A Minstrel in France by Sir Harry Lauder
page 9 of 277 (03%)
page 9 of 277 (03%)
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part of my education. And I thanked God that he was letting me do so
much for my boy. Aye, and he deserved it, did John! He'd done well at Cambridge; he had taken honors there. And soon he was to go up to London to read for the Bar. He was to be a barrister, in wig and gown, my son, John! It was of him, and of the meeting we were all to have in Australia, that I thought, more than anything else, in the long, long days upon the sea. We sailed on from Honolulu until we came to Paga-Paga. So it is spelled, but all the natives call it Panga-Panga. Here I saw more and yet more of the strange and wonderful things I had thought upon so long back, in Dunoon. Here I saw mankind, for the first time, in a natural state. I saw men who wore only the figleaf of old Father Adam, and a people who lived from day to day, and whom the kindly earth sustained. They lived entirely from vegetables and from clear crystal streams and upon marvelous fish from the sea. Ah, how I longed to stay in Paga-Paga and be a natural man. But I must go on. Work called me back to civilization and sorrow-fully I heeded its call and waved good-by to the natural folk of Paga-Paga! It was before I came to Paga-Paga that I wrote a little verse inspired by Honolulu. Perhaps, if I had gone first to Paga-Paga-- don't forget to put in the n and call it Panga-Panga when you say it to yourself!--I might have written it of that happy island of the natural folk. But I did not, so here is the verse: |
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