I have said that I was scarce beyond thirty years of age. Even so, I
found myself already old; and like any true philosopher, I resolved to
make myself young. As hitherto I had had no boyhood, I determined to
achieve a boyhood for myself. Studying myself, I discovered that I had
rarely smiled; so I resolved to find somewhat to make me smile. The
great realm of knowledge, widest and sweetest of all empires for a
man, lay before me alluringly when I entered upon my business career;
and so interested was I in my business and my books that only by
chance had I met the woman who drove me out of both. A boy I had never
been; nay, nor even a youth. I had always been old. True, like others
of my station, I had owned my auto cars, my matched teams--owned them
now, indeed--but I had never owned a dog. So, when I came hither with
ample leisure, perhaps my chief ambition was a deliberate purpose to
encompass my deferred boyhood. Thus I had built this house of logs
which now--with a surprised and gratifying throb of my heart I learned
it--appealed to the souls of real boys. It was the castle where I
dreamed; and now it was the palace of their dreams also. I felt, at
least, that I had succeeded. My heart throbbed in a new way, very
foolish, yet for some reason suddenly enjoyable.
My house was all of logs and had no decorations of paint or tapestry
within. Its only arras was of the skins of wild beasts--of the African
lion and leopard, the zebra, many antelopes. The walls were hung with
mounted heads--those of the moose, the elk, the bighorn, most of the
main trophies of my own land and to these, through my foreign hunting,
I had added heads of all the great trophies of Africa and Asia as
well. A splendid pair of elephant tusks stood in a corner. A fine head
of the sheep of Tibet, ovus poli--and I prize none of my trophies
more, unless it be the fine robe of the Chinese mountain tiger--looked
full front at us from above the fireplace. My rod racks, and those
which supported my guns and rifles, were here and there about the
room. The whole gave a jaunty atmosphere to my home. I had gone
soberly about the business of sport; and in these days, that can be
practised most successfully by a man with much leisure and unstinted
means.
My books lay about everywhere, also, books which perhaps would not
have appealed to all. My copies of the Vedas, many works on the
Buddhist faith, and translations from Confucius, lay side by side
with that Bible which we Christians have almost forgot. Here, too,
stood my desk with its cases of preserved mosquitoes--for this year I
was studying mosquitoes as an amusement. I had collected all the
mosquito literature of the world, and my books, in French, German and
English, lay near my great microscope. I had passed many happy hours
here in the oblivion of mental concentration, always a delight with
me, now grown almost a necessity if I were to escape the worst of all
habits, that of introspection and self-pity.