des élus.  Nous n’avons pas le droit d’etre fort difficiles.’’ We will be very facile, then, since needs must; remembering the good old proverb that ``scornful dogs eat dirty puddings.’’ But, ere we show Terminus the door, at least let us fling one stone at the shrieking sulphureous houses of damnation erected as temples in his honour, and dignified with his name!  There, ’mid clangour, dirt, and pestilence of crowding humanity, the very spirit of worry and unrest sits embodied.  The old Roman was not such a bad fellow.  His deity of demarcation at least breathed open air, and knew the kindly touch of sun and wind.  His simple rites were performed amid flowers and under blue sky, by sunny roads or tranquil waters; and on this particular altar the sacrifice was ordained to be free from any stain of gore.  Our hour of sacrifice, alas, has not yet come.  When it does —­ ( et haud procul absit!) —­ let the offering be no bloodless one, but let (for choice) a fat and succulent stationmaster smoke and crackle on the altar of expiation!

Of Smoking

Concerning Cigarette Smoking:  It hath been well observed by a certain philosopher that this is a practice commendable enough, and pleasant to indulge in, ``when you’re not smoking’’; wherein the whole criticism of the cigarette is found, in a little room.  Of the same manner of thinking was one that I knew, who kept by him an ample case bulging with cigarettes, to smoke while he was filling his pipe.  Toys they be verily, nugæ, and shadows of the substance.  Serviceable, nevertheless, as shadows sometimes be when the substance is temporarily unattainable; as between the acts of a play, in the park, or while dressing for dinner:  that such moments may not be entirely wasted.  That cigarette, however, which is so prompt to appear after dinner I would reprehend and ban and totally abolish:  as enemy to that diviner thing before which it should pale its ineffectual fires in shame —­ to wit, good drink, ``la dive bouteille’’; except indeed when the liquor be bad, as is sometimes known to happen.  Then it may serve in some sort as a sorry consolation.  But to leave these airy substitutes, and come to smoking.

It hath been ofttimes debated whether the morning pipe be the sweeter, or that first pipe of the evening which ``Hesperus, who bringeth all good things,’’ brings to the weary with home and rest.  The first is smoked on a clearer palate, and comes to unjaded senses like the kiss of one’s first love; but lacks that feeling of perfect fruition, of merit recompensed and the goal and the garland won, which clings to the vesper bowl.  Whence it comes that the majority give the palm to the latter.  To which I intend no slight when I find the incense that arises at matins sweeter even than that of evensong.  For, although with most of us who are labourers in the vineyard, toilers and swinkers, the morning pipe is smoked in hurry and fear and a sense of alarums and excursions and fleeting trains, yet with all this there are certain