ia 
CHAPTER XVI 
FLIGHT AND FANCY 
Wi9UlpP God my home were here, that I might 
make a lifelong and continuous study of the 
wild sea-bird life about me! What more should I 
want, then? except, indeed, a better climate, which 
is not a matter of culture. Of all that civilisation has 
to give I value nothing much (that I can get) except 
books, and those I might have here, at least in a 
moderate profusion, “ the hundred (or so) best” ones 
—of my own choice dien entendu; the devil take any 
other man’s. ‘Oh, hell! to choose love by another’s 
eyes.” But all my own writers—with never an im- 
pudent, pert critic amongst them to échauffer ma bile 
—awaiting me at home, with these birds—these dear 
birds—to look down upon outside, and I think 
I might be happy, as things go. But with such 
a strange blending of tastes and desires as nature has 
put upon me, how can I ever hope to be, to any satis- 
factory extent? What I want, really, is the veldt, or 
Brazilian forests, or Lapland, or the Spanish Marisma, 
with the British Museum library round the corner ; 
but, as Cleopatra says of two other things, “they do 
not go together.” 
“Well, here’s my comfort” for a time—my half- 
measure of content. Oh, is there anything in life 
more piquant (if you care about it) than to lie on the 
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