Living Alone

Living Alone

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Living Alone, by Stella Benson This
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Title: Living Alone
Author: Stella Benson
Release Date: February 4, 2005 [EBook #14907] [Date last updated:
February 12, 2005]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LIVING ALONE
BY
STELLA BENSON
AUTHOR OF "I POSE," "THIS IS THE END"
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET,
LONDON 1920

_First Edition 1919_ _Reprinted 1920 (twice)_

This is not a real book. It does not deal with real people, nor should it
be read by real people. But there are in the world so many real books
already written for the benefit of real people, and there are still so many
to be written, that I cannot believe that a little alien book such as this,
written for the magically-inclined minority, can be considered too
assertive a trespasser.

I have to thank the Editor of the _Athenæum_ for allowing me to
reprint the poem "Detachment" and the first chapter of this book. The
courtesy of the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette in permitting me to use
again any of my contributions to his paper also enables me to include in
the fifth chapter the tragic incident of the Mad 'Bus.
S.B.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
MAGIC COMES TO A COMMITTEE 1

CHAPTER II
THE COMMITTEE COMES TO MAGIC 19

CHAPTER III
THE EVERLASTING BOY 53

CHAPTER IV
THE FORBIDDEN SANDWICH 75

CHAPTER V
AN AIR RAID SEEN FROM BELOW 97

CHAPTER VI
AN AIR RAID SEEN FROM ABOVE 129

CHAPTER VII
THE FAERY FARM 155

CHAPTER VIII
THE REGRETTABLE WEDNESDAY 195

CHAPTER IX
THE HOUSE OF LIVING ALONE MOVES AWAY 221

CHAPTER X
THE DWELLER ALONE 257

THE DWELLER ALONE
My Self has grown too mad for me to master. Craven, beyond what
comfort I can find, It cries: "_Oh, God, I am stricken with disaster_."
Cries in the night: "_I am stricken, I am blind_...." I will divorce it. I
will make my dwelling Far from my Self. Not through these hind'ring
tears Will I see men's tears shed. Not with these ears Will I hear news
that tortures in the telling.
I will go seeking for my soul's remotest And stillest place. For oh, I
starve and thirst To hear in quietness man's passionate protest Against
the doom with which his world is cursed. Not my own wand'rings--not
my own abidings-- Shall give my search a bias and a bent. For me is no
light moment of content, For me no friend, no teller of the tidings.
The waves of endless time do sing and thunder Upon the cliffs of space.
And on that sea I will sail forth, nor fear to sink thereunder,
Immeasurable time supporting me: That sea--that mother of a million
summers, Who bore, with melody, a million springs, Shall sing for my
enchantment, as she sings To life's forsaken ones, and death's
newcomers.
Look, yonder stand the stars to banish anger, And there the immortal
years do laugh at pain, And here is promise of a blessed languor To
smooth at last the seas of time again. And all those mothers' sons who
did recover From death, do cry aloud: "_Ah, cease to mourn us. To life
and love you claimed that you had borne us, But we have found death
kinder than a lover_."
I will divorce my Self. Alone it searches Amid dark ruins for its
yesterday; Beats with its hands upon the doors of churches, And, at
their altars, finds it cannot pray. But I am free--I am free of indecision,
Of blood, and weariness, and all things cruel. I have sold my Self for
silence, for the jewel Of silence, and the shadow of a vision....

CHAPTER I
MAGIC COMES TO A COMMITTEE
There were six women, seven chairs, and a table in an otherwise
unfurnished room in an unfashionable part of London. Three of the
women were of the kind that has no life apart from committees. They

need not be mentioned in detail. The names of two others were Miss
Meta Mostyn Ford and Lady Arabel Higgins. Miss Ford was a good
woman, as well as a lady. Her hands were beautiful because they paid a
manicurist to keep them so, but she was too righteous to powder her
nose. She was the sort of person a man would like his