The Secret Life: Being the Book of a Heretic

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Secret Life , by Elizabeth Bisland
Being
THE BOOK OF A HERETIC
Prove all things: hold fast that which is good. St. Paul, 1 Thessalonians v. 21.
Ici l'on voulut que tout fût simple, tranquille, sans ostentation d'esprit ni de science, que personne ne se crût engagé à avoir raison, et que l'on fût toujours en état de céder sans honte, surtout qu'aucun système ne dominât dans l'Académie à l'exclusion des autres, et qu'on laissât toujours toutes les portes ouvert à la vérité.
Fontenelle.
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MDCCCCVII
Copyright, 1906 By John Lane Company


The very Devil's in the moon for mischief: There's not a day, the longest, not the twenty-first of June, Sees half the mischief in a quiet way On which three single hours of moonlight smile.
At my age, alas! one no longer gets into mischief, either by moonlight or at midsummer, and yet to-day all the tricksey spirits of the invisible world are supposed to be abroad—tangling the horses' manes, souring the milkmaid's cream, setting lovers by the ears. Some such frisky Puck stirs even peaceable middle-aged blood at this season to mild little secret sins, such as beginning a diary in which to set down one's private naughty views—the heresies one has grown too staid and cautious to give speech to any longer.