The Argosy — page 304: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Letters from Majorca. 283 St. Helena, with weighty memories sapping the very springs of life. And under such circumstances they bear a double meaning. Who has not pictured to himself that solitary figure on a distant island, with firmer chains about his soul than the iron links that restrain the liberty of a convict? Growing sadder and more hope- less as not only the days but the years followed and resembled each other so closely. Looking out seawards with despairing gaze from early dawn to dewy eve; seeing in imagination far off lands where battles had been fought and triumphs won, and, like Alexander, he almost sighed for fresh worlds to subdue; a world, indeed, of which he was all but the master, invariably going forth conquering and to conquer: until the hour and the man arose who broke the charm of his successes and turned the current of his life for ever. But in this Palma de Mallorca our days have in them a certain amount of variety, and we are by no means weary of existence. Which I will not deceive you, as the renowned Mrs. Gamp said to her partner in wickedness, Mrs. Prig: we are even greatly enjoying ourselves in a quiet, harmless way. We even date forward with a certain dread to a time when all this must pass away, and we shall leave this bright town and island and atmosphere, and embark with a cargo of Mallorcan pigs for Spain, en route for England, and the attendant horrors of an English winter. However, ‘‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may:” let us not anticipate. Perhaps before the end of our stay we shall have decided to pitch our future tent here and cast in our lot with the Mallorcans ! Only yesterday I wrote to you, and yet to-day has not been at all spent as we spent yesterday. My last letter might be described as an indoor record; this will rather be an outdoor summary of small chronicles. So, at least, I imagine, for nothing is more certain than that the pen rules me, and not I the pen. I simply follow its lead. I have already warned you that this 1s a dreamy place, with a certain lotus influence about it, making one not quite responsible for the course of events, or any eccentricity of conduct. With the Mallorcans it develops into a certain sluggish inactivity, which causes them to act rather like the Turks in the East. They, you know, take things very calmly and quietly: fold their hands and cross their legs, and accept with equal indifference what life brings or takes away, rather than attempt by a little energy to overcome circumstances. Perhaps the Turk goes further than the Mallorcan ; for he quietly squats upon the ground, allows the roof of his house to fall in, and, while watching the ruins with sleepy eyes, calls upon Mahomet to bear witness to the wreck. ‘Allah! I] Allah!” he cries. ‘‘ Let it be so. Why build it up again, since it is written that we are to pass away?” The Mallorcan is not at all as bad as this. His house is kept in order, roof in repair, ground cultivated, though he might do more COmicooolkks ) (SO