cross, and recede with mathematical precision, and part of the pleasure we get from the book is due to this. Such is the pattern of Thaïs—so simple that it makes a good starting-point for a difficult survey. It is the same as the story of Thaïs , when events unroll in their time-sequence, and the same as the plot of Thaïs , when we see the two characters bound by their previous actions and taking fatal steps whose consequence they do not see. But whereas the story appeals to our curiosity and the plot to our intelligence, the pattern appeals to our aesthetic sense, it causes us to see the book as a whole. We do not see it as an hourglass—that is the hard jargon of the lecture room which must never be taken literally at this advanced stage of our enquiry. We just have a pleasure without knowing why, and when the pleasure is past, as it is now, and our minds are left free to explain it, a geometrical simile such as an hourglass will be found helpful. If it was not for this hourglass the story, the plot, and the characters of Thaïs and Paphnuce would none of them exert their full force, they would none of them breathe as they do. “Pattern,” which seems so rigid, is connected with atmosphere, which seems so fluid.
Now for the book that is shaped like the grand chain: Roman Pictures by Percy Lubbock.
Roman Pictures is a social comedy. The narrator is a tourist in Rome; he there meets a kindly and shoddy friend of his, Deering, who rebukes him superciliously for staring at churches and sets him out to explore society. This he does, demurely obedient; one person hands him on to another; café, studio, Vatican and Quirinal purlieus are all reached, until finally, at the extreme end of his career he thinks, in a most aristocratic and dilapidated palazzo, whom should he meet but the second-rate Deering; Deering is his hostess’s nephew, but had concealed it owing to some backfire of snobbery. The circle is complete, the original partners have rejoined, and greet one another with mutual confusion which turns to mild laughter.