As the man consumed the bodies of the buck-sardine and the doe-sardine, the two spiritualities of the two fishes walked down the empyrean, and cast two shadows. When he had gulped down the last mouthful, the two shadows melted into one. So they found peace at last; and I do not refer to buttered toast. But the queerest part of it is that they were both sprats. * * * * * It has turned chilly. No one but myself is left on the river, and the solitary end of the afternoon is good to look at. The thing that you and I want most is a power of expression. When I say you, I mean the sympathetic reader who can enter into the true spirit of loafing: the loafing of the body in the wayward Canadian canoe that does what it likes, and the loafing of the mind that does not take the nauseous trouble to think straight. I want the younger child who is to be born when Art and Music are reconciled again, who will never take aim and yet never miss the mark, who will be quite careless but quite true. That child will know all about the sympathy which exists between one man and one scene in which he finds himself, and may perhaps reveal it to us. But I am sorry for poor Art. She is a woman, and, though her beauty will not leave her, she desires reconciliation and love. I am taken with a sudden verse or two. Kindly excuse them:-- O Art, that lives not in the studio, That has no special love for northern light! Unto no studies from the nude I owe Sense of my weakness, knowledge of thy might. And to no stippling from the good antique, My shame and joy before the joyous Greek. For I have walked in galleries oftentimes, And shaded with one hand a longing eye; And found no touch of love to soften times As hard as nails, as dead to ecstasy; And nothing in the gallery was fair, But the worn face of the commissionaire. So in despair I wax a trifle coarse, And eat a hearty steak, and drink my beer; And twenty thousand million rifle-corps Of evil spirits enter in and jeer. “She’s dead and rotten!” cries my angry heart, And sleeps--and sees the living face of Art. II. ON EXALTATION: TOGETHER WITH AN ANECDOTE FROM THE ENTERTAINMENTS OF KAPNIDES. On quiet days, when no wind blows, my canoe is particularly restful. It has perfect sympathy with the weather. It creeps down slowly to King’s, leans itself against the bank, and thinks. Then, later in the afternoon, it bears the organ humming in the chapel--a faint, sweet sound which produces religious exaltation; and it becomes necessary to wrestle with the canoe, because it desires to fly away and be at rest. It is owing to this rhythmic alternation of laziness and spirituality in the boat that I have given it the name which is blazoned on its bows--_Zeitgeist_.