My Tropic Isle | Page 6

laborious work--performed conscientiously to the best of my
ability--occupied a long time, and from it originated much backache
and general fatigue, and at the end I found that I had been so absorbed
in the permanence rather than the appearance of the dwelling that one
of the corner posts was out of the perpendicular and that consequently
the building stood awry. Grace of style it cannot claim; but neither
"white ants" nor weather trouble it.
And to what sweet uses has adversity made us familiar! When I bought
a boat to bring hither I knew not the distinguishing term of a single
halyard, save the "topping lift," and even that scant knowledge was idle,
for I was blankly ignorant of the place and purpose of the oddly-named
rope. Necessity drove me to the acquirement of boat sense, and now I
manage my home-built "flattie"--mean substitute for the neat yacht
which necessity compelled me to part with--very courageously in
ordinary weather; and I am content to stay at home when Neptune is
frothy at the lips.
A preponderant part of the furniture of our abode is the work of my
own unskilled hands--tables, chairs, bookshelves, cupboards, &c. There
is much pleasure and there are also, many aches and pains in the
designing and fashioning serviceable chairs from odd kinds of bush
timber.
In the making of a chair, as in the building of a boat by one who has

had no training in any branch of carpentry, there is scope for the
personal element. Though the parts have been cut and trimmed with
minute care and all possible precision, each, according to requirements,
being the duplicate of the other, when they come to be assembled
obstructive obstinacy prevails. One of the most fiendish things the art
of man contrives is a chair out of the routine design made by a
rule-of-thumb carpenter. Grotesque in its deformities, you must needs
pity your own mishandling of the obstinate wood. Have you courage to
smile at the misshapen handiwork, or do you cowardly, discard the
deformity you have created? How it grunts and groans as pressure is
applied to its stubborn bent limbs! Curvature of the spine is the least of
its ills. It limps and creaks when fixed tentatively for trial.
Tender-footed, it stands awry, heaving one leg aloft--as crooked and as
perverse as Caliban. In good time, botching here, violent constraint
there, the chair finds itself or is forced so to do, for he is a weak man
who is not stronger than his own chair. So, after many days' intense
toil--toil which even troubled the night watches, for have I not lain
awake with thoughts automatically concentrated on a seemingly
impossible problem, plotting by what illicit and awful torture it might
be possible for the tough and stubborn parts to be brought into
juxtaposition--there is a chair--a solid, sitable chair, which neither
squeaks, nor shuffles, nor shivers. May be you are ashamed at the
quantity of mind the dull article of furniture has absorbed; but there are
other reflections--homely as well as philosophic.

CHAPTER II

A PLAIN MAN'S PHILOSOPHY
"'Be advised by a plain man, (said the quaker to the soldier), 'Modes
and apparels are but trifles to the real man: therefore do not think such
a man as thyself terrible for thy garb nor such a one as me contemptible
for mine.'"--ADDISON.
Small must be the Isle of Dreams, so small that possession is possible.
A choice passion is not to be squandered on that which, owing to

exasperating bigness, can never be fully possessed. An island of bold
dimensions may be free to all--wanton and vagrant, unlovable. Such is
not for the epicure--the lover of the subtle fascination, the dainty moods,
and pretty expressions of islands. The Isle must be small, too, because
since it is yours it becomes a duty to exhaustively comprehend it.
Familiarity with its lines of coast and sky, its declivities and hollows,
its sunny places, its deepest shades, the sources of its streams, the
meagre beginning of its gullies cannot suffice. Superficial intimacy
with features betrayable to the senses of any undiscriminating beholder
is naught. Casual knowledge of its botany and birds counts for little.
All--even the least significant, the least obvious of its charms are there
to, give conservative delight, and surly the soul that would despise
them.
If you would read the months off-hand by the flowering of trees and
shrubs and the coming and going of birds; if the inhalation of scents is
to convey photographic details of scenes whence they originate; if you
would explore miles of sunless jungle by ways unstable as water; if you
would have the sites of camps of past generations of blacks reveal the
arts and occupations of the race, its dietary scale and the