I know I am august I do not trouble my spirit to indicate itself or to be understood . . . I exist as I am, that is enough. If no other in the world be aware I sit content. And if each and all be aware I sit content. Nevertheless, for me, the contentment of the ultimate line surpassed the contentment of the penultimate. And therefore it was, perhaps, that I descended on London from time to time like a wolf on the fold, and made the world aware, and snatched its feverish joys for a space, and then, surfeited and advertised, went back and relapsed into my long monotony. And sometimes I would suddenly halt and address myself: "You may be richer or you may be poorer; you may live in greater pomp and luxury, or in less. The point is that you will always be, essentially, what you are now. You have no real satisfaction to look forward to except the satisfaction of continually inventing, fancying, imagining, scribbling. Say another thirty years of these emotional ingenuities, these interminable variations on the theme of beauty. Is it good enough?" And I answered: Yes. But who knows? Who can preclude the regrets of the dying couch? THE END