labourer; who has been compelled to chip the superfine edges of his
sentiments with the repugnant craft of the butcher; who, heedless of rule
and method, adjusts the balance between wholesome toil and whole-hearted
ease; who has a foolish love for the study of Nature; who has a sense of
fellowship with animate and inanimate things; who endeavours to learn the
character and the purpose of varied forms of life; whose jurisdiction
extends over fifteen sacrosanct isles; who is never happier than when
reading--need never bewail the absence of human schemes and sounds or
fret under the galling burden of idleness. Here is no bell to affright;
nor are we subject to the bidding or liable to the assault of any passer
by. Smooth-flowing time knows not mud or any foulness, while its
impassive surface, burnished by August sunshine, reflects fair scenes and
silent doings.

The freedom from care, the vague sense of selfish property in the whole
scheme of Nature, the delicious discovery of the virtues of solitude, the
loveliness of this most gay and youthful earth, and the tones of the
pleasant-voiced and often surly sea fill me with joy and embellish
hope--vague and unsubstantial--for is not this Isle the "place where one
may have many thoughts and not decide anything"?

For all my occupations, I am often driven to "dialogue with my shadow"
for lack of less subservient auditor, and though, as the years pass, I
find that I become more loose of soul and in broad daylight indulge the
liberty of muttering my affairs and addressing animals and plants and of
confiding secrets to the chaste moon--poets and dramatists term such
incontinence of speech soliloquy and employ it for the utterance of
edifying inspiration--it is because it is impossible to be ever quite
alone. Not so very long ago in Merrie England if a person muttered to
himself it was enough on which to establish a charge of wizardry; but it