Page:Early Reminiscences.djvu/47

Rh how their mothers told of the little hearts on Pixy Rock pulsating to the distant bells.

We have to pay a price for every new acquisition, and the opening to us of the recently discovered world of microbes has followed on the banishment of the world of the Elves. Scientifically we have gained much. Imaginatively we have lost a great deal.

I have recalled old fancies, old dreams; and a shadow of regret has passed over my heart at the poetic loss we had sustained by the exile of the fairies. But when, out of health, I sip Lactor Bulgariensis with Bacillus Metchnicoffii souring it, I rest satisfied with the thought that the exchange has been of practical utility.

Nor is this all. There has come about a revulsion in popular feeling as to the spirits of men after death. In place of looking up to the souls gleaming in the light of Paradise, as we once were led to believe, now we are told that they hover about the "Horse Shoe" in Tottenham Court Road, so as to catch a whiff of Player's Navy-cut, or haunt a lawn-tennis ground in order to sniff up the fragrance of Glen Livet whisky, without having to pay war price for it.

At Montpellier my mother wrote: "After remaining a day or two at the hotel to look about us, we were not a little glad to find a delightfully snug and pretty little house, with only three bedrooms and two parlours and a kitchen—all of rather tiny dimensions, in the best part of the town, the most airy and distinguée, quite an essential qualification in our eyes, knowing what faubourgs are abroad, situated in one of the prettiest flower-gardens, if not the prettiest I have seen since I left England, shut in from the road by high walls and iron gates of a very imposing effect, with a piece of water in the middle (very shallow) and railed round to the height of Sabine's waist, full of gold fish, which serve to delight the little ones with their brilliant scales and happy movements. We are very cosy with our servant, who is thoroughly good-natured, and contrives to find plenty of time for dusting rooms, cooking the dinner, and walking out and amusing Willy.

"The Promenade, to which we are quite close, and which is almost the only walk within compass of ladies, particularly such as myself, is said to be the finest in France, if not in Europe, and