I can see myself with a
spade and bucket being extraordinarily happy. The other day I met
a lucky little boy who had a pile of sand in his garden to play
with, and I was fortunate enough to get an order for a tunnel.
The tunnel which I constructed for him was a good one, but not so
good that I couldn't see myself building a better one with
practice. I came away with an ambition for architecture. If ever
I go to the sea again I shall build a proper tunnel; and
afterwards-- well, we shall see. At the moment I feel in
tremendous form. I feel that I could do a cathedral.
There is one joy of childhood, however, which one can never
recapture, and that is the joy of getting wet in the sea. There
is a statue not so far from Fleet Street of the man who
introduced Sunday schools into England, but the man whom boys and
girls would really like to commemorate in lasting stone is the
doctor who first said that salt water couldn't give you a cold.
Whether this was true or not I do not know, but it was a splendid
and never-failing retort to anxious grown-ups, and added much to
the joys of the seaside. But it is a joy no longer possible to
one who is his own master. I, for instance, can get my feet wet
in fresh water if I like; to get them wet in salt water is no
special privilege.
Feeling as I do, writing as I have written, it is sad for me to
know that if I really went to the sea this August it would not be
with a spade and a bucket but with a bag of golf clubs; that even
my evenings would be spent, not on the beach, but on a bicycle
riding to the nearest town for a paper.
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