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 CHAPTER XVI

FLIGHT AND FANCY

OULD God my home were here, that I might make a lifelong and continuous study of the wild sea-bird life about me! What more should I want, then? except, indeed, a better climate, which is not a matter of culture. Of all that civilisation has to give I value nothing much (that I can get) except books, and those I might have here, at least in a moderate profusion, "the hundred (or so) best" ones—of my own choice bien entendu; the devil take any other man's. "Oh, hell! to choose love by another's eyes." But all my own writers—with never an impudent, pert critic amongst them to échauffer ma bile—awaiting me at home, with these birds—these dear birds—to look down upon outside, and I think I might be happy, as things go. But with such a strange blending of tastes and desires as nature has put upon me, how can I ever hope to be, to any satisfactory extent? What I want, really, is the veldt, or Brazilian forests, or Lapland, or the Spanish Marisma, with the British Museum library round the corner; but, as Cleopatra says of two other things, "they do not go together."

"Well, here's my comfort" for a time—my half-measure of content. Oh, is there anything in life more piquant (if you care about it) than to lie on the 110