A SPRING HERESY 85 



A SPRING HERESY 



Yesterday was the 2ist of December, 1904 ; fog, 

 frost, sunshine nil. To-day is the 22nd of December, 

 1904 ; foggier, frostier, sunshine nil. Traffic by 

 road and rail is wholly disorganised. Upon the city 

 streets men may be seen dimly, "as trees walking ; " 

 the vehicles, in unbroken columns, loom up from the 

 gloom, and with peeping lights pass and disappear, 

 their passage like that of some long iuneral cortege, 

 slow, solemn, with measured march and all sounds 

 muffled. The unnatural darkness makes children of 

 us ; we grope and lose our way. 



I met a man in the fog. He had travelled fourteen 

 miles into town in five hours ; he was only concerned 

 to find the station and return even if with the same 

 lack of speed. He had "found the station once," 

 he related pathetically, and as he was then standing 

 at the subway exit, I recognised that he must have 

 gone in by the front way and come out again by the 

 back one. 



A lady whom I found marooned on a small island 

 in the centre of a great thoroughfare accepted my 

 escort to the kerb, informing me that she had come 

 into town to attend a conversazione, but having been 

 hopelessly lost for an hour past, wished now only to 

 go home again. I brought her to the tramway 

 terminus, remarking consolingly by the way that 



