CHAPTER X 



"WHAT DID YOU GET?" 



"We are indebted," says a writer in "Science 



Gossip," " to the humorous pencil of Leach for a 



sketch of a languid gentleman, who, pining for a 



new sensation, is trying the effect of riding up and 



down the Strand, seated on the roof of an omnibus 



and picking out periwinkles with a pin. Should 



you ever feel as though you had exhausted all 



the resources of the civilized portions of the globe, 



do not seek for distraction in boiled cockles or in 



pickled whelks, but go away to the top of a hill, 



with woods and streams, and smiling fields dotted 



with farmsteads and villages spread before your 



feet, and there rest in solitude and wait on Nature, 



and listen and watch for all that her offspring will 



do above, below and around you, while the teeming 



planet turns once around its axis. Then seek a 



similar communion with the sea; study it from 



even-fall to broad daylight from the top of some 



lone, unfrequented cliff ; or better still, commit 



yourself to the heaving bosom of the great waters, 

 103 



