larly if it was not pursued at
the expense of other people.

Whether or not the choice was wise or foolish will be seen, or may be
inferred. But I do not abjure the theory. I think and believe that
there are a good many people in the world who pursue lives for which
they are not fitted, and lose all contentment in the process, simply
because they respect conventions too much, and have not the courage to
break away from them. Some of the most useful people I know are people
who not only think least about being useful, but are ready to condemn
themselves for their desultoriness. The people who have time to listen
and to talk, to welcome friends and to sympathise with them, to enjoy
and to help others to enjoy, seem to me often to do more for the world
than the people who hurry from committee to committee, address
meetings, and do what is called some of the drudgery of the world,
which might in a hundred cases be just as well undone. It is most of it
merely a childish game either way; and the child who looks on and
applauds is often better employed than the child who makes a long
score, and thinks of nothing else for the rest of the afternoon.

And anyhow, this is what I saw and thought and did; not a very
magnificent performance, but a little piece of life observed and
experienced and written down.

THE SILENT ISLE

I

The Silent Isle, I name it; and yet in no land in which I have ever
lived is there so little sight and sound of water as here. It oozes
from field to drain, it trickles from drain to ditch, it falls from
ditch to dyke, and then moves silently to the great seaward sluice; it
is not a living thing in the landscape, bright and vivacious, but
rather something secret and still, drawn almost reluctantly away,
rather than hurrying off on business of its own. And yet the whole
place gives me the constant sense of being an island, remote and
unapproachable; the great black plain, where every step that one takes
warns one of its quivering elasticity of soil, runs sharply up to the
base of the long, low, green hills, whose rough, dimpled pastures and
old elms contrast sharply and pleasantly with the geometrical monotony
of the immense flat. The village that I see a mile away, on a further
promontory of the old Isle, has the look of a straggling seaport town,
dipping down to wharves and quays; and the eye almost expects a fringe
of masts and shipping at the base of the steep streets. Then, too, the
encir