I asked him if he voted, and he said “yes.” He said there was only one way to vote, but I did not understand what this meant.
Had time served I should have asked him further questions—upon the nature of the soul, its ultimate fate, the origin of man and his destiny, whether mortal or immortal; the proper constitution of the State, the choice of the legislator, the prince, and the magistrate; the function of art, whether it is subsidiary or primary in human life; the family; marriage. Upon the State he had already informed me, and also upon the institution of property, and upon his view of armies. Upon all those other things he would equally have given me a clear reply, for he was a man that knew his own mind, and that is more than most people can say.
But we were now in Bavai, and I had no time to discover more. We drank together before we parted, and I was very pleased to see the honest look in his face. With more leisure and born to greater opportunities he would have been talked about, this Man of Malplaquet. He had come to his odd conclusions as the funny people do in Scandinavia and in Russia, and among the rich intellectuals and usurers in London and Berlin; but he was a jollier man than they are, for he could drive a horse and lie about it, and he could also milk a cow. As we parted he used a phrase that wounded me, and which I had only heard once before in my life. He said:
“We shall never see each other again!”
Another man had once said this thing to me before. This man was a farmer in the Northumbrian hills, who walked with me a little way in the days when I was going over Carter Fell to find the Scots people, many, many years ago. He also said: “We shall never meet again!”
[The Game of Cards]
A youth of no more than twenty-three years entered a first-class carriage at the famous station of Swindon in the county of Wiltshire, proposing to travel to the uttermost parts of the West and to enjoy a comfortable loneliness while he ruminated upon all things human and divine; when he was sufficiently annoyed to discover that in the further corner of the carriage was sitting an old gentleman of benevolent appearance, or at any rate a gentleman of benevolent appearance who appeared in his youthful eyes to be old.
For though the old gentleman was, as a fact, but sixty, yet his virile beard had long gone white and the fringes of hair attaching to his ostrich egg of a head confirmed his venerable appearance.
When the train had started the young man proceeded in no very good temper and with great solemnity to fill a pipe. He turned to his senior, who was watching him in a very paternal and happy manner, and said formally:
“I hope you do not mind my smoking, sir?”