labyrinth of contents, and in that labyrinth nothing to explain the preface.     

       ‘Lean near to life. Lean very near—nearer.     

       ‘Life is web, and therein nor warp nor woof is, but web only.     

       ‘It is for this I am Catholick in church and in thought, yet do let swift Mood weave there what the shuttle of Mood wills.’      

       These were the opening phrases of the preface, but those which followed were less easy to understand. Then came ‘Stark: A Conte,’ about a midinette who, so far as I could gather, murdered, or was about to murder, a mannequin. It was rather like a story by Catulle Mendes in which the translator had either skipped or cut out every alternate sentence. Next, a dialogue between Pan and St. Ursula—lacking, I felt, in ‘snap.’        Next, some aphorisms (entitled ‘Aphorismata’ [spelled in Greek]). Throughout, in fact, there was a great variety of form; and the forms had evidently been wrought with much care. It was rather the substance that eluded me. Was there, I wondered, any substance at all? It did now occur to me: suppose Enoch Soames was a fool! Up cropped a rival hypothesis:       suppose I was! I inclined to give Soames the benefit of the doubt. I had read ‘L’Apres-midi d’un Faune’ without extracting a glimmer of meaning. Yet Mallarme—of course—was a Master. How was I to know that Soames wasn’t another? There was a sort of music in his prose, not indeed arresting, but perhaps, I thought, haunting, and laden perhaps with meanings as deep as Mallarme’s own. I awaited his poems with an open mind.     

       And I looked forward to them with positive impatience after I had had a second meeting with him. This was on an evening in January. Going into the aforesaid domino room, I passed a table at which sat a pale man with an open book before him. He looked from his book to me, and I looked back over my shoulder with a vague sense that I ought to have recognised him. I returned to pay my respects. After exchanging a few words, I said with a glance to the open book, ‘I see I am interrupting you,’ and was about to pass on, but ‘I prefer,’ Soames replied in his toneless voice, ‘to be interrupted,’ and I obeyed his gesture that I should sit down.     

       I asked him if he often read here. ‘Yes; things of this kind I read here,’        he answered, indicating the title of his 

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