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因此有了图书馆，实验室和观象台，还有昂贵、精致的仪器，它们构成的光彩夺目的设备立在玻璃架子上，而几个世纪之前，就在这里，青草随风摇晃，猪用鼻子拱着土。当然，当我在院子中四处漫步时，金银构建的基础似乎足够深了，铺在野草上的人行道也足够结实。头上顶着托盘的人匆忙地从一个楼梯走到另一个楼梯。窗口花坛中，华丽的花开着。留声机响亮的旋律从里面的屋子里传出来。不可能不去深思——无论深思的是什么，它可能已被打断了。是该去吃午饭的时候了。
It is a curious fact that novelists have a way of making us believe that luncheon parties are invariably memorable for something very witty that was said, or for something very wise that was done. But they seldom spare a word for what was eaten. It is part of the novelist's convention not to mention soup and salmon and ducklings, as if soup and salmon and ducklings were of no importance whatsoever, as if nobody ever smoked a cigar or drank a glass of wine. Here, however, I shall take the liberty to defy that convention and to tell you that the lunch on this occasion began with soles, sunk in a deep dish, over which the college cook had spread a counterpane of the whitest cream, save that it was branded here and there with brown spots like the spots on the flanks of a doe. After that came the partridges, but if this suggests a couple of bald, brown birds on a plate you are mistaken. The partridges, many and various, came with all their retinue of sauces and salads, the sharp and the sweet, each in its order; their potatoes, thin as coins but not so hard; their sprouts, foliated as rosebuds but more succulent. And no sooner had the roast and its retinue been done with than the silent servingman, the Beadle himself perhaps in a milder manifestation, set before us, wreathed in napkins, a confection which rose all sugar from the waves. To call it pudding and so relate it to rice and tapioca would be an insult. Meanwhile the wineglasses had flushed yellow and flushed crimson; had been emptied; had been filled. And thus by degrees was lit, half—way down the spine, which is the seat of the soul, not that hard little electric light which we call brilliance, as it pops in and out upon our lips, but the more profound, subtle and subterranean glow which is the rich yellow flame of rational intercourse. No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself. We are all going to heaven and Vandyck is of the company—in other words, how good life seemed, how sweet its rewards, how trivial this grudge or that grievance, how admirable friendship and the society of one's kind, as, lighting a good cigarette, one sunk among the cushions in the window—seat.
小说家有办法使我们相信，午餐会总是难忘的的，因为有人会说诙谐的话，或是有人会做机智的事，这个事实是很奇怪的。但是他们很少谈及所吃的东西。这是小说家习俗的一部分，就是不去提汤、鲑鱼和小鸭子，好像它们不重要似的，好像没有人曾经吸过一支雪茄或喝过一杯酒似的。但是，在这儿我要冒昧地违背这个习俗，告诉你们，这次午饭是以鳎鱼开始的，它被盛在深深的盘子里，学校的厨子在上面铺了一层床罩似的白色奶油，只是它四处点缀着棕色的小点，像雌鹿胁腹上的点一样。然后上的是山鹑，但是你们若以为它们只是盘子上躺着的两只无毛的棕色的鸟，你们就错了。各种各样且数量繁多的山鹑，带着它们的酱汁、生菜等所有随员而来，其中有味道浓的，也有甜的，全都排列有序。一起来的还有土豆片，它们像钱币一样薄，但又没有那么硬；还有甘蓝，就像玫瑰花蕾一样是一层一层的，却更美味多汁。烤山鹑及其随员刚被吃完，寡言的男佣人，也可能是表现得比较温和的教区执事本人，就把甜食放到我们面前；用餐巾缠绕着的甜食让所有白糖都从大海里涌了出来。如果称它为布丁并且将它与大米、木薯淀粉联系起来，那是对它的一种侮辱。同时，玻璃酒杯中奔涌着黄色和红色的酒，杯子空了，又满了。因此，在脊柱（灵魂所在的地方）的中间，渐渐被点亮的并不是我们称之为才华的那种刺目的微小电光——这种才华在我们的嘴上啪啪地进进出出，而是更深刻、更微妙、更隐蔽的光辉，那是理性交流的色彩浓烈的黄色火焰。不需要着急。不需要才华横溢。不需要成为自己以外的任何人。我们都终将走进天堂与范戴克为伴——换句话说，当一个人点燃一支好烟、坐到窗座的垫子中时，生活看起来多么美好，它的回报多么让人高兴，这个积怨或那个怨愤多么渺小，友谊和与同类朋友的交往又是多么令人钦佩。
