ely might try a little light
reading." "The strange thing about my reading is this," said he, "I look
at a sentence and understand it, but I am aware of something, either at
the back of my head or behind me, which says, 'All this is futile stuff
and nonsense: give it up, it's not for you; you are condemned to
everlasting emptiness, and your life will never know any more fulness or
joy.'

"Immense vacuity of intellect!
I lift a volume, but a sentence tires;
Even a flimsy magazine requires
From me more concentration and direct
Volition than my vagrant wits elect
To give the pages. All my soul desires
Is to gaze without purpose on the fire's
Crackle of glowing cinders, and detect
Weird shapes of beasts and palaces and men
In the red mass of photographic coal;
Perchance my lazy mind may, now and then,
Without exertion, read as on a scroll
(While the glede sinks to ashes in the grate)
The dust and nothingness of mortal state."

"Well," I said, "your case is a queer one, and I am at a loss to suggest
anything further." At this, the young man burst into a loud peal of
laughter. He was supremely delighted at finding himself so unique, so
singular. He took me by the hand, shook it most heartily, saying, "I
haven't enjoyed myself so much for a long time. If I were oftener in the
company of men like you, I might regain hope."

The improvement was, unfortunately, of very short duration. He continued
his observations thus:

"And yet, and yet: _Sunt lacrimae rerum_. What is this world but a
succession of fleeting images chasing each other across a background of
joy or pain! Now we quaff the sour cup of misery, by and by we drink the
intoxicating vintage of hope. Heaven alone stands firm, gemmed with the
pitiless stars. The day breaks, rises to its glory in the shimmering
height of noon, and dies away in the west: so does the utmost pride of
man's career fade away to nothing, a harvest for Time's scythe. On all
this growth and decay the stars gaze with their unpitying and eternal
eyes. I think I'll have a little more phospherine."

CHAPTER VII.

LEGENDS AND LITERARY NOTABILIA.

Gairloch folk-lore: Prince Olaf and his bride--A laird who had
seen a fairy--Tales from Loch Broom: The dance of death--The
Kildonan midwife--The magic herring--Taisch--Antiquities of
Dunvegan--Miscellaneous terrors--St. Kilda--Lady
Grange--Pierless Tiree--Lochbuie i