xi LADY MAUD'S WALK 197 



here, the bray of a concertina, which, after 

 a few preliminary and unpremeditated rural 

 effects, plunged recklessly into the latest 

 atrocity, a hideous ode written by some 

 cosmopolitan Pindar in commemoration of 

 a victory gained in the lists of love by some 

 commercial Hieron from the United States, 

 a vile piece of romance by gaslight that had 

 actually driven me out of London for rest 

 and change. But these thoughts are out of 

 keeping with Sunday school, or anyhow the 

 expression of them may become so, and as 

 I am not a great poet I must be careful. I 

 wish I were a poet, a Wordsworth for in- 

 stance. Then instead of talking nonsense I 

 should be extracting immortality out of my 

 surroundings by, shall I say, four quatrains 

 descriptive of the startling effect produced 

 on a dandelion by the singing of a children's 

 hymn, as witnessed by the recumbent but 

 accurate poet. 



But who am I that I should be irrev- 

 erent ? I do not forget that of the two 

 voices "one is of the deep." Let me think 

 of something else. Somebody, I think it 

 was Sydney Smith, said that the further he 

 went West the more convinced he became 



