[A porpoise has been seen gambolling in the Thames at Putney.] Such a sea on at the North Foreland! Glad to get out of it. Nice river coming down from somewhere. Must explore it. Near some town. No end of oysters about. Oysters say it's Whitstable. Seem dreadfully depressed. Ask them if the late cold was too much for them? No, it's not that, they say, but injurious stories have been circulated about them by medical men. Been called "typhoidal." Nobody patronises them, and they've "lost their season in town." What do they mean? Off Southend. Friendly sole advises me not to venture further. "Tempt not the Barking Outfall," he says, and adds that the "water at London will poison me, and I shall be made into boots." London! Always wanted to see it. What's the good of being called "a kind of gregarious whale" by the dictionaries if I avoid society? Got past Barking safely! Who is it--BROWNING I think--wrote a poem about "Sludge, the Medium." Must have written it near Barking. Arrived off Wanstead Flats. See a respectable man on banks being chivied by a mob. Told (by a sprat) that "it's Mr. HILLS, of the Thames Ironworks, who's been helping the unemployed." Now the unemployed seem helping _him!_ Tower Bridge rather fine. Westminster. Big building. Curious scent in air. Told it's the Houses of Parliament, and scent is eucalyptus, "because of the influenza." Curious word--wonder what it means. Up at Putney. See University Boat-Race, if I can stay long enough. Feel sleepy. Must be the amount of bad water I've drunk. Knock up against an ice-floe. Two men in boat try to shoot me. _They_ seem unemployed. Do they want to make me into soup for the poor? Not if I know it. Trundle back seawards. Meet a sea-gull. Says somebody tried to hook him from embankment. Says he "doesn't like London." Rather inclined to agree with him. Back at sea. Know now what influenza means--because _I've caught it!_ Awful pains in my hide! Must consult a leech. * * * * * THE INTROSPECTIVE BARD. Persistent self-analysis, Perfected more and more, The mirror to my spirit is, Which it performs before. For "progress" let reformers pine, Let merchants toil for pelf-- The study of a soul like mine Is certainly Itself! For girls who at my shrine will burn An incense delicate, I'll lightly probe the problems stern Of Love, and Life, and Fate; And as their darkness I disperse, I mark with interest The diverse chords that girls diverse Awaken in my breast. Not having known a broken heart, Nor any scathing pain, I can afford, in life and art, The pessimistic vein. In many a literary gem, Polished with care supreme, Mildly, but firmly, I condemn So poor a mundane scheme.