memory or that, with no intimation of how they came in time or what

led to them and joined them together. And they are all mixed up

with subsequent associations, with sympathies and discords, habits

of intercourse, surprises and disappointments and discovered

misunderstandings. Iknow only that always myfeelings for Margaret

were complicatelfeelings, woven of many and various strands.

It is one of the curious neglected aspects of life how at the same

time and inrelation to the samereality we can have in ourminds

streams ofthought at quite different levels. We can be at the same

time idealising a person andseeing and criticising that person

quite coldly and clearly, and we slip unconsciously from level to

level and produce all sorts of inconsistent acts. In a sense I had

no illusions about Margaret; in a sense my conception of Margaret

was entirely poetic illusion. I don'tthink I was ever blind to

certain defects of hers, and quite as certainly they didn't seem to

matter in the slightest degree. Hermind had a curious want of

vigour, "flatness" is the only word; she never seemed to escape from

her phrase; her way ofthinking, her way of doing was indecisive;

she remained in herattitude, it did not flow out to easy,

confirmatory action.

Isaw this quite clearly, and when we walked and talked together I

seemed always trying for animation in her and never finding it. I

wouldstate my ideas. "Iknow," she would say, "Iknow."

I talked aboutmyself and she listened wonderfully, but she made no

answering revelations. I talked politics, and she remarked with her

blue eyes wide and earnest: "Every WORD you say seems so just."

I admired her appearance tremendously but-I can only express it by

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