I went to bed last night, as I have indicated, the most contented of created beings.  I awoke this morning with no greater ruffle on my consciousness than the appointment with my lawyers.  The sun shone.  A thrush sang lustily in the big elm opposite my bedroom windows.  The tree, laughed and shook out its finery at me like a woman, saying:  “See how green I am, after Sunday’s rain.”  Antoinette’s one eyed black cat (a hideous beast) met me in the hall and arching its back welcomed me affably to its new residence.  And on my breakfast-table I found a copy of the first edition of Cristoforo da Costa’s “Elogi delle Donne Illustri,” a book which, in great diffidence, I had asked Lord Carnforth, a perfect stranger, to allow me the privilege of consulting in his library, and which Lord Carnforth, with a scholar’s splendid courtesy, had sent me to use at my convenience.

Filled with peace and good-will to all men, like a personification of Christmas in May, I started out this morning to see my lawyers.  I reached them at three o’clock, having idled at second-hand bookstalls and lunched on the road.  I signed their unintelligible document, and wandered through the Temple Gardens and along the Embankment.  When I had passed under Hungerford Bridge, it struck me that I was warm, a little leg-weary, and the Victoria Embankment Gardens smiled an invitation to repose.  I struck the shady path beneath the terrace of the National Liberal Club, and sat myself down on a comfortable bench.  The only other occupant was a female in black.  As I take no interest in females in black, I disregarded her presence, and gave myself up to the contemplation, of the trim lawns and flower-beds, the green trees masking the unsightly Surrey side of the river, and the back of the statue of Sir Bartle Frere.  A continued survey of the last not making for edification (a statue that turns its back on you being one of the dullest objects made by man), I took from my pocket a brown leather-covered volume which I had fished out of a penny box:  “Suite de l’Histoire du Gouvernement de Venise ou L’Histoire des Uscoques, par le Sieur Houssaie, Amsterdam, MDCCV.” A whole complete scholarly history of a forgotten people for a penny.  The Uscoques were originally Dalmatians who settled at Segna on the Adriatic and became the most pestiferous colony of pirates and desperadoes of sixteenth century Europe.  I opened the yellow-stained pages and savoured their acrid musty smell.  How much learning, thought I, bought with the heart’s-blood, how many million hours of fierce intellectual struggle appeal to mankind nowadays but as an odour, an odour of decay, in the nostrils of here and there a casual student.  I thought this, and my eye caught, repeated many times, the name of the Frangipani, once lords of Segna.  As men, their achievements are wiped out of commonly remembered history; but their name is distilled into a sensuous perfume which perchance may be found in