The World’s Tragedy

PREFACE. XIX high that it literally stank. So did the women ! I stood it for breakfast, I stood it for lunch, I stood it for tea — but ’twasn't tea, ’twas Jesus ! Dinner came ; cold boiled Jesus, and the scrag end of it at that ! I went out and stood by the sea. I was lost in reverie. Here were these hags of hell, the product of an unvarying diet of cold boiled Jesus ! By God ! could I not save somebody ? These had once been fresh healthy English girls, fit for life and laughter. C. B. J. had mummified them to what they were. I would be the Saviour of the future ! I must have wandered in my meditation ; for presently I found myself lying on the grass under the full moon and the stars, the sea’s low plash beneath my feet, the soft breeze blowing over me, a whisper — oh essence of the winds and of the seas of the world ! — in my ears (I seem to remember even now that her name was Mabel — thank you, Mabel !) and then I gazed upon the moon and vowed myself knight of Artemis, to bring the truth into this England of hypocrisy, light in its superstition of rationa- lism, love in its prudery, chastity into its whoredom ! So I swore, and rose up and kissed Mabel and went home in the might of the holy vision — for the god Pan appeared to me, and abode in me and I in him — and wrote for four nights night by night, until the World’s Tragedy lay finished and perfect before me. All day I kept myself up to the mark by the stern