member of a fraternity admit himself on a level with mankind in general, in regard to his particular cult? The thing is always to ramp on one's pedestal, though it be no higher than the houses over the way. Personally I doubt the validity of a specific distinction so attenuated as this; but be that as it may, terns, in their northern and southern homes, seem to differ somewhat in their natures, even as do the respective beaches on which they lay, with their surrounding scenery of sea and sky. How different are these one from another! Here, in these desolate and wind-swept isles, I, at least, though I have sometimes seen the sun, have never caught one glimpse of summer—nothing at all nearer to it than a somewhat fresher and very much rougher November. But on that other great bank, in the more genial climate of southern England, not only is it summer, sometimes—and that in spring—for hours together, but one may even be, for a while, in the tropics. How else could there be the mirage? Yet there it is, or, at any rate, something like it; for as one lies at length and gazes through the golden haze that seems to beat in waves upon the hot, parched shingle, lo! this is gone, and where it lay, all glaring, a blue pellucid lake, that seems to partake equally of the nature of sea and sky, lies now, cool and delightful. Into it terns, ever descending, seem to plunge or softly dip, as though it were the sea itself; and as they do so they either disappear altogether, becoming lost in azure haze, or are seen through it, dimly and vaguely, sitting or performing such actions
