COMMON SEAL 



purpose, they acquire that for which they set out. They 

 beautify and replenish the Earth, and their appointed 

 place in the economy of life having been reached, they 

 are content to pass on their way, taking good care to so 

 arrange things that all the possibilities of their nature 

 are realised, and the future destiny of their race assured. 

 They actually reach, within certain prescribed limits, 

 full perfection. Man, on the other hand, is never 

 satisfied. If he finds nothing else to grumble about, he 

 falls back on the weather, condemns the climate, which, 

 in Britain at all events, has meant so much to him, and 

 generally becomes a bore and a nuisance to all with 

 whom he comes into contact. But as our friend W. J. 

 Jupp so well says by way of comparison : "A Blackbird 

 fluting in the woods at evening, a Skylark heralding the 

 dawn with notes of jubiliant praise, a Wild Rose spray 

 poised in the Summer air, a Snowflake with its crystals 

 shaped to such excellence of symmetrical form, a Rain- 

 bow spanning the cloud-mist for a few moments at the 

 close of a day of storm — these things leave nothing to 

 be desired ; they are faultless and complete, after their 

 kind." 



We were tempted to write thus because of the butchery 

 among the Seals ; but these thoughts must assert them- 

 selves in the minds of every right-thinking man and 

 woman, boy and girl. We, all of us, inhabit worlds not 

 realised, and at times the consequent depression is so 

 great that striving after an ideal results in bitter dis- 

 appointment. A few succeed, the many succumb. 



109 



