November 8.

"I'm sorry. You asked me to speak the truth. Besides,

I love you too much to pretend about your work. It's strong, it's patient sometimes, not always, — and sometimes there's power in it, but there's no special reason why it should be done at all. At least, that 's how it strikes me."

"There's no special reason why anything in the world should ever be done. You know that as well as I do. I only want success." The Light that Failed.

November 9.

`AITH, it 's a good thing to be nursed by a woman

"FAITH,

when you're sick!" said Mulvaney.

at the price av twenty broken heads."

"Dirt cheap

Ortheris turned to frown across the valley. He had not been nursed by many women in his life.

"I

November 10.

On Greenhow Hill.

NEVER seed the ale I could not drink, the 'bacca I could not smoke, nor the lass I could not kiss."

On Greenhow Hill.

November II.

T

HE temper of chums, the love of your wife, and a new piano's tune

Which of the three will you trust at the end of an Indian

June?

Certain Maxims of Hafiz.

GOD

November 12.

OD has arranged that a clean-run youth of the British middle classes shall, in the matter of backbone, brains, and bowels, surpass all other youths. For this reason, a child of eighteen will stand up, doing nothing, with a tin sword in his hand and joy in his heart until he is dropped. If he dies, he dies like a gentleman.

Drums of the Fore and Aft.

WH

November 13.

HY am I wrong in trying to get a little success? "Just because you try.

darling? Good work has nothing

her from outside."

"But how does that affect 19

"Wait a minute.

Don't you understand,

to do with - does n't

It's put into him or

All we can do is to learn how to do

our work, to be masters of our materials instead of servants,

and never to be afraid of anything."

"I understand that."

"Everything else comes from outside ourselves. Very good. If we sit down quietly to work out notions that are sent to us, we may or we may not do something that is n't bad. A great deal depends on being master of the bricks and mortar of the trade. But the instant we begin to think about success and the effect of our work—to play with one eye on the gallery - we lose power and touch and everything At least, that's how I have found it."

else.

The Light that Failed.

“I

November 14.

HONESTLY believed that the world needed elevating

and influencing, and all manner of impertinences, by my brushes. By Jove, I actually believed that! When my little head was bursting with a notion that I couldn't handle because I had n't sufficient knowledge of my craft, I used to go about wondering at my own magnificence and getting ready to astonish the world."

"But surely one can do that sometimes?"

"Very seldom with malice aforethought, darling. And when it's done it's such a tiny thing, and the world's so big, and all but a millionth part of it does n't care.

The Light that Failed.

November 15.

ALK wide o' the Widow at Windsor,

WALK

For 'alf 'o creation she owns :

We 'ave bought 'er the same with the sword an' the flame,

An' we've salted it down with our bones.

(Poor beggars!—it's blue with our bones!)

Hands off o' the sons of the Widow,

Hands off o' the goods in 'er shop,

For the Kings must come down an' the Emperors frown,

When the Widow at Windsor says

"Stop !"

The Sons of the Widow.

November 16.

HAVING drafted his Resolution, he formed a Select

Committee of One to sit upon it, and resolved to

take his time.

False Dawn.

PERHAPS

November 17.

ERHAPS he has found out that he has a soul, or an artistic temperament, or something equally valuable. That comes of leaving him alone for a month.

The Light that Failed.

"SURE

November 18.

URE the Blessed Virgin is the mother of all religion an' most women; an' there's a dale av piety in a girl if the men would only let it stay there."

November 19.

On Greenhow Hill.

"HAPPEN it was as much 'Liza as th' preacher and

her father, but anyways they all meaned it, an' I was fair shamed o' mysen, an' so become what they called a changed character. And when I think on, it's hard to believe as yon chap going to prayer-meetin's, chapel, and class-meetin's were me. But I never had naught to say for mysen, though there was a deal o' shoutin', and old Sammy Strother, as were almost clemmed to death and doubled up with the rheumatics, would sing out, 'at it were better to go up to heaven in a coal-basket than down to hell i' a coach an' six.

Joyful! joyful!' and

And he would put his poor old claw on my shoulder, sayin': 'Does n't tha feel it, tha great lump? Does n't tha feel it?' An' sometimes I thought I did, and then again I thought I did n't, an' how was that?"

"The iverlastin' nature av mankind," said Mulvaney.

On Greenhow Hill.

November 20.

MAMMA's own prayer was a slightly illogical one.

Summarized it ran : "Let strangers love my

children, and be as good to them as I should be; but let me preserve their love and their confidence forever and ever. Amen." Punch scratched himself in his sleep, and Judy moaned a little. That seems to be the only answer to the Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.

prayer.

Ο

You

November 21.

́OU 'll never plumb the Oriental mind,
And if you did it is n't worth the toil.

Think of a sleek French priest in Canada;
Divide by twenty half-breeds.

By twice the Sphinx's silence.
And you 're as wise as ever.

November 22.

Multiply

There's your East,

So am I.

One Viceroy Resigns.

UTSIDE lay gloom of a November day in London. There was neither sky, sun, nor horizon—nothing but a brown-purple haze of heat. It was as though the earth were dying of apoplexy.

From time to time clouds of tawny dust rose from the ground without wind or warning, flung themselves tablecloth-wise among the tops of the parched trees, and came down again. Then a whirling dust-devil would scutter across the plain for a couple of miles, break, and fall outward. At the End of the Passage.