104 



STRAY- AW AYS 



and assiduity of the establishment brought to bear 

 on one poor party of three, who did not even take 

 wine. It was almost awful to see the omelettes au 

 rhum, eaeh borne by a separate waiter, approach 

 processionally across the empty hall, flaming like 

 sacrifices, towards an altar so unworthy. 



In the woods, we 

 were told, were the 

 pleasure-grounds of 

 a lunatic asylum, 

 and when, later, we 

 walked through 

 them, by h i g h - 

 hedge paths, curi- 

 ously interwoven, it 

 was with an eye of 

 serious speculation 

 as to the possibilities 

 of flight through this 

 involuted trap before 

 the kangaroo -leaps 

 of the maniac. The 

 gloomy green light, 

 the wind in the tree- 

 tops, were fitting ac- 

 cessories to a conver- 

 sation that turned 

 on lunacy and its 

 startling prevalence in Denmark, and leaving lunacy, 

 touched the kindred statistic that in every five Danes 

 there is one who dies of consumption. What elements 

 of morbidness, what demoralising expectancy of 

 disease must lie behind the quiet Danisli faces, tliat 

 during two days of acquaintance with them had given 

 an impression of exceptional serenity, of singular 

 reasonableness. 



THE AUDIENCE SHOWED A MARKED 

 ATTENTIVENESS 