If by good luck there had been an ash—tray handy, if one had not knocked the ash out of the window in default, if things had been a little different from what they were, one would not have seen, presumably, a cat without a tail. The sight of that abrupt and truncated animal padding softly across the quadrangle changed by some fluke of the subconscious intelligence the emotional light for me. It was as if someone had let fall a shade. Perhaps the excellent hock was relinquishing its hold. Certainly, as I watched the Manx cat pause in the middle of the lawn as if it too questioned the universe, something seemed lacking, something seemed different. But what was lacking, what was different, I asked myself, listening to the talk? And to answer that question I had to think myself out of the room, back into the past, before the war indeed, and to set before my eyes the model of another luncheon party held in rooms not very far distant from these; but different. Everything was different. Meanwhile the talk went on among the guests, who were many and young, some of this sex, some of that; it went on swimmingly, it went on agreeably, freely, amusingly. And as it went on I set it against the background of that other talk, and as I matched the two together I had no doubt that one was the descendant, the legitimate heir of the other. Nothing was changed; nothing was different save only here I listened with all my ears not entirely to what was being said, but to the murmur or current behind it. Yes, that was it—the change was there. Before the war at a luncheon party like this people would have said precisely the same things but they would have sounded different, because in those days they were accompanied by a sort of humming noise, not articulate, but musical, exciting, which changed the value of the words themselves. Could one set that humming noise to words? Perhaps with the help of the poets one could.... A book lay beside me and, opening it, I turned casually enough to Tennyson. And here I found Tennyson was singing:
如果手边刚好有一个烟灰缸，如果一个人没有因为缺少烟灰缸而把烟灰弹到窗外，如果事情与实际状况稍有不同，那么他大概不会看到一只没有尾巴的猫。那只突然出现的、被砍了尾巴的动物轻轻地走过四方院，这一情景侥幸借着下意识的灵性，为我改变了情绪上的看法。好像有人放下了一个罩子。也许是那美妙的白葡萄酒的酒力正在过去。确实，当我看着这只马恩岛猫停在草坪中间，好像它也在质问宇宙时，一些东西看起来欠缺了，一些东西看起来不同了。但是欠缺的是什么，不同的是什么？我在听着谈话的时候，这样问自己。为了回答这个问题，我不得不想象自己离开了这间屋子，回到了过去，而且是回到了战前，并且在我的眼前放置另一个午餐聚会的模型，这个聚会就在离这些房间不太远的另一些房间里举行；但这又是不同的。一切都是不同的。与此同时，客人之间的谈话继续着，客人很多而且很年轻，男女都有。谈话顺利地进行着，进行得很惬意、很自由、很有趣。在谈话继续进行的时候，我把它与另一谈话的背景作了比较，当我把这两场谈话放在一起比较的时候，我毫不怀疑其中一场是另一场的后裔、合法继承人。没有什么发生了改变；没有什么变得不同了，只不过我此时全神贯注地倾听的并不全是讲出的话，而是其背后的窃窃私语抑或气流。对，就是这样——这就是改变。战前，在像这样的一个午餐聚会上，人们所说的事与现在完全一样，但是听起来却不同，因为那个时候的谈话被一种嗡嗡声伴随着，这种嗡嗡声不清晰，但是悦耳、刺激，这改变了话语本身的价值。可不可以用文字表达出那种嗡嗡声呢？或许在诗人的帮助下可以……我身边摆放着一本书，我翻开它，很不经意地翻到了丁尼生。在这儿我发现丁尼生唱道：
There has fallen a splendid tear
一颗美好的泪珠滚落下来，
From the passion—flower at the gate.
