But the thirst for adventure
and excitement was strong in me, as perhaps it ought to be in all at
twenty-one. Others went out to see the glorious new worlds of the
West, the glorious old worlds of the East--why should not I? Others
rambled over Alps and Apennines, Italian picture-galleries and
palaces, filling their minds with fair memories--why should not I?
Others discovered new wonders in botany and zoology--why should not
I? Others too, like you, fulfilled to the utmost that strange lust
after the burra shikar, which even now makes my pulse throb as often
as I see the stags' heads in our friend A---'s hall: why should not
I? It is not learnt in a day, the golden lesson of the Old Collect,
to 'love the thing which is commanded, and desire that which is
promised.' Not in a day: but in fifteen years one can spell out a
little of its worth; and when one finds one's self on the wrong side
of forty, and the first grey hairs begin to show on the temples, and
one can no longer jump as high as one's third button--scarcely, alas!
to any button at all; and what with innumerable sprains, bruises,
soakings, and chillings, one's lower limbs feel in a cold thaw much
like an old post-horse's, why, one makes a virtue of necessity: and
if one still lusts after sights, takes the nearest, and looks for
wonders, not in the Himalayas or Lake Ngami, but in the turf on the
lawn and the brook in the park; and with good Alphonse Karr enjoys
the macro-microcosm in one 'Tour autour de mon jardin.
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