IV 



A Lover of Islands 6i 



and I love the lazy, whispering murmur of the light 

 green limes in the lazy, golden summer afternoon ; 

 but, above all the sounds of Nature, I love the voices 

 of the sea, for they speak to me in more varied 

 tones, and I know that they tell me more, though I 

 know not what they tell me, than the voices of a 

 million sibilant leaves — therefore I love an island. 

 Could I but have an island of my very own, I would 

 have a bit of Sicily, but not too big a bit, cut out, 

 and set in the bright blue sea all by itself. Say 

 Etna, as he is in winter, towering up in snow, with 

 a belt of greenery around him, not on his flanks, but 

 at his feet — the spiritual apart from the secular. 

 And here and there, in the quiet valleys, there 

 should be a little village amid the lemon groves ; 

 and here and there there should be a gray old 

 tower, gazing down from precipice and pinnacle on 

 the white sea foam kissing, and laughing, and 

 singing round the rough black lava blocks below — 

 but never a monastery or a nunnery on island of 

 mine. And around all there should sweep the 

 splendour of the sunlit sea, flecked with a bright 

 sail or two, gliding by as if storms were unknown. 

 Yes ! this zs sentimental. But you should never turn 

 a sentiment away from your door. Take them all 

 in, — good, bad, and indifferent, — and make the best 

 of them, for, maybe, if you slam the door in the face 

 of one she'll never come again.' That was written 

 in the BalearicS; — a note, apparently, for the book 

 which was to have been, yet never was, — long before 