自门口的那株西番莲花。
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
她就要来了，我的宝贝，我亲爱的；
She is coming, my life, my fate;
她就要来了，我的生命，我的命运；
The red rose cries, 'She is near, she is near';
红玫瑰喊道： “她走近了，她走近了” ；
And the white rose weeps, 'She is late’;
白玫瑰泣诉： “她迟到了” ；
The larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear';
飞燕草倾听着： “我听到了，我听到了” ；
And the lily whispers, 'I wait. '
百合低语： “我在等待。”
Was that what men hummed at luncheon parties before the war? And the women?
这就是男人在战前的午餐聚会上吟哦的内容吗？那女人呢？
My heart is like a singing bird
我的心像一只歌唱的鸟，
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
它的巢筑在一根被弄湿的嫩枝上；
My heart is like an apple tree
我的心像一棵苹果树，
Whose boughs are bent with thick—set fruit;
它的树枝被密密麻麻的果实压弯；
My heart is like a rainbow shell
我的心像一个五彩的贝壳，
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
在平静的海上戏水；
My heart is gladder than all these
我的心比这些都快乐，
Because my love is come to me.
因为我爱的人已经来到我身边。
Was that what women hummed at luncheon parties before the war?
这就是女人在战前的午餐聚会上吟哦的内容吗？
There was something so ludicrous in thinking of people humming such things even under their breath at luncheon parties before the war that I burst out laughing and had to explain my laughter by pointing at the Manx cat, who did look a little absurd, poor beast, without a tail, in the middle of the lawn. Was he really born so, or had he lost his tail in an accident? The tailless cat, though some are said to exist in the Isle of Man, is rarer than one thinks. It is a queer animal, quaint rather than beautiful. It is strange what a difference a tail makes—you know the sort of things one says as a lunch party breaks up and people are finding their coats and hats.
想起战前人们在午餐聚会上甚至压低嗓音吟哦这些东西，就有了滑稽之处，于是我大笑起来，还要指着那个马恩岛猫，作为我大笑的理由。可怜的小东西没有尾巴，站在草地中间，看起来的确有点滑稽。它真的生来就如此吗？还是在一场事故中失去了它的尾巴？尽管有些人说马恩岛上有没有尾巴的猫，但这些猫要比人们想象的罕见。它是一种奇怪的动物，与其说是漂亮，不如说是有趣。一条尾巴能带来如此大的差别，这很奇怪——你知道，当午餐聚会结束，人们找他们的大衣和帽子时，才会说这样的话。
This one, thanks to the hospitality of the host, had lasted far into the afternoon. The beautiful October day was fading and the leaves were falling from the trees in the avenue as I walked through it. Gate after gate seemed to close with gentle finality behind me. Innumerable beadles were fitting innumerable keys into well—oiled locks; the treasure—house was being made secure for another night. After the avenue one comes out upon a road—I forget its name—which leads you, if you take the right turning, along to Fernham. But there was plenty of time. Dinner was not till half—past seven. One could almost do without dinner after such a luncheon. It is strange how a scrap of poetry works in the mind and makes the legs move in time to it along the road. Those words—
由于主人的热情款待，这顿午餐一直持续到下午很晚的时候。那个美丽的十月天渐渐地暗了下来。当我走过林阴道的时候，树上的叶子正在飘落。一扇一扇大门似乎在我身后轻轻地而又断然地关闭了。无数的教区执事把数不清的钥匙插到很好用的门锁里；这座宝库又将安全地度过一个夜晚。走过林阴道之后，便是一条马路——它的名字我忘记了——如果向右转，顺着这条马路就可到达弗恩汉姆。但是还有很多时间。晚餐要到七点半才开始。不过吃过这样一顿午餐后，人们几乎可以不用吃晚餐。很奇怪，一小段诗映入脑海，使得双腿和着它的节拍沿路前行。这些话——
There has fallen a splendid tear
一颗美好的泪珠滚落下来，
From the passion—flower at the gate.
