A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



ever occur to you that man is an instrument, very 

 nicely adjusted, but played upon so continuously 

 by himself that he gets jangled ? When he takes 

 his hand off at night, the Great Tuner steps in 

 and fixes up the strings. What kind of tobacco 

 do you call that ? &quot; 



I continued apologetic and tried to explain away 

 my humble accommodations and prepare him 

 for the monastic penance of being my guest. He 

 only stripped off his necktie, unbuttoned his shirt, 

 exposing his brawny and pilous neck. &quot; Now, 

 old chap, I m going to take my shoes off if you 

 don t object. I want to get my feet into that cool 

 grass.&quot; 



I understood very well what this luxury of 

 looseness was. He walked up and down in the 

 wire grass, smoking, a fine picture of dishevelled 

 dignity. The grass was not very cool at that time 

 of day, but the delight of believing that it was and 

 the greater delight of freeing himself momentarily 

 from the constrictions of conventional life was 

 unmistakable. 



&quot;You can never know,&quot; he afterward said to 

 me, &quot;how tired a doctor gets of his species. It 

 isn t that he only sees the worst side of it, but he 

 must contemplate the infatuated determination of 

 his race to be invalids, and the cool assumption 

 of the race that doctors are made only to relieve 

 it of some of the consequences of its own folly. 

 That is what makes a man of my temperament 

 desire to get somewhere at times where there are 

 others than his own species.&quot; 



94 



