The Life I Desire ——William Somerset Maugham That must be the story of innumerable couples,and the pattern of life it offers has a homely grace.It reminds you of a placid rivulet,meandering smoothly through green pastrues and shaded by pleasant trees,till at last it falls into the vasty sea;but the sea is so calm,so silent,so infifferent,that you are troubled suddently by a vague uneasiness.Perhaps it is only by a kink in my nature,strong in me even in those days,that I felt in such an existence,the share of the great majority,something amiss.I recognizied its social value.I saw its ordered happiness,but a fever in my blood asked for a wilder course.These seemed to me something alarming in such easy delights.In my heart was desire to live more dangerously.I was not unprepared for jagged rocks and treachrous,shoals it I could only have change-change and the exicitement of unforeseen.