自门口的那株西番莲花。
She is coming, my dove, my dear—
她就要来了，我的宝贝，我亲爱的——
sang in my blood as I stepped quickly along towards Headingley. And then, switching off into the other measure, I sang, where the waters are churned up by the weir:
当我快步走向赫丁利时，它们在我的血液中歌唱。然后转到另外一个音步，在拦河坝搅动着河水的地方，我唱道：
My heart is like a singing bird
我的心像一只歌唱的鸟，
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
它的巢筑在一根被弄湿的嫩枝上；
My heart is like an apple tree...
我的心像一颗苹果树……
What poets, I cried aloud, as one does in the dusk, what poets they were!
我大声地喊着，就像人们在薄暮中大喊一样：多么伟大的诗人，他们是多么伟大的诗人啊！
In a sort of jealousy, I suppose, for our own age, silly and absurd though these comparisons are, I went on to wonder if honestly one could name two living poets now as great as Tennyson and Christina Rossetti were then. Obviously it is impossible, I thought, looking into those foaming waters, to compare them. The very reason why that poetry excites one to such abandonment, such rapture, is that it celebrates some feeling that one used to have (at luncheon parties before the war perhaps), so that one responds easily, familiarly, without troubling to check the feeling, or to compare it with any that one has now. But the living poets express a feeling that is actually being made and torn out of us at the moment. One does not recognize it in the first place; often for some reason one fears it; one watches it with keenness and compares it jealously and suspiciously with the old feeling that one knew. Hence the difficulty of modern poetry; and it is because of this difficulty that one cannot remember more than two consecutive lines of any good modern poet. For this reason—that my memory failed me—the argument flagged for want of material. But why, I continued, moving on towards Headingley, have we stopped humming under our breath at luncheon parties? Why has Alfred ceased to sing
我想，我是带着一种对我们所处的时代的妒忌情绪，进而想知道是否有人能够诚实地说出两位还在世的诗人的名字，他们像丁尼生和克里斯蒂娜? 罗塞蒂那样伟大，尽管这样的比较是愚蠢和荒唐的。看着泛着泡沫的河水，我想，把他们进行对比很显然是不可能的。那首诗之所以让人们如此放纵、如此狂喜，是因为它赞扬了人们过去（或许是在战前的午餐聚会的时候）常常有的某种情感，因此人们可以很容易、很熟悉地作出反应，而不用费事去检查那些情感，或者拿它与他们现在有的任何一种情感作比较。然而还在世的诗人所表达的情感，事实上是此刻正在被制造出来、从我们身上夺去的情感。一开始，人们没有认出这种情感，而且常常因为某种原因害怕它。人们充满渴望地看着它，又带着猜疑和妒忌的情绪拿它和他们所知道的旧情感作比较。由此便产生了现代诗歌的困难，同时也正因为这个困难，对于任何一个优秀的现代诗人，人们最多只能记住他的连续两行诗歌。因为这个原因——我记忆力的衰退，这场争论由于资料的匮乏而显得枯燥乏味。但是，当我继续往赫丁利走的时候，我想道，为什么在午餐聚会上我们停止了低声吟哦？为什么艾尔弗雷德停止了歌唱：
She is coming, my dove, my dear.
她就要来了，我的宝贝，我亲爱的。
Why has Christina ceased to respond
为什么克里斯蒂娜不再作出反应：
My heart is gladder than all these
我的心比这些都快乐
Because my love is come to me?
