138 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



the bush I have found burns itself up on my plac- 

 ing a lighted match at its roots. 



I enjoy the spectacle amazingly while it lasts, 

 the brilliant tongues of white flame darting and 

 leaping through the dark foliage making a very 

 pretty show; but presently, contemplating the 

 heap of white ashes at my feet where the green 

 miracle, covered with its everlasting flowers, flour- 

 ished a moment ago, I began to feel heartily 

 ashamed of myself. For how have I spent my 

 day? I remember with remorse the practical joke 

 perpetrated on the simple-minded coots, also the 

 consternation caused to a whole colony of indus- 

 trious ants ; for the idler looks impatiently on the 

 occupations of others, and is always glad of an 

 opportunity of showing up the futility of their 

 labors. But what motive had I in burning this 

 flowering bush that neither toiled nor spun, this 

 slow-growing plant, useless amongst plants as I 

 amongst my fellow-men? Is it not the fact that 

 something of the spirit of our simian progenitors 

 survives in us still? Who that has noticed mon- 

 keys in captivity their profound inconsequent 

 gravity and insane delight in their own unreason- 

 ableness has not envied them their immunity 

 from cold criticism? That intense relief which 

 all men, whether grave or gay, experience in es- 

 caping from conventional trammels into the soli- 

 tude, what is it, after all, but the delight of going 

 back to nature, to be for a time, what we are al- 

 ways pining to be, wild animals, unconfined mon- 



