PLANS AND PERFORMANCES 51 



the island that I was so eager to leave unspotted from the 

 world ; but they were eminently useful in the work of 

 keeping within bounds the rampant host of insects to which 

 mankind is in the habit of applying the term injurious. 



It took no long time to make up my mind. Gladly 

 came the determination to abandon the enterprise rather 

 than do violence to the birds. Fortunately a kindly friend 

 took the entire plant and the hives off my hands. We are 

 the worse off in respect of honey ; but we have the birds, 

 and the thought comes that there are now hundreds of 

 colonies of bees from the original stock, here and on the 

 mainland, working out their own destinies. Had the enter- 

 prise been allowed to flourish, it would have been at the 

 cost of the lives of hundreds of graceful birds ; and hundreds 

 of others that now merrily make so free would have been 

 scared away. The money that would have been spent in 

 cartridges is applied to the purchase of honey from foreign 

 parts. No one is much the worse off. Indeed, my friend 

 who purchased the stock is the richer by my abandonment 

 of the calling, and am not I conscious of consistency ? 



So, these my vocations drift into the gentle and devious 

 stream of inconsequence. It would be vain-glorious, no 

 doubt, to assert that there is placid indifference to vain- 

 glory, which Carlyle declares to be, with neediness and 

 greediness, one of the besetting sins of mankind ; but am I 

 not free from the cares that obtrude on those of tougher 

 texture of mind who find joy in the opposite to this peace 

 and unconcern for the rewards and honours of the world ? 

 Better this isolation and moderation in all things than, racked 

 with worries, to moan and fret because of non-success in the 

 ceaseless struggle for riches, or the increase thereof; better 

 than to bow down to and worship in the " soiled temple of 

 Commercialism" that haughty and supercilious old idol 

 Mammon ; better than to offer continual sacrifices of rest, 

 health, and the immediate good of life to appease the 

 exacting and silly deities of fashion and society. 



There may be some who, in a disparaging tone, will at 

 this stage of my confessions enter an accusation of im- 