因为我爱的人已经来到我身边？
Shall we lay the blame on the war? When the guns fired in August 1914, did the faces of men and women show so plain in each other's eyes that romance was killed? Certainly it was a shock (to women in particular with their illusions about education, and so on) to see the faces of our rulers in the light of the shell—fire. So ugly they looked—German, English, French—so stupid. But lay the blame where one will, on whom one will, the illusion which inspired Tennyson and Christina Rossetti to sing so passionately about the coming of their loves is far rarer now than then. One has only to read, to look, to listen, to remember. But why say 'blame'? Why, if it was an illusion, not praise the catastrophe, whatever it was, that destroyed illusion and put truth in its place? For truth... those dots mark the spot where, in search of truth, I missed the turning up to Fernham. Yes indeed, which was truth and which was illusion? I asked myself. What was the truth about these houses, for example, dim and festive now with their red windows in the dusk, but raw and red and squalid, with their sweets and their bootlaces, at nine o'clock in the morning? And the willows and the river and the gardens that run down to the river, vague now with the mist stealing over them, but gold and red in the sunlight—which was the truth, which was the illusion about them? I spare you the twists and turns of my cogitations, for no conclusion was found on the road to Headingley, and I ask You to suppose that I soon found out my mistake about the turning and retraced my steps to Fernham.
我们是不是应该责怪战争呢？一九一四年八月枪声响起的时候，是不是男人女人的脸上都在彼此的眼中清晰地显示，浪漫被扼杀了？借着炮火的光亮看统治者的脸的确是令人惊愕的（特别是对女人来说，因为她们对教育仍抱有幻想等等）。他们看起来如此丑陋——无论德国的、英国的，还是法国的——都是如此愚蠢。但是无论抱怨什么，不管抱怨谁，如今唤起丁尼生和克里斯蒂娜? 罗塞蒂的灵感，让他们为即将到来的爱人热情歌唱的幻觉要比当时少得多。人们现在只需要去阅读、观察、聆听和记忆。但为什么要 “怨” 呢？如果它是一种幻觉，为什么不去赞扬那种毁灭了幻觉并且用真实取而代之的灾难呢，无论是什么灾难？因为真实……这些点标志着我在寻找真实的过程中忘记转弯去弗恩汉姆的地方。是的，的确，哪个是真实，哪个是幻觉？我问自己。比如说，什么是关于这些房子的真实呢？薄暮时分它们看着很朦胧，红窗户显出了节日气氛；但是早上九点钟的时候，糖果、鞋带又使它们看上去通红，而且粗俗、污秽。柳树、河流，还有一直延伸到河边的花园，在薄雾静悄悄的笼罩下都是模糊的，但是在阳光下却是红彤彤、金光闪闪的——关于它们，哪些是真实，哪些又是幻觉呢？我不必告诉你们我思想的曲折变化，因为去赫丁利的路上我并没有得出结论。你们可以猜想，我很快就发现自己忘记转弯了，于是又往回走，再到弗恩汉姆去。
As I have said already that it was an October day, I dare not forfeit your respect and imperil the fair name of fiction by changing the season and describing lilacs hanging over garden walls, crocuses, tulips and other flowers of spring. Fiction must stick to facts, and the truer the facts the better the fiction—so we are told. Therefore it was still autumn and the leaves were still yellow and falling, if anything, a little faster than before, because it was now evening (seven twenty—three to be precise) and a breeze (from the south—west to be exact) had risen. But for all that there was something odd at work:
既然我已经说过那是十月的一天，我就不敢改变季节并描述花园墙头上悬垂的丁香花、番红花、郁金香以及其他春天的花朵，从而失去你们的尊重并危及小说这个好听的名字。小说必须忠于事实，事实越真实，小说就越好——别人是这样告诉我们的。因此仍旧是秋天，树叶仍旧是黄色的并且不断飘落。如果说有任何变化的话，那就是比以前落得更快了，因为现在已经是傍晚了（确切地说是七点二十三分），而且一阵微风（确切地说是西南风）刮了起来。但是尽管如此，总有一些怪东西在起作用：
My heart is like a singing bird
我的心像一只歌唱的鸟，
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
它的巢筑在一根被弄湿的嫩枝上；
My heart is like an apple tree
我的心像一颗苹果树，
Whose boughs are bent with thick—set fruit…
它的树枝被密密麻麻的果实压弯……
