his keen
relish for most of what it offers him; in lands of blue monotony, even as
where climatic conditions are plainly evil, such talk does not go on. So,
granting that we have bad days not a few, that the east wind takes us by
the throat, that the mists get at our joints, that the sun hides his
glory too often and too long, it is plain that the result of all comes to
good, that it engenders a mood of zest under the most various aspects of
heaven, keeps an edge on our appetite for open-air life.

I, of course, am one of the weaklings who, in grumbling at the weather,
merely invite compassion. July, this year, is clouded and windy, very
cheerless even here in Devon; I fret and shiver and mutter to myself
something about southern skies. Pshaw! Were I the average man of my
years, I should be striding over Haldon, caring not a jot for the heavy
sky, finding a score of compensations for the lack of sun. Can I not
have patience? Do I not know that, some morning, the east will open like
a bursting bud into warmth and splendour, and the azure depths above will
have only the more solace for my starved anatomy because of this
protracted disappointment?

XV.

I have been at the seaside--enjoying it, yes, but in what a doddering,
senile sort of way! Is it I who used to drink the strong wind like wine,
who ran exultingly along the wet sands and leapt from rock to rock,
barefoot, on the slippery seaweed, who breasted the swelling breaker, and
shouted with joy as it buried me in gleaming foam? At the seaside I knew
no such thing as bad weather; there were but changes of eager mood and
full-blooded life. Now, if the breeze blow too roughly, if there come a
pelting shower, I must look for shelter, and sit with my cloak about me.
It is but a new reminder that I do best to stay at home, travelling only
in reminiscence.

At Weymouth I enjoyed a hearty laugh, one of the good things not easy to
get after middle age. There was a notice of steamboats which ply along
the coast, steamboats recommended to the public as being "_replete with
lavatories and a ladies' saloon_." Think how many people read this
without a chuckle!

XVI.

In the last ten years I have seen a good deal of English inns in many
parts of the country, and it astonishes me to find how bad they are. Only
once or twice have I chanced upon an inn (or, if you like, hotel) where I
enjoyed any sort of comfort. More often than not, even the beds are