_Consolation_


The other day, depressed on the Underground, I tried to cheer
myself by thinking over the joys of our human lot. But there
wasn't one of them for which I seemed to care a hang--not
Wine, nor Friendship, nor Eating, nor Making Love, nor the
Consciousness of Virtue. Was it worth while then going up in
a lift into a world that had nothing less trite to offer?

Then I thought of reading--the nice and subtle happiness of
reading. This was enough, this joy not dulled by Age, this
polite and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene, life-long
intoxication.




_Sir Eustace Carr_


When I read the news about Sir Eustace Carr in the morning
paper, I was startled, like everyone else who knew, if only by
name this young man, whose wealth and good looks, whose
adventurous travels and whose brilliant and happy marriage, had
made of him an almost romantic figure.

Every now and then one hears of some strange happening of this
kind. But they are acts so anomalous, in such startling