Essays on Life 



absolute ; and yet perfect contact is inconceiv- 

 able by us, for on becoming perfect it ceases 

 to be contact, and becomes essential, once for 

 all inseverable, identity. The most absolute 

 contact short of this is still contact by courtesy 

 only. So here, as everywhere else, Eurydice 

 glides off as we are about to grasp her. We 

 can see nothing face to face ; our utmost see- 

 ing is but a fumbling of blind finger-ends in 

 an overcrowded pocket. 



Presently my own blind finger-ends fished 

 up the conclusion, that as I had neither time 

 nor money to spend on perfecting the chain 

 that would put me in full spiritual contact 

 with Mr. Sweeting's turtles, I had better leave 

 them to complete their education at some one 

 else's expense rather than mine, so I walked 

 on towards the Bank. As I did so it struck 

 me how continually we are met by this melt- 

 ing of one existence into another. The limits 

 of the body seem well defined enough as 

 definitions go, but definitions seldom go far. 

 What, for example, can seem more distinct 

 from a man than his banker or his solicitor ? 

 Yet these are commonly so much parts of him 



