parallels are, I think, very interesting and instructive, but they are seldom dwelt upon.
Thus far out of the path of what I am pledged to deal in, a fanciful comparison has led me; but I will go no further. Ne ultra crepidam sutor, etc., though, to be sure, I am no more altogether naturalist than King Lear's fool was "altogether fool." So as, from king or emperor downwards, I have no respect for titles, it is not much wonder if I forget now and again to be subservient to that of my own book.[1] Yet to do so is fiddle-de-dee, for books and people both, in this world, are judged of as they are labelled—often getting labelled by accident—and though, in this little excursion into other realms, I have talked no more nonsense than any literary critic may, without at all committing himself—except to nonsense, which doesn't at all matter—yet I talk it where it will not be thought sense. To return then—for your reviewer bites the thumb at a digression—I noticed many other herring-gulls hovering over these puffin-haunted slopes, and that they live largely upon the young of these birds, as well as on young kittiwakes, I do not now doubt. I can see no reason why they should not lie in wait, and drag the former from their holes. I must watch for this. This reminds me of how often I have found the newly-picked remains of puffins on the cliffs and shore; but these were all of full-grown birds. What bird, in especial,
- ↑ But I needn't have forgotten my own afterthought "—and Digressions." Hurrah! That frees me.
