The Eternal Woman

These stories were written at various dates previous to 1914, and represent, together with those in the CELESTIAL OMNIBUS volume, all that I am likely to accomplish in a particular line. Much has happened since; transport has been disorganised, frontiers rectified on the map and in the spirit, and under the mass-shock of facts Fantasy has tended to retreat or at all events to dig herself in. She can be caught in the open here by those who care to catch her. She flits over the scenes of Italian and English holidays, or wings her way with even less justification towards the countries of the future. She or he. For Fantasy, though often a lady, sometimes resembles a man, and even functions for Hermes who used to do the smaller behests of the gods—messenger, machine-breaker, and conductor of souls to a not too terrible hereafter.—E. M. Forster