You
will be victoriously yourself again.
Yet I think you will look back a little wistfully on the period of
your obliteration. People--for people are very nice, really, most of
them--will tell you that they have missed you. You will reply that you
did not miss yourself. And you will go the more strenuously to your
work and pleasure, so as to have the sooner an excuse for a good
riddance.
A STUDY IN DEJECTION
Riderless the horse was, and with none to hold his bridle. But he
waited patiently, submissively, there where I saw him, at the shabby
corner of a certain shabby little street in Chelsea. `My beautiful, my
beautiful, thou standest meekly by,' sang Mrs. Norton of her Arab
steed, `with thy proudly-arched and glossy neck, thy dark and fiery
eye.' Catching the eye of this other horse, I saw that such fire as
might once have blazed there had long smouldered away. Chestnut though
he was, he had no mettle. His chestnut coat was all dull and rough,
unkempt as that of an inferior cab-horse. Of his once luxuriant mane
there were but a few poor tufts now. His saddle was torn and weather-
stained. The one stirrup that dangled therefrom was red with rust.
I never saw in any creature a look of such unutterable dejection.
Dejection, in the most literal sense of the word, indeed was his.
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