I pursued the Eternal Feminine in a spirit of
purely scientific investigation. I knew you'd laugh sceptically at that,
but it's a fact. I was impartial in my selection of subjects for
observation--French, German, Spanish, as well as the home product.
Nothing in petticoats escaped me. I devoted myself to the freshest
_ingenue_ as well as the experienced widow of three departed; and I may
as well confess that the more I saw of her, the less I understood her.
But I think they understood me. They refused to take me _au serieux_.
When they weren't fleecing me, they were interested in the state of my
soul (I preferred the former), but all humbugged me equally, so I gave
them up. I took to rod and gun instead, _pro salute animae_; it's
decidedly safer. I have scoured every country in the globe; indeed I can
say that I have shot and fished in woods and waters where no other white
man, perhaps ever dropped a beast or played a fish before. There is no
life like the life of a free wanderer, and no lore like the lore one
gleans in the great book of nature. But one must have freed one's spirit
from the taint of the town before one can even read the alphabet of its
mystic meaning.
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