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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