"As I go over my reading for the past five years at Upidee, in what do I find it to consist? First, the literature and text-books of my profession. Second, current books—history, biography, art criticism, and an infrequent novel or book of verse. There are not many living novelists or poets that I care about. It makes me fairly rage when I think that I hesitated between 'Pickwick' and 'Jerusalem Delivered' when I made up my list, and finally decided in favor of the latter as more weighty—which it certainly is.
"I used my copy to help sink a lobster trap the other day.
"Almost the only novel which I condescended to include in my list is 'Don Quixote,' and why did I do that? Because it has been praised for three hundred years, I suppose, instead of for only forty or fifty. It is about the only humorous work which I did include—and except for places here and there it is a dreary waste.
"Aug. 10, 1907. It is now months since I have had the courage to face this diary. I dreamed last night that I had wandered into a book shop. There were rows of books, for any one of which I would have gladly given my whole celebrated One Hundred. (At least, I would give what is left of them. 'Don Quixote' has been used to paste over cracks in the walls of my cabin. 'Orlando Furioso' served to boil some sea-gulls' eggs one morning for breakfast, when I was short of firewood, and the 'Koran' fell into the fire one night when I hurled it at some animal—a fox, I think, that came into the hut.) The sight of that bookshop made me weep. I had seized a volume of Tennyson, Stevenson's Letters, and 'Sherlock Holmes,' when the shopkeeper jumped over his counter at me—and I woke, sobbing.
"Sept. 1, 1907. One of the goats ate the Æneid to-day.
"Sept. 2. The goat is ill, and I have had to give it one of my few pepsin tablets."
This is the last entry from the diary that I need transcribe. Over a year has elapsed since I wrote it; and my case is desperate. I will now seal up this narrative in a bottle, and throw it into the sea. Come to my rescue, or I fear I shall go mad!