I have hinted before of pleasant companionship, and the visits of well-known people. But there is another side. The peace and calm which falls upon the soul in this remote place, which, at the same time, is so astonishingly near to London, is a thing incommunicable by words. The only sounds I hear from my study window are the calls of the birds, and the _lap, lap_ of the tide. The air is extraordinary. Every one has his own pet watering-place. Every one supposes that the air _there_ is finer than the air anywhere else. As a matter of fact, I am inclined to think that from the mouth of the Thames as far as Hull the air of East-coast watering-places is precisely alike--wonderfully invigorating, full of the salt freshness it has gathered in its progress over the German Ocean, with real healing upon its wings. And, just like any one else, I have _my_ own peculiar and particular love. That is the air of Osea. Let me proceed to prove to you why the air at Osea is better than air anywhere else. It is because of the "saltings." Just as the sea itself around the island is more salt than the sea of the free ocean owing to the deposits left upon the mud at low tide, so the air is more heavily charged with ozone. The other day an artist on the staff of _Punch_ visited me at Osea in his yacht, and spent a few hours on the island. As he was getting into his dinghy in the evening, he said, "I do not know Charrington, and he must be an odd sort of crank not to allow any drinks here. Still, I suppose he justifies himself upon the principle that his own private air is like champagne--it certainly is marvellous!" I am not puffing Osea as a residential quarter, but it is worth while recording another tribute to this life-giving air, which I shall be so sorry to leave for a time, when I have written the imminent last words of this biography. The head of a great City company has been staying here recently. He came down, in search of peace, at the end of the London season. He told me, upon the night of his arrival, that he had been unable to sleep for weeks, unable to eat properly, was thoroughly unnerved. Two days afterwards, as we were walking upon the pier, he turned to me in a transport of enthusiasm. "By Jove!" he said, "I have never met anything like it in my life!"--and the man I refer to is one of the best travelled persons of his day. The silence, the huge arc of sky, the life-giving breezes, the perfect and tranquil beauty--what more can the heart of man desire? Very little, I think, and yet there is even more to be said about Osea. Situated as it is in the middle of the Blackwater, it is naturally a great yachting centre. At week-ends, moored off the island, there are innumerable boats, from the little yawl with a single cabin and a crew of two, to the stately cutter of a hundred tons, with its auxiliary motor, and its spruce sailors.