COINCIDENCES, LUCK, CHANCE 



arrived that day b}- the Liverpool Steamer, Damon having 

 arrived by train that day from San Francisco. Neither 

 had any idea of the other's whereabouts, and comparing 

 notes, we found it was just five years that month since I 

 said we would aJl be supping together. And we supped. 

 As might be expected, from an observing actress, her 

 coincidence list is a wide one ; coupling the Mediterranean 

 and Delmonico's, Egypt and Michigan, Cairo and 

 Galveston (Texas). A South American specimen is good. 

 She was walking the Strand, London, with a friend who 

 described his narrow escape from a shark, while bathing in 

 the Amazon ; and he extolled the bravery of his compan- 

 ion, who did so much to save him. While expressing his 

 regret that he should never meet the brave fellow again, 

 he exclaimed, " why, my goodness, here he is," and at 

 once they were vigorously shaking hands. Lord Acton's 

 favorite coincidence story was, that the three men executed 

 for the murder of Sir E. Berry Godfrey, at the foot of 

 Greenbury Hill, London, were named Green, Berry and 

 Hill. 



Does some one ask why do I repeat these idle tales ? 

 Because such stories were at one time considered occult 

 rather than idle. To-day we are content if they prove 

 interesting enough to fill a gap in talk, or cause a gentle 

 lift of the e\^ebrow. At one time they were considerd as in 

 some way the outcome of cause, or even in themselves 

 causal, and our altered relation to them — the only point I 

 wish to emphasize — is one of the signs of the times, an 

 actual mental asset, to be measured, priced, and its value 

 (as the commercial men say) extended in any twentieth 

 century intellectual stock-taking. 



Change in the human common point of view is a subtle 

 but pervasive thing, almost as obscure and unnoticed as 

 the rate of travel of a glacier, and my object to-night is, 

 by noting the altered position of a few pegs, driven in on 

 the surface of some of these human movements to thus 



