"We’ve all dreamed of a life of truth and freedom; but few of us have both won it and lost it, in the brief span of a year. You should see Devereux’s eyes kindle, while he tells you of it, while he’s trying to convince you that he isn’t mad. The people of this island had no traditions of their origin, no legends of visits from the outside world. It happens, through the fact of prevailing winds in the Pacific, that no sailing ship route passed near this region; steamers, also, gave it a wide berth, for it didn’t lie between anywhere and anywhere. It was a place apart, visited by human agency only on the remotest chance. It may well be that during a period of many years the only two vessels to wander down those particular miles of waters were the ship that left Devereux floating on the ocean and the ship that picked him up in the same spot over a year later. Thus it was that the island had remained undiscovered, peopled by a race without knowledge of the world. They were honest and lovable children—much as God intended all of us to be, I suppose, much as we might have been if we hadn’t found a way temporarily to surmount our destiny. "The island itself was an emerald anchored in a field of cobalt, a jewel floating on the broad bosom of the sea. The rustling palm trees waved day and night before the steady trade winds; the air hung cool in the shadows, the white surf broke on the reefs in constant thunder, and the tropical sunlight surrounded the gem like a halo of misty gold. Devereux lived there a year, and the love that came to him partook of the nature of the place—fresh, divine, alluring, rich with colour and meaning, pure as the light, true as the unchanging wind. A son was born to them. Nothing crossed their lives of sorrow or evil. They had forgotten time and its desperate occasions. The new day was but a repetition of the old. "But I can’t begin to show you half of the peace and beauty of that year. Ask me what the heart of man desires, and I’ll answer that every element of it existed there on the island—conquest, honour, joy, creative impulse, love—enough for a dreamer or a doer, the wise design of nature with her uneasy and aspiring offsprings. Devereux grew to love the people; and because he seemed so different, yet conformed naturally to the island proprieties, they exalted him. And, marvellous to relate, he knew the worth of what he had found; he fulfilled the opportunity, he appreciated the honour, he was worthy of the romantic choice"