VII SCIENCE AND ART AND EDUCATION 1G5 



the somewhat over-civilised members of our 

 upper ten thousand. And I have never found, in 

 any of these conditions of life, a deficiency of 

 something which was attractive. Savagery has its 

 pleasures, I assure you, as well as civilisation, 

 and I may even venture to confess if you will 

 not let a whisper of the matter get back to 

 London, where I am known I am even fain to 

 confess, that sometimes in the din and throng of 

 what is called " a brilliant reception " the vision 

 crosses my mind of waking up from the soft plank 

 which had afforded me satisfactory sleep during 

 the hours of the night, in the bright dawn of a 

 tropical morning, when my comrades were yet 

 asleep, when every sound was hushed, except the 

 little lap-lap of the ripples against the sides of the 

 boat, and the distant twitter of the sea-bird on the 

 reef. And when that vision crosses my mind, I 

 am free to confess I desire to be back in -the boat 

 again. So that, if I share with those strange 

 persons to whose asserted, but still hypothetical 

 existence I have referred, the want of appreciation 

 of forms of culture other than the pursuit of phy- 

 sical science, all I can say is, that it is, in spite of 

 my constitution, and in spite of my experience, 

 that such should be my fate. 



But now let me turn to another point, or rather 

 to two other points, with which I propose to 

 occupy myself. How far does the experience of 

 the last fourteen years justify the estimate which 



