ed? One perfect month
of loaferdom, to be remembered above all others and the night of the
visit to Chitor, to be remembered even when the month is forgotten. Also
the sad knowledge that of all the fair things seen, the inept pen gives
but a feeble and blurred picture.

Let those who have read to the end, pardon a hundred blemishes.

FROM SEA TO SEA

FROM SEA TO SEA

MARCH-SEPTEMBER, 1889

No. I

OF FREEDOM AND THE NECESSITY OF USING HER. THE MOTIVE AND THE SCHEME
THAT WILL COME TO NOTHING. A DISQUISITION UPON THE OTHERNESS OF THINGS
AND THE TORMENTS OF THE DAMNED.

When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green,
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen,--
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And o'er the world away--
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog its day.

After seven years it pleased Necessity, whom we all serve, to turn to me
and say: "Now you need do Nothing Whatever. You are free to enjoy
yourself. I will take the yoke of bondage from your neck for one year.
What do you choose to do with my gift?" And I considered the matter in
several lights. At first I held notions of regenerating Society; but it
appeared that this would demand more than a year, and perhaps Society
would not be grateful after all. Then I would fain enter upon one
monumental "bust"; but I reflected that this at the outside could endure
but three months, while the headache would last for nine. Then came by
the person that I most hate,--a Globe-trotter. He, sitting in my chair,
discussed India with the unbridled arrogance of five weeks on a Cook's
ticket. He was from England and had dropped his manners in the Suez
Canal. "I assure you," said he, "that you who live so close to the
actual facts of things cannot form dispassionate judgments of their
merits. You are too near. Now I--" he waved his hand modestly and left
me to fill the gaps.

I considered him, from his new helmet to his deck-shoes, and I perceived
that he was but an ordinary man. I thought of India, maligned and silent
India, given up to the ill-considered wanderings of such as he--of the
land whose people are too busy to reply to the libels upon their life
and manners. It was my destiny to avenge India upon nothing less than
three-quarters of the world. The idea necessitated sacrifices,--painful
sacrifices,--for I had to become a Globe-trotter, with a helmet and
deck-shoes