THE "WANDERLUST" 285 



It is a longing hard to define in set and formal 

 phrase. It has in it something of the primeval love 

 of hunting, something of the "wanderlust" that 

 restless, roving spirit which drove onwards Raleigh, 

 Drake and Grenville ; something of the romantic 

 call of the open and hatred of that which lurks 

 about great cities embodied by Kipling in some of 

 his noblest verses. Certain it is that no one can 

 answer such a call and return to the shibboleths 

 and narrow conventionalities of his kind unchanged. 

 He should find himself a better and cleaner man. 

 Those who search " behind the ranges " have their 

 price paid them " ten times over by their Maker." 

 To wander awhile among the untrodden ways 

 focusses a man's view ; it enables him to distinguish 

 the gold from the dross ; he learns elemental truths 

 by which to order his life. " A great mountain," 

 says Stevenson, " is like a great cathedral ... it 

 sets you preaching to yourself and every man is 

 his own doctor of divinity in the last resort." 

 Amid boundless and infinite plains, vast rivers and 

 towering ranges, the wanderer realises his own 

 pettiness and unimportance in the scheme of Nature. 

 His own appalling insignificance strikes him with 

 the force of a physical blow. For Nature is like 

 the one woman in the world in this, that she 

 makes a man feel what he is, and perhaps, what he 

 may be. 



Such were my thoughts as the plains of Siberia 

 swept before the rushing train and the cities of the 

 West drew nearer. 



I felt it impossible that another year could have 

 flown, carrying with it so many strange and 

 wonderful happenings. 



