an ex-tea-pedlar's magazine) a print of the writer thereof. He also remembered that he had found her self-conscious pose and labial conformation intensely antipathetic. His sense of beauty was a great deal more than acute. Let his predilection (which was for reticent expert virtue in the male and for innate delicate modesty in the female) once be satisfied, and the door to his favour lay open.

"However," he argued with himself, "she sells her books by tens of thousands while we don't sell ours by tens of hundreds. We'll have a look at her work, and see how she does it."

He ate his bread and milk; and seriously and deliberately set himself to dissect and analyse the book.

The manner of the portrayal of a youth, of an abnormal type of youth, the Sentient-Modest type, at once disgusted him by its inadequacy and superficiality. The male human animal is omnipresent: it is not difficult for an observant and careful writer to describe the[Pg 12] γνωριμωτερον φυσει, things as they appear. But the author's sex had prevented her from knowing, and therefore, from describing the γνωριμωτερον ἡμιν, things as they are. It is doubtful whether Man ever mentally knew Woman. It is certain that Woman never knew Man: except in cases of occession—the author of The Gadfly for example. He found the image of Donovan fairly convincing: not so the real. Donovan, in his eponymous history, obviously was the creation of a good sweet-minded woman, who created him in her own image.

[Pg 12]

The student several times was at the point of closing the book from sheer annoyance. Only the knowledge that he had nothing else to do, and the desire to gain instruction, caused him to persevere. His temper only was logical in so far as it endowed him with the faculty of pursuance. He began many things: he followed them: oftentimes the influence of Luna on his environment obliged him to pause: but invariably he returned to them—even after long years he returned to them—; and then, slowly, surely, he concluded what he had begun. He had tenacity—the feline pertinacity of vigorous untainted English blood. Cigarette after cigarette he rolled, and smoked. He frequently turned back and read a chapter over again. Flavio mewed for admittance. He took him on his knee: and continued reading, stroking the little cat meanwhile, tickling his larynx till he purred content. So the dull March afternoon passed. At five, the maid brought a tray containing black coffee and dripping toast. At half-past six, he took a bath and attended to his appearance, execrating the pain of his 

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