Sex is a queer and incalculable solvent of human confidence.

There are certain revelations that men will make only to a man, certain revelations likewise that women will make only to a man.

On the other hand, a woman is told things by her sister women and her brother men which, but for her, would never reach a man's ears.

So by combining the information obtained from our family encyclopaedia under the feminine heading of China with that obtained under the masculine heading of Philosophy, I can, figuratively speaking, like the famous student, issue my treatise on Chinese Philosophy.
* * * * * One miraculous morning in late May, not so very many years ago, when the parrot-tulips in my garden were expanding themselves wantonly to the sun, and the lilac and laburnum which I caught, as I sat at my table, with the tail of one eye, and the pink may which I caught with the tail of the other, bloomed in splendid arrogance, my quiet outlook on greenery and colour was obscured by a human form.

I may mention that my study-table is placed in the bay of a window, on the ground floor.