BY
BERNARD CAPES
LONDON
CONSTABLE & COMPANY Ltd.
1914
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E.,
AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
I always come back to Paris or to London as to a rich feast afterabstinence. There are the reserves of perfect health to draw upon forits enjoyment; and I enjoy it while the reserves last. But, on thefirst sign of their depletion, I return to my lentils and springwater, which can stand my happiness in quite as good stead as youngpartridges and Montrachet.
So the New Zealand shepherd, come once in a while to town, dissipatesin a week of glorious debauch the accumulated earnings of a year or sospent in the comfortable solitudes. I don’t blame him: on thecontrary. What is the sense of storing up health and vigour for noother purpose than, like a miser, to hoard them? I use my physicalenergy to serve every ounce of me, brain, nerves and organs. A man inhealth is a man in happiness, whether he be dining at Voisin’s, or onripe figs on the hot rocks of les Baux. And I am a man in health;thank my good stars for that.
Of all the great cities, I have sojourned in Paris more than in anyother. I have not, like Byron, shaken the dust of my native land offmy shoes; but I came so early abroad, that English ways have grownforeign to me. I did not in fact ever fit into their social scheme,though somewhere in my heart a respect survives for it. But the littleisland is too small for me; or I am too big for it. There is not mypeer there in the art o