Now I do not deny that a part of the content expressed in these lines may come of resignation. In some moods, were I to indulge them, it were pleasant to fancy myself owner of a vast estate, champaign and woodland; able to ride from sea to sea without stepping off my own acres, with villeins and bondmen, privileges of sak and soke, infangthef, outfangthef, rents, tolls, dues, royalties, and a private gallows for autograph-hunters. These things, however, did not come to me by inheritance, and for a number of sufficient reasons I have not amassed them. As for those other ambitions which fill the dreams of every healthy boy, a number of them had become of faint importance even before a breakdown of health seemed definitely to forbid their attainment. Here at home, far from London, with restored strength, I find myself less concerned with them than are my friends and neighbours, yet more keenly interested than ever in life and letters, art and politics--all that men and women are saying and doing. Only the centre of gravity has shifted, so to speak. I dare say, then, that resignation may have some share in this content; but if so 'tis an unconscious and happy one. A man who has been writing novels for a good part of his life should at least be able to sympathise with various kinds of men; and, for an example or two, I can understand-- 1. Why Alexander cried (if he ever did) because he had no second world to conquer. 2. Why Shakespeare, as an Englishman, wanted a coat of arms and a respectable estate in his own native country town. 3. What and how deep are the feelings beneath that _cri du coeur_ of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt's 'Old Squire:'-- "I like the hunting of the hare Better than that of the fox; I like the joyous morning air, And the crowing of the cocks. "I covet not a wider range Than these dear manors give; I take my pleasures without change, And as I lived I live. "Nor has the world a better thing, Though one should search it round, Than thus to live one's own sole king Upon one's own sole ground. "I like the hunting of the hare; It brings me day by day The memory of old days as fair, With dead men past away. "To these as homeward still I ply, And pass the churchyard gate, Where all are laid as I must lie, I stop and raise my hat. "I like the hunting of the hare: New sports I hold in scorn. I like to be as my fathers were In the days ere I was born." 4. What--to start another hare--were Goldsmith's feelings when he wrote-- "And as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue Pants to the place from whence at first she flew, I still had hopes, my long vexations past, Here to return--and die at home at last."