An impression of passing away, of the effacement of individual life. One sighs, remembering that it is even so, that life passes, sunrise after sunrise, moonlight upon moonlight, evening upon evening, and we like May-flies on the surface of a stream, no more than they for all our poets and priests. The clock struck seven, reminding me of the dinner-hour, reminding me that I should have to dine alone that evening. To avoid dining alone I should not have lingered in St. James's Park, but if I had not lingered I should have missed an exquisite hour of meditation, and meditations are as necessary to me as absinthe to the absinthe-drinker. Only some little incident was wanting--a meeting with one whom one has not seen for a long time, a man or a woman, it would not matter which, a peg whereon to hang the description of the dusk among the trees, but I had met no friend in the Park. But one appeared on the threshold of St. James's Street. There I met a young man, a painter, one whose pictures interested me sometimes, and we went to a restaurant to talk art. "After dinner," I said, "we will get the best cigars and walk about the circus. Every Sunday night it is crowded; we shall see the women hurrying to and fro on love's quest. The warm night will bring them all out in white dresses, and a white dress in the moonlight is an enchantment. Don't you like the feather boas reaching almost to the ground? I do. Lights-o'-love going about their business interest me extraordinarily, for they and the tinkers and gipsies are the last that remain of the old world when outlawry was common. Now we are all socialists, more or less occupied with the performance of duties which obtain every one's approval. Methinks it is a relief to know that somebody lives out of society. I like all this London, this midnight London, when the round moon rises above the gracious line of Regent Street, and flaming Jupiter soars like a hawk, following some quest of his own. We on our little, he on his greater quest." * * * * * The night was hot and breathless, like a fume, and upon a great silken sky the circular and sonorous street circled like an amphitheatre.... I threw open my light overcoat, and, seizing the arm of my friend, I said: