the powder was even more thickly spread than I had expected; hardly a
page but carried with it a valuable lesson for the young; yet this
particular jam (guava and cocoanut) has such an irresistible
attraction for me that I swallowed it all without a struggle, and was
left with a renewed craving for more and yet more desert-island
stories. Having, unfortunately, no others at hand, the only
satisfaction I can give myself is to write about them.


I would say first that, even if an author is writing for children (as
was Marryat), and even if morality can best be implanted in the young
mind with a watering of fiction, yet a desert-island story is the last
story which should be used for this purpose. For a desert-island is a
child's escape from real life and its many lessons. Ask yourself why
you longed for a desert-island when you were young, and you will find
the answer to be that you did what you liked there, ate what you
liked, and carried through your own adventures. It is the "Family"
which spoils _The Swiss Family Robinson_, just as it is the Seagrave
family which nearly wrecks _Masterman Ready_. What is the good of
imagining yourself (as every boy does) "Alone in the Pacific" if you
are not going to be alone? Well, perhaps we do not wish to be quite
alone; but certainly to have more than two on an island is to
overcrowd it, and our companion must be of a like age and disposition.


For this reason parents spoil any island for a healthy-minded boy. He
may love his father and mother as fondly as even they could wish, but
he does not want to take them bathing in the lagoon with him--still
less to have them on the shore, telling him that there are too many
sharks this morning and that it is quite time he came out. Nor for