In the meanwhile, my dear old sympathetic canoe has been going slowly backwards on its own account, and must be stopped. * * * * * It was only the other night that I took my canoe out in the moonlight, when the river is solitary and quiet. I shall not take it by night any more, because it is too sympathetic. A man came and leaned over one of the bridges and watched the reflection of the spangled skies in the ripple. He sighed, and said, “Pree lil starsh!” Then he swore hard at them. Then he sighed again, and his cap tumbled off into the water. “Ish all over now,” he said solemnly, and walked wearily away. My boat simply shuddered. I could feel it shudder. After that it got absurdly sentimental. Now I hate and I despise sentiment. I suppose it was the effect of the moonlight. It made some verses. At least I suppose the boat made them. I found them in my blazer pocket afterwards, and I’m sure I recognised the handwriting. So I will give them in full. (You will do nothing of the kind.--ED.) I’m not going to discuss the merit of those verses. There may be something in them which the world will one day learn to cherish, or there may not be; but I deprecate the weakness and sentimentality which cause verse. We want to be strong, really strong. We want more of the spirit of that Gallic chieftain who wanted a tin heart made for himself. The story is well enough known, and you will find it in Livy: it is in one of the lost books; but I give it for the benefit of readers who are not classical. I do not scorn such readers. I can remember the time when I had not the finished scholarship, the critical insight, the almost insolent familiarity with the more recondite parts of history, which--with all modesty be it spoken--I know that I now possess. I have forgotten some of the names, all the dates, and a few of the facts. But these are not the essentials. Such things are but the dry bones of history. We want the flesh and blood and sinews--the words, the large, beautiful, vague words that smudge over a difficulty until you can’t see it. To understand why the Gallic Chieftain wanted a tin heart, we must first of all appreciate the man’s character.