We shall neither of us
ever forget how just below the Hospice your sledge was actually blown
over by the mere fury of the blizzard; how we tramped through the
drifts, and how all ended in "the welcome of an inn" on the summit; the
hot soup and the _C?telettes de Veau_. It was together, too, that
we watched the sunrise from the Citadel at Cairo and saw the Pyramids
tipped with rose and saffron. Ours, too, was the desert mirage that, in
spite of reason and experience, almost betrayed us in our ride to the
Fayum. You shared with me what was certainly an adventure of the spirit,
though not of the body, when for the first time we saw the fateful and
well-loved shores of America. The lights danced like fireflies in the
great towers of New York, while behind them glowed in sombre splendour
the fiery Bastions of a November sunset.
But, of course, none of all this affords the reason why I dedicate my
book to you. That reason will perhaps be fully understood only by me and
by our children. It can also be found in certain wise and cunning little
hearts, inscrutable as those of kings, in a London nursery. Susan,
Charlotte, and Christopher could tell if they would.
If that sounds inconsequent, or, at any rate, incomprehensible, may I
not plead that so do the ineffable Mysteries of Life and Death.
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