At the age of seventy-five
he burst into tears, and upon being approached for a cause he
exclaimed, 'Alas, if only this person had resisted the temptation to
be diffuse, and had confined himself to green beetles alone, he might
now, instead of contemplating a misspent career, have been really
great.' How much less," I continued, "can a person of immature
moustaches hope to depict two such conflicting objects as a recumbent
elephant and the President of a Republic standing beneath a banner?"
Upon the temptation to deal critically with the religious instincts of
the islanders this person draws an obliterating brush. As practically
every traveller who has honoured our unattractive land with his
effusive presence has subsequently left it in a printed record that
our ceremonies are grotesque, our priesthood ignorant and depraved,
our monasteries and sacred places spots of plague upon an otherwise
flower-adorned landscape, and our beliefs and sacrifices only worthy
to exist for the purpose of being made into jest-origins by more
refined communities, the omission on this one's part may appear
uncivil and perhaps even intentionally discourteous. To this, as a
burner of joss-sticks and an irregular person, he can only reply by a
deprecatory waving of both hands and a reassuring smile.
With the two-sided memories of many other details hanging thickly
around his brush, it would not be an achievement to continue to a
practically inexhaustible amount.
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