perhaps the words of Christina Rossetti were partly responsible for the folly of the fancy—it was nothing of course but a fancy—that the lilac was shaking its flowers over the garden walls, and the brimstone butterflies were scudding hither and thither, and the dust of the pollen was in the air. A wind blew, from what quarter I know not, but it lifted the half—grown leaves so that there was a flash of silver grey in the air. It was the time between the lights when colours undergo their intensification and purples and golds burn in window—panes like the beat of an excitable heart; when for some reason the beauty of the world revealed and yet soon to perish (here I pushed into the garden, for, unwisely, the door was left open and no beadles seemed about), the beauty of the world which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder. The gardens of Fernham lay before me in the spring twilight, wild and open, and in the long grass, sprinkled and carelessly flung, were daffodils and bluebells, not orderly perhaps at the best of times, and now wind—blown and waving as they tugged at their roots. The windows of the building, curved like ships' windows among generous waves of red brick, changed from lemon to silver under the flight of the quick spring clouds. Somebody was in a hammock, somebody, but in this light they were phantoms only, half guessed, half seen, raced across the grass—would no one stop her? —and then on the terrace, as if popping out to breathe the air, to glance at the garden, came a bent figure, formidable yet humble, with her great forehead and her shabby dress—could it be the famous scholar, could it be J—H—herself? All was dim, yet intense too, as if the scarf which the dusk had flung over the garden were torn asunder by star or sword—the gash of some terrible reality leaping, as its way is, out of the heart of the spring. For youth—
也许克里斯蒂娜? 罗塞蒂的诗句要对幻想的愚蠢行为负一定的责任——它当然仅仅只是幻想，幻想着丁香花在花园的墙头上摇摆它的花朵，黄粉蝶到处疾飞，花粉在空气中弥散。一阵风吹过来，我不知道是从哪个方向吹来的，刮起了还未长成的嫩叶，因此空中闪着银灰色。这是傍晚时分，各种颜色逐渐变深，紫色和金黄色在窗玻璃上燃烧，像一颗容易激动的心在跳动。这时，因为某种原因世界的美丽都呈现出来了，但是也很快消失了（这时我走进了花园，因为门很不谨慎地开着，而且附近似乎没有教区执事）。世界的美很快就会消失，它有两个刀口，一个是欢笑的，一个是痛苦的，把心切成了两部分。在春天的暮色中，弗恩汉姆的花园展现在我面前，荒芜而又开阔。高高的青草中疏落、随意地点缀着水仙花和蓝铃花，大概在花开得最盛时候也是没有秩序吧，现在被风吹得四处摇摆，用力拽着它们的根部。这些建筑的窗户呈弧形，就像在红砖的海洋中船的窗户一样。在很快飘过的春天的云朵下，这些窗户从柠檬色变成了银色。有人躺在吊床上；有人跑过草地，不过在这种光线里，他们仅仅是鬼魂，一半是我的猜想，一半是我看见的——难道没有人拉住她？然后在阳台上，走来一个佝偻的身影，好像是突然走出来呼吸些空气，看一看花园，她令人畏惧却又很谦恭。从她宽阔的前额和破旧的衣服来看，会不会是那个著名的学者，会不会就是J——H——本人？所有的一切都是朦胧的，但是也很强烈，就像是薄暮披在花园上的围巾被星星或刀剑给割成了数部分——某种可怕现实的切口以它自己的方式由春天的心里跳出来。因为青春——
Here was my soup. Dinner was being served in the great dining—hall. Far from being spring it was in fact an evening in October. Everybody was assembled in the big dining—room. Dinner was ready. Here was the soup. It was a plain gravy soup. There was nothing to stir the fancy in that. One could have seen through the transparent liquid any pattern that there might have been on the plate itself. But there was no pattern. The plate was plain. Next came beef with its attendant greens and potatoes—a homely trinity, suggesting the rumps of cattle in a muddy market, and sprouts curled and yellowed at the edge, and bargaining and cheapening and women with string bags on Monday morning. There was no reason to complain of human nature's daily food, seeing that the supply was sufficient and coal—miners doubtless were sitting down to less. Prunes and custard followed. And if anyone complains that prunes, even when mitigated by custard, are an uncharitable vegetable (fruit they are not), stringy as a miser's heart and exuding a fluid such as might run in misers' veins who have denied themselves wine and warmth for eighty years and yet not given to the poor, he should reflect that there are people whose charity embraces even the prune. Biscuits and cheese came next, and here the water—jug was liberally passed round, for it is the nature of biscuits to be dry, and these were biscuits to the core. That was all. The meal was over. Everybody scraped their chairs back; the swing—doors swung violently to and fro; soon the hall was emptied of every sign of food and made ready no doubt for breakfast