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