Often have I questioned myself if it be meet or becoming in the strong man to consider and often delight in the fair and curious things upon which his eyes may rest, or feel the joyousness which comes to him through other senses. Should not his thoughts and desires dwell only on sterner and graver matters--the fight, the chase, the keen searching for the honey stores and the protection of the herds? This puzzlement I can by no means decide, but this I know that ever I follow my own will carelessly, and so have had much pleasure without effort, save to smell or look or listen. Why should I not? Does not the brawniest and most soil or blood stained warrior smack his lips over the rich juices of the cooked bird, and do not his eyes gleam as the mead runs down his tickled gullet? Do I not myself enjoy these things, and why should not I, if I have the mood, regale my other senses? Yet, as I have said, my comrades would sometimes jeer at me and call me foolish names because, forsooth, I rejoiced in the many glories of the world. Little cared I! It was somewhat known of men that my thews were mighty, my spear a sharp one and my axe of goodly weight, as had been proved in stubborn battle, and so I fed my fancies when I willed. On a day of which I speak they had food worth while, for surely there could be no fairer or more bounteous place than this for their indulgence. It was a clearing enclosed by forest on every side. A tornado may once have stripped away the trees upon it, for it lay on rising ground, and fire had doubtless swept it afterward. Upon it now was no growth save many clumps of bushes, some of them in heavy bloom, and soft greensward and flowers of a thousand kinds, of every hue which flowers may have. Was it unworthy of me as a hunter and proved warrior that I stood unmoving for a time and allowed my eyes to feed their fill upon such a scene as this? Was it not, in its way, as good as the taste of deer’s meat or as the gurgle of the heartening mead in the throat? And there was more than the eyes alone could comprehend. Myriads of eager bees were humming above that gay spread of flowers, and the united sound of the commingled droning had such volume that it made seem fainter the singing of the birds in the wood about, though not many were to be heard at this hour of the day. A few generous ones there were, though, their voices of such sweet quality as to commingle softly with the mighty humming and seem almost to form a part of it.