sorrow. All the world that they have knowledge of has been compassed by
the far blue rim of the horizon. That sky-piercing peak was ever the
centre of their universe, and the wandering sea-bird has outflown their
thoughts.

All this came to me as a child, when the first island "swam into my
ken." It was a great discovery--a revelation. Of it were born all the
islands that have been so much to me in later life. And even then I
seemed to comprehend the singular life that all islanders are forced to
live: the independence of that life--for a man's island is his fortress,
girded about with the fathomless moat of the sea; and the dependence of
it--for what is that island but an atom dotting watery space and so
easily cut off from communication with the world at large? Drought may
visit the islander, and he may be starved; the tornado may desolate his
shore; fever and famine and thirst may lie in wait for him; sickness and
sorrow and death abide with him. Thus is he dependent in his
independence.

And he is insecluded in his seclusion, for he can not escape from the
intruder. He should have no wish that may not be satisfied, provided he
be native born; what can he wish for that is beyond the knowledge he has
gained from the objects within his reach? The world is his, so far as he
knows it; yet if he have one wish that calls for aught beyond his
limited horizon he rests unsatisfied.

All that was lovely in that tropic isle appealed to me and filled me
with a great longing. I wanted to sing with the Beloved Bard:

Oh, had we some bright little isle of our own,
In the blue summer ocean, far off and alone!