lightful and notable things I have seen during my life, in
your company. Do you remember the turbulent mag-
nificence of our winter passage of the Splügen, not in a
snowstorm, but in something much more thrilling -- a fierce
windstorm in a great frost? The whirling, stinging, white
dust darkened the air and coated our sledges, our horses,
and our faces. We shall neither of us ever forget how just
below the Hospice your sledge was actually blown over by
the mere fury of the blizzard; how we tramped through
the drifts, and how all ended in "the welcome of an inn"
on the summit; the hot soup and the Côtelettes de Veau. It
was together, too, that we watched the sunrise from the
Citadel at Cairo and saw the Pyramids tipped with rose
and saffron. Ours, too, was the desert mirage that, in
spite of reason and experience, almost betrayed us in our
ride to the Fayum. You shared with me what was cer-
tainly an adventure of the spirit, though not of the body,
when for the first time we saw the fateful and well-loved
shores of America. The lights danced like fireflies in the
great towers of New York, while behind them glowed in
sombre splendour the fiery Bastions of a November
sunset.

But, of course, none of all this affords the reason why I
dedicate my book to you. That reason will perhaps be
fully understood only by me and by our children. It can
also be found in certain wise and cunning little hearts,
inscrutable as those of kings, in a London nursery. Susan,
Charlotte, and Christopher could tell if they would.

If that sounds inconsequent, or, at any rate, incompre-
hensible, may I not plead that so do the ineffable Mysteries
of Life and Death.

J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.

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