Trivia

CONTENTS

Some of these pieces were privately printed at the Chiswick Press in 1902. Others have appeared in the New Statesman and The New Republic, and are here reprinted with the Editors' permission.

You must beware of thinking too much about Style, said my kindly adviser, or you will become like those fastidious people who polish and polish until there is nothing left.
Then there really are such people? I asked, lost in the thought of how much I should like to meet them. But the well-informed lady could give me no precise information about them.
I often hear of them in this tantalizing manner, and perhaps one day I shall get to know them. They sound delightful.

These pieces of moral prose have been written, dear Reader, by a large Carnivorous Mammal, belonging to that suborder of the Animal Kingdom which includes also the Orang-outang, the tusked Gorilla, the Baboon with his bright blue and scarlet bottom, and the long-eared Chimpanzee.


How blest my lot, in these sweet fields assign'd Where Peace and Leisure soothe the tuneful mind.