"
Whereas the average town-dweller could not endure the commonplaces of
Nature which entertain me, rouse my wonder, enliven my imagination, and
gratify my inmost thoughts, so his pursuits are to me devoid of purpose,
insipid, dismally unsatisfactory. To one whose everyday admission
(apology if you like) is that he is not as other men are--fond of society
and of society's occupations, pastimes, refinements, and (pardon)
illusions--the unsoiled jungle is more desirable than all the prim parks
and clipped gardens; all this amplitude of time and space than the one
"crowded hour." Here I came to my birthright a heritage of nothing save
the most glorious of all possessions: freedom--freedom beyond the dreams
of most men in its comprehensiveness and exactitude. These few haphazard
notes refer to the exercise of rare independence. They cannot be otherwise
than trivial and dull, but they at least fulfil the purpose to which I was
pledged. They reveal my puny efforts to be none other than myself. So
tranquil, so uniform are our days, that but for the diary--the
civilised substitute for the notched stick--count of them might be lost.
And this extorts yet another confession.
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