As we have said, it is exactly this backdoor, this sense of having a retreat behind us, that is, to our minds, the sterilizing spirit in modern pleasure.  Everywhere there is the persistent and insane attempt to obtain pleasure without paying for it.  Thus, in politics the modern Jingoes practically say, ’Let us have the pleasures of conquerors without the pains of soldiers:  let us sit on sofas and be a hardy race.’  Thus, in religion and morals, the decadent mystics say:  ’Let us have the fragrance of sacred purity without the sorrows of self-restraint; let us sing hymns alternately to the Virgin and Priapus.’  Thus in love the free-lovers say:  ’Let us have the splendour of offering ourselves without the peril of committing ourselves; let us see whether one cannot commit suicide an unlimited number of times.’

Emphatically it will not work.  There are thrilling moments, doubtless, for the spectator, the amateur, and the aesthete; but there is one thrill that is known only to the soldier who fights for his own flag, to the ascetic who starves himself for his own illumination, to the lover who makes finally his own choice.  And it is this transfiguring self-discipline that makes the vow a truly sane thing.  It must have satisfied even the giant hunger of the soul of a lover or a poet to know that in consequence of some one instant of decision that strange chain would hang for centuries in the Alps among the silences of stars and snows.  All around us is the city of small sins, abounding in backways and retreats, but surely, sooner or later, the towering flame will rise from the harbour announcing that the reign of the cowards is over and a man is burning his ships.

* * * * *

A DEFENCE OF SKELETONS

Some little time ago I stood among immemorial English trees that seemed to take hold upon the stars like a brood of Ygdrasils.  As I walked among these living pillars I became gradually aware that the rustics who lived and died in their shadow adopted a very curious conversational tone.  They seemed to be constantly apologizing for the trees, as if they were a very poor show.  After elaborate investigation, I discovered that their gloomy and penitent tone was traceable to the fact that it was winter and all the trees were bare.  I assured them that I did not resent the fact that it was winter, that I knew the thing had happened before, and that no forethought on their part could have averted this blow of destiny.  But I could not in any way reconcile them to the fact that it was winter.  There was evidently a general feeling that I had caught the trees in a kind of disgraceful deshabille, and that they ought not to be seen until, like the first human sinners, they had covered themselves with leaves.  So it is quite clear that, while very few people appear to know anything of how trees look in winter, the actual foresters know less than anyone.  So far from the