BOOK: | I | II | III | IV |
|108 | 109 |110 |

    Luckily there is another cant to the questy. Has any fellow, of 1
the dime a dozen type, it might with some profit some dull even-2
ing quietly be hinted      has any usual sort of ornery josser, flat-3
chested fortyish, faintly flatulent and given to ratiocination by4
syncopation in the elucidation of complications,of his greatest5
Fung Yang dynasdescendanced,only another the son of, in fact,6
ever looked sufficiently longly at a quite everydaylooking stamped7
addressed envelope? Admittedly it is an outer husk: its face, in8
all its featureful perfection of imperfection, is its fortune: it ex-9
hibits only the civil or military clothing of whatever passion-10
pallid nudity or plaguepurple nakedness may happen to tuck it-11
self under its flap. Yet to concentrate solely on the literal sense or12
even the psychological content of any document to the sore13
neglect of the enveloping facts themselves circumstantiating it is14
just as hurtful to sound sense (and let it be added to the truest15
taste) as were some fellow in the act of perhaps getting an intro16
from another fellow turning out to be a friend in need of his, say,17
to a lady of the latter's acquaintance, engaged in performing the18
elaborative antecistral ceremony of upstheres, straightaway to run19
off and vision her plump and plain in her natural altogether, pre-20
ferring to close his blinkhard's eyes to the ethiquethical fact that21
she was, after all, wearing for the space of the time being some22
definite articles of evolutionary clothing, inharmonious creations,23
a captious critic might describe them as, or not strictly necessary24
or a trifle irritating here and there, but for all that suddenly full25
of local colour and personal perfume and suggestive, too, of so26
very much more and capable of being stretched, filled out, if need27
or wish were, of having their surprisingly like coincidental parts28
separated don't they now, for better survey by the deft hand of29
an expert, don't you know? Who in his heart doubts either that30
the facts of feminine clothiering are there all the time or that the31
feminine fiction, stranger than the facts, is there also at the same32
time, only a little to the rere? Or that one may be separated from33
the other? Or that both may then be contemplated simultaneously?34
Or that each may be taken up and considered in turn apart from35
the other?36