Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. LIVING ALONE BY STELLA BENSON AUTHOR OF "I POSE," "THIS IS THE END" MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1920 _First Edition 1919_ _Reprinted 1920 (twice)_ This is not a real book. It does not deal with real people, nor should it be read by real people. But there are in the world so many real books already written for the benefit of real people, and there are still so many to be written, that I cannot believe that a little alien book such as this, written for the magically-inclined minority, can be considered too assertive a trespasser. I have to thank the Editor of the _Athenaeum_ for allowing me to reprint the poem "Detachment" and the first chapter of this book. The courtesy of the Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ in permitting me to use again any of my contributions to his paper also enables me to include in the fifth chapter the tragic incident of the Mad 'Bus. S.B. CONTENTS CHAPTER I MAGIC COMES TO A COMMITTEE 1 CHAPTER II THE COMMITTEE COMES TO MAGIC 19 CHAPTER III THE EVERLASTING BOY 53 CHAPTER IV THE FORBIDDEN SANDWICH 75 CHAPTER V AN AIR RAID SEEN FROM BELOW 97 CHAPTER VI AN AIR RAID SEEN FROM ABOVE 129 CHAPTER VII THE FAERY FARM 155 CHAPTER VIII THE REGRETTABLE WEDNESDAY 195 CHAPTER IX THE HOUSE OF LIVING ALONE MOVES AWAY 221 CHAPTER X THE DWELLER ALONE 257 THE DWELLER ALONE My Self has grown too mad for me to master. Craven, beyond what comfort I can find, It cries: "_Oh, God, I am stricken with disaster_." Cries in the night: "_I am stricken, I am blind_...." I will divorce it. I will make my dwelling Far from my Self. Not through these hind'ring tears Will I see men's tears shed. Not with these ears Will I hear news that tortures in the telling. I will go seeking for my soul's remotest And stillest place. For oh, I starve and thirst To hear in quietness man's passionate protest Against the doom with which his world is cursed. Not my own wand'rings--not my own abidings-- Shall give my search a bias and a bent. For me is no light moment of content, For me no friend, no teller of the tidings.