E. F. Benson

“ If that steadfast march of the pilgrims does not touch your heart you are lower than the beasts that perish; if the horrible loveliness of the army of Venus does not stir the devil within you, you are more than man. ”

“ Tannhäuser is usually performed on Saturday night, and Venus has to be put away altogether before eleven o’clock service on Sunday morning. You leave her at the church door. She wouldn’t go at all well with the Litany and the Penitential Psalms—in fact one prays to be delivered from her, and, poor dear, how they would bore her! And when you come out of church again, she is gone. She has not gone really, she has only gone elsewhere, and she often turns up again. And now I’m going to talk sense, although I have been talking sense all the time, really. Amn’t I a shocking old woman, Reggie? ”

“ Oh yes, Tannhäuser is staying at Venusberg. Well, all the time the pilgrims are marching about to slow music, and when they come near Venusberg, the contrast between the two styles is very striking. You are a pilgrim, Reggie; domestic bliss is not incompatible with sandals. ”

“ The Overture to
"Tannhäuser"
By E. F. BENSON
Author of "Dodo"
LADY HAYES was looking extremely bored, but that was her normal condition, and had not necessarily anything to do with the fact that I was having tea with her. She was delivering herself of her opinions on the futility of existence.
“Nobody really seems to care about anything,” she was saying, “and I am sure I don’t. No one in London is ever enthusiastic, and there really seems no reason why they should be. How stupid it all is! To-night, for instance, what a programme! ”

“ To-night he shall eat the apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil——”
“Which Eve——” I began.
“On the contrary Augustus Harris offers it to him,” she interrupted. “It is very cheap even in the stalls, considering how valuable it is.” ”