like any prince, such stores of the world's supply were open to me, in the wisdom and goodness of man. So far, so good. Wise, good provision that makes the heart swell with love! IV BUT then came another hunger very deep, and ravening; the very body's body crying out with a hunger more frightening, more profound than stomach or throat or even the mind; redder than death, more clamorous. The hunger for the woman. Alas, it is so deep a Moloch, ruthless and strong, 'tis like the unutterable name of the dread Lord, not to be spoken aloud. Yet there it is, the hunger which comes upon us, which we must learn to satisfy with pure, real satisfaction; or perish, there is no alternative. I thought it was woman, indiscriminate woman, mere female adjunct of what I was. Ah, that was torment hard enough and a thing to be afraid of, a threatening, torturing, phallic Moloch. A woman fed that hunger in me at last. What many women cannot give, one woman can; so I have known it. She stood before me like riches that were mine. Even then, in the dark, I was tortured, ravening, unfree, Ashamed, and shameful, and vicious. A man is so terrified of strong hunger; and this terror is the root of all cruelty. She loved me, and stood before me, looking to me. How could I look, when I was mad? I looked sideways, furtively, being mad with voracious desire. V THIS comes right at last. When a man is rich, he loses at last the hunger fear. I lost at last the fierceness that fears it will starve. I could put my face at last between her breasts and know that they were given for ever that I should never starve never perish; I had eaten of the bread that satisfies and my body's body was appeased, there was peace and richness, fulfilment. Let them praise desire who will, but only fulfilment will do, real fulfilment, nothing short. It is our ratification our heaven, as a matter of fact. Immortality, the heaven, is only a projection of this strange but actual fulfilment, here in the flesh. So, another hunger was supplied, and for this I have to thank one woman, not mankind, for mankind would have prevented me; but one woman, and these are my red-letter thanksgivings. VI To be, or not to be, is still the question. This ache for being is the ultimate hunger. And for myself, I can say "almost, almost, oh, very nearly." Yet something remains.
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