

E-text prepared by Clarity, MWS, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries (https://archive.org/details/toronto)



Note: Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See
      https://archive.org/details/secretlifebeingb00bisluoft


Transcriber's note:

      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).





THE SECRET LIFE

Being the Book of a Heretic


   "Prove all things: hold fast that which is good."

   _St. Paul, 1 Thessalonians v. 21._

   "Ici l'on voulut que tout fut simple, tranquille, sans ostentation
   d'esprit ni de science, que personne ne se crut engage a avoir
   raison, et que l'on fut toujours en etat de ceder sans honte,
   surtout qu'aucun systeme ne dominat dans l'Academie a l'exclusion
   des autres, et qu'on laissat toujours toutes les portes ouvert a
   la verite."     _Fontenelle._







London: John Lane, The Bodley Head
New York: John Lane Company. MDCCCCVII

Copyright, 1906
By John Lane Company




CONTENTS

                                    PAGE
 L'Enfant Terrible                     1

 An Optimistic Cynic                   7

 A Poet Sheep-rancher                 10

 An Eaten Cake                        13

 Concerning Elbows on the Table       16

 An Autumn Impulse                    17

 John-a'-Dreams                       19

 The Fountain of Salmacis             41

 Two Siegfrieds                       44

 A Door Ajar                          47

 At Time of Death                     49

 The Curse of Babel                   49

 The Fourth Dimension                 52

 The Ant and the Lark                 58

 The Doeppelganger                    63

 "A Young Man's Fancy"                73

 An Arabian Looking-glass             78

 The Cry of the Women                 80

 The Beauty of Cruelty                95

 The Duke of Wellington's Trees      101

 The Boy with the Goose              103

 A God Indeed                        104

 A Question of Skulls                110

 The Modern Woman and Marriage       112

 The Ideal Husband                   120

 A New Law of Health                 126

 "Dead, Dead, Dead"                  139

 Verbal Magic                        140

 Hamlet                              143

 Ghosts                              149

 Amateur Saints                      153

 The Zeitgeist                       159

 The Abdication of Man               187

 Life                                205

 Portable Property                   206

 Are American Parents Selfish?       208

 A Question of Heredity              219

 The Little Dumb Brother             220

 Fever Dreams                        248

 A Misunderstood Moralist            250

 The Pleasures of Pessimism          255

 Moral Pauperism                     257

 On a Certain Lack of Humour in
 Frenchmen                           258

 The Value of a Soul                 267

 A Grateful Spaniard                 271

 Bores                               271

 Emotions and Oxydization            273

 Abelard to Heloise                  275

 Heloise to Abelard                  277

 Yumei Mujitsu                       279

 The Real Thing                      284

 "Oh, Eloquent, Just, and Mighty
 Death"                              286

 "Philistia, be Thou Glad of Me"     299

 "Oh King, Live Forever!"            305

 The Little Room                     307

 Aftermath                           312




June 21.

L'Enfant Terrible.

    "The very Devil's in the moon for mischief:
    There's not a day, the longest, not the twenty-first of June,
    Sees half the mischief in a quiet way
    On which three single hours of moonlight smile."


At my age, alas! one no longer gets into mischief, either by moonlight
or at midsummer, and yet to-day all the tricksey spirits of the
invisible world are supposed to be abroad--tangling the horses' manes,
souring the milkmaid's cream, setting lovers by the ears. Some such
frisky Puck stirs even peaceable middle-aged blood at this season to
mild little secret sins, such as beginning a diary in which to set down
one's private naughty views--the heresies one has grown too staid and
cautious to give speech to any longer.

All, I think, have some Secret Garden where they unbind the girdle of
conventions and breathe to a sympathetic listener the opinions they
would repudiate indignantly upon the housetops; but I know of no such
kindred soul--indeed my private views are so heretical that I should
tremble to whisper them even into the dull cold ear of night, lest I
should cause it to