next morning. Down corridors and up staircases the youth of England went banging and singing. And was it for a guest, a stranger (for I had no more right here in Fernham than in Trinity or Somerville or Girton or Newnham or Christchurch), to say, 'The dinner was not good, ' or to say (we were now, Mary Seton and I, in her sitting—room), 'Could we not have dined up here alone? ' for if I had said anything of the kind I should have been prying and searching into the secret economies of a house which to the stranger wears so fine a front of gaiety and courage. No, one could say nothing of the sort. Indeed, conversation for a moment flagged. The human frame being what it is, heart, body and brain all mixed together, and not contained in separate compartments as they will be no doubt in another million years, a good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well. The lamp in the spine does not light on beef and prunes. We are all PROBABLY going to heaven, and Vandyck is, we HOPE, to meet us round the next corner—that is the dubious and qualifying state of mind that beef and prunes at the end of the day's work breed between them. Happily my friend, who taught science, had a cupboard where there was a squat bottle and little glasses— (but there should have been sole and partridge to begin with) —so that we were able to draw up to the fire and repair some of the damages of the day's living. In a minute or so we were slipping freely in and out among all those objects of curiosity and interest which form in the mind in the absence of a particular person, and are naturally to be discussed on coming together again—how somebody has married, another has not; one thinks this, another that; one has improved out of all knowledge, the other most amazingly gone to the bad—with all those speculations upon human nature and the character of the amazing world we live in which spring naturally from such beginnings. While these things were being said, however, I became shamefacedly aware of a current setting in of its own accord and carrying everything forward to an end of its own. One might be talking of Spain or Portugal, of book or racehorse, but the real interest of whatever was said was none of those things, but a scene of masons on a high roof some five centuries ago. Kings and nobles brought treasure in huge sacks and poured it under the earth. This scene was for ever coming alive in my mind and placing itself by another of lean cows and a muddy market and withered greens and the stringy hearts of old men—these two pictures, disjointed and disconnected and nonsensical as they were, were for ever coming together and combating each other and had me entirely at their mercy. The best course, unless the whole talk was to be distorted, was to expose what was in my mind to the air, when with good luck it would fade and crumble like the head of the dead king when they opened the coffin at Windsor. Briefly, then, I told Miss Seton about the masons who had been all those years on the roof of the chapel, and about the kings and queens and nobles bearing sacks of gold and silver on their shoulders, which they shovelled into the earth; and then how the great financial magnates of our own time came and laid cheques and bonds, I suppose, where the others had laid ingots and rough lumps of gold. All that lies beneath the colleges down there, I said; but this college, where we are now sitting, what lies beneath its gallant red brick and the wild unkempt grasses of the garden? What force is behind that plain china off which we dined, and (here it popped out of my mouth before I could stop it) the beef, the custard and the prunes?