Afterwards Boon consoled himself very much for a time by making further speculative sketches of Mr. Osborn, as the embodiment of the Heroic Spirit. I append one or two of the least offensive of these drawings. [Illustration: _Fancy sketch of Mr. Osborn (the Heroic Spirit) compelling his tailor to make him trousers for nothing. My weapon with my tailor speaks, It cuts my coat and sews my breeks._] [Illustration: _Mr. Osborn, in a moment of virile indignation, swiping St. Francis of Assisi one with a club._] [Illustration: _The soul of Mr. Osborn doing a war dance (as a Spartan Red Indian) in order to work itself up for a_ "Morning Post" _article._] [Illustration: _Mr. Osborn's dream of himself as a Prussian Spartan refreshing himself with Hero's food (fresh human liver) and drink (blood and champagne) after a good Go In at some Pacificist softs._] § 7 Boon's pessimistic outlook on the war had a profoundly depressing effect upon me. I do all in my power to believe that Wilkins is right, and that the hopelessness that darkened Boon's last days was due to the overshadowing of his mind by his illness. It was not simply that he despaired of the world at large; so far as I am concerned, he pointed and barbed his opinion by showing how inevitable it was that the existing publishing and book trade would be shattered to fragments. Adapted as I am now to the necessities of that trade, incapable as I am of the fresh exertions needed to bring me into a successful relationship to the unknown exigencies of the future, the sense of complete personal ruin mingled with and intensified the vision he imposed upon me of a world laid waste. I lay awake through long stretches of the night contemplating now my own life, no longer in its first vigour, pinched by harsh necessities and the fiercer competition of a young and needy generation, and now all life with its habits and traditions strained and broken. My daily fatigues at drill and the universal heavy cold in the head that has oppressed all Britain this winter almost more than the war, have added their quota to my nightly discomfort. And when at last I have slept I have been oppressed with peculiar and melancholy dreams. One is so vividly in my mind that I am obliged to tell it here, although I am doubtful whether, except by a very extreme stretching of the meaning of words, we can really consider it among the Remains of George Boon.