap down to fifteen this
summer. But no lower; certainly no lower.





Goldfish



Let us talk about--well, anything you will. Goldfish, for
instance.

Goldfish are a symbol of old-world tranquillity or mid-Victorian
futility according to their position in the home. Outside the
home, in that wild state from which civilization has dragged
them, they may have stood for dare-devil courage or constancy or
devotion; I cannot tell. I may only speak of them now as I find
them, which is in the garden or in the drawing-room. In their
lily-leaved pool, sunk deep in the old flagged terrace, upon
whose borders the blackbird whistles his early-morning song, they
remind me of sundials and lavender and old delightful things. But