The Angel and the Author, and Others

hy and t

osopher I ever heard of was a woman. She was brought into the London Hospital suffering from

to come off,

not all

m sorry to say," grow

g else

you whatever," explai

wd it's not my 'ead

at a "high tea" given last winter by charitable folk to a party of char-women. After the tables were cleared we sought to amuse them. One young lady, wh

e coming to you," she in

ured dame looke

nly one,

nd fortune-teller, much pleased,

quite cheerfully, "we was all

e Wednesday with a friend in the country. His son and he

r, "and how did we get

ngster, settling himself down to

is father, with-as I notic

don't think so," adding as an afterthought, as he tu

D?mon wil

s what happens to you provided you don't mind it. The weak point in

s Marcus Aurelius, "without the

always be relied upon. So often

I'm going to whip you," said n

gripping with both hands the chair tha

ed by nurse, should not hurt him. The misfortune, alas! proved

he chair and says it can't. But, sooner or later, the d?mon lets go, and then we howl. One sees the idea:

not reall

say it does, and insist on

You tell yourself it is seasoned champagn

of existence would be simpler for them, and maybe he was right. So one day he assembled some twenty poor lads for the purpose of introducing to them a vegetarian lunch. He begged them to believe

is but the creature of the imagination. Say to yourselves, 'I am eating

e done it, but one disappointed-l

re it was not a savelo

the boy, "I haven't g

bly and immediately disagreed with him. If only we were all d?mon and no

at nothing matters, but they are not. They say it is going to be cut off, and talk about judgment summonses. I tell them it won't trouble any of us a hundred years hence. They answer they are not talking of a hundred years hence, but of this thing that was due last April twelvemonth. They won't listen to my d?mon. He does not interest them. Nor, to be candid, does it comfort myself very much, this philosophical reflection that a hundred years later on I'll be sure to be dead-that is, with ordinary luck. What bucks me up much mor

ating toasted cheese for supper. You know it always affects

not so foolish as you think me. They

at it is all about I defy any human being to explain. It might mean anything; it might mean nothing. The majority of students incline to the latter theory, though a minority maintain there is

said to himself, "now, wh

good he was doing, and later on went suddenly to sleep. In the morning he had forgotten all about it, and by accident

us philosophe

Emperor of Rome, and Diogenes was a bachelor living rent free. I want the philosophy of the bank clerk married on thirty shillings a week, of the far

what are taxes? A thing in conformity with the nature of man-a little thing that Z

t a frock fit to be seen in at the amphitheatre; that, if there was one thing in the world she fancied, it was seeing a Christian e

exclaim; "I do wish they would not burn these poor people's houses over their heads, toss the babie

elius would eventually trium

lf. "One is not vexed with the fig-tree for yielding figs, with the cucu

, having snatched her hat from her head, was at that moment playing football with it the other side of the wall. I attempted to console her with philosophy. I pointed out to her that boys would be boys-that to expect from them at that age reverence for feminine headgear was to seek what was not conformable with the nature of boy. But she appeared to have no philosophy in her. She said he was a horrid boy, and that she hat

ngs. Incautiously he took another step. In an instant she had "landed" him over the head with a long narrow wooden box containing, one supposes,

damaged?"

besides, it was only an old hat. I

in. That foolish farm labourer, on his precarious wage of twelve shillings a week: let him dwell rather on the mercies he enjoys. Is he not spared all anxiety concerning safe investment of capital yielding four per cent.? Is not the sunrise and the sunset for him also? Many of us never see the sunrise. So many of our so-termed poorer brethen are privileged rarely to miss that ea