minister to them all, a scene
of doleful dullness. I call the time which has passed wise, because that
which succeeds is universally known as the silly season. Then the
editors in town have recourse to the American newspapers for amusing
murders, while their rural brethren invent great gooseberries. Then the
sea-serpent again lifts his awful head. I am always glad when this
sterling inheritance of the Northern races reappears; for while we have
_him_ I know that the capacity for swallowing a big bouncer, or for
inventing one, is not lost. He is characteristic of a fine, bold race.
Long may he wave! It is true that we cannot lie as gloriously as our
ancestors did about him. When the great news-dealer of Norse times had
no home-news he took his lyre, and either spun a yarn about Vinland such
as would smash the "Telegraph," or else sung about "that sea-snake
tremendous curled, whose girth encircles half the world." It is
wonderful, it is awful, to consider how true we remain to the traditions
of the older time. The French boast that they invented the _canard_.
Let them boast. They also invented the shirt-collar; but hoary legends
say that an Englishman invented the shirt for it, as well as the art of
washing it. What the shirt is to the collar, that is the glorious, tough
old Northern _saga_, or maritime spun yarn, to the _canard_, or duck.
The yarn will wash; it passes into myth and history; it fits exactly,
because it was made to order; its age and glory illustrate the survival
of the fittest.

I have, during three or four summers, remained a month in London after
the family had taken flight to the sea-side. I stayed to finish books
promised for the autumn. It is true that nearly four million of people
remain in London during the later summer; but it is wonderful what an
influence the absence of a few exerts on them and on the town. Then you
realize by the long lines of idle vehicles in the ranks how few people in
this world can afford a cab; then you find out how scanty is the number
of those who buy goods at the really excellent shops; and then you may
finally find out by satisfactory experience, if you are inclined to
grumble at your lot in life or your fortune, how much better off you are
than ninety-nine in a hundred of your fellow-murmurers at fate.

It was my wont to walk out in the cool of the evening, to smoke my cigar
in Regent's Park, seated on a bench, watching the children as they played
about