And so it went—he pooh-poohed my heroes; and I scorned the friend he wished to find at the University, smiled patronizingly on the Scott monument, and said, "hoot mon" at the idea of buying a plaid rug in Princess Street. All this was many years ago; since then I have been very cautious about entering into any Anglo-American alliances. Yet to travel alone often seems to be dropping something out of your life. When the voyage is rough, the weather bad and the fare below par, my spirits always rise. I say to myself: "My son, this is certainly tough—but who cares! We can stand it, we have had this way right along year after year—but just imagine your plight if there were some one in your charge expecting a good time!" Then I drink to Boreas and all the fiends of Gehenna, and am supremely content. But suppose the night is resplendent with stars, the waves tremulous with reflected beauty, and as the great ship goes gliding across the deep—proud, strong and tireless—there come to you thoughts sublime and emotions such as Wagner knew when he wrote the "Pilgrims' Chorus." But you are not happy, simply because you want to tell some one how happy you are. What is the starlight for, save to call some one's attention to, or the phosphorescent sheen except to be pointed out and enjoyed by two? Exquisite beauty, as revealed in music, painting, sculpture or beautiful scenery, affects me at times to tears; and there always comes creeping into my life a profound sadness, a dread homesickness, to think that in this wealth of peace and joy I am alone—alone. Can you stand by yourself on a hillside and look across a beautiful little lake to the woods beyond; or walk through a pine-forest, where the needles sink as a carpet beneath your feet, and the air is full of the pungent odor of the pine, and the gently swaying tree-tops overhead croon you a lullaby—can you enjoy all this without an exquisite melancholy, and a joy that hurts, piercing your soul? It's homesickness, that's all; you want to go home and tell some one how happy you are. Give me solitude, sweet solitude, but in my solitude give me still one friend to whom I may murmur, Solitude is sweet. That about the sea and the forest, the wooded hillside and the little lake may not be the exact words, but the thought is there just as White Pigeon expressed it to me that evening when we sat on the mossy bank of the lake at Grasmere and threw pebbles into the water. I had come up from Liverpool to Bowness, walked over to Ambleside and along the lake to Grasmere. My luggage consisted of a comb, a toothbrush and a stout second-growth East Aurora hickory stick.