Page:Neuroomia.djvu/222

210, but I would rise above it in future. No Neuroomian, male or female, would be able to detect the slightest sign of this detestable quality in my disposition; I would suppress it in the bud, for no one was benefitted by entertaining it. It certainly was not ennobling, and only made the individual who was foolish enough to give way to it more miserable. Yes, I would banish it for ever, for, to say the least of it, it was childish, and not becoming the dignity that should appertain to manhood.

I was meditating over this and the beauties of the Poroporia, when Fudelora inquired if I ever felt a desire to return to my own land. I replied in the affirmative: that occasionally I wished to be back again, but as time passed I thought less about the matter, for I had always led the life of a rover. I had gone to sea, as we termed it, when a boy, and had been sailing, with longer or shorter intervals on the land, ever since.

"Having led such an adventurous life," she said, "do you not find life in Neuroomia somewhat monotonous?"

"No," I answered. "On the contrary, it is the only land that I have yet visited wherein I have not found existence monotonous. There is neither