"So that a great envy came upon me of the winds and waves and birds that circle forever with the eternal circling of the world. Nightly the large eyes, half fierce, half tender, glimmered through my sleep: phantom winds called to me, and shadowy seas chanted through their foam-flecked lips runes weird as the Runes of Odin.
"And I hated cities with the hatred of the camel—the camel that sobs and moans on beholding afar, on the yellow rim of the desert, the corpse-white finger of a minaret pointing to the dome of Mahomet's heaven.
"Also I hated the rumble of traffic and the roar of the race for gold; the shadows of palaces on burning streets; the sound of toiling feet; the black breath of towered chimneys; and the vast machines, forever laboring with sinews of brass, and panting with heart of steam and steel.
"Only loved I the eyes of night and the women eyes that haunted me—the silence of rolling plains, the whispers of untrodden woods, the shadows of flying birds and fleeting clouds, the heaving emerald of waves, the silver lamentation of brooks, the thunder roll of that mighty hymn of hexameters which the ocean must eternally sing to the stars.
"Once, and once only, did I speak to my father of the dark and beautiful dream that floated to me on the misty waves of sleep. Once, and once only; for I beheld his face grow whiter than the face of Death.
"Encompassed about by wealth and pleasure, I still felt like a bird in a cage of gold. Books I loved only because they taught me mysteries of sky and sea—the alchemy of suns, the magic of seasons, the marvels of lands to which we long forever to sail, yet may never see. But I loved wild rides by night, and long wrestling with waves silver-kissed by the moon, and the musky breath of woods, where wild doves wandered from shadow to shadow, cooing love. And the strange beauty of the falcon face, that haunted me forever, chilled my heart to the sun-haired maidens who sought our home, fair like tall idols of ivory and gold.
"Often, in the first pinkness of dawn, I rose from a restless sleep to look upon a mirror; thirsting to find in my own eyes some dark kindred with the eyes of my dreams; and often I felt in my veins the blood of a strange race, not my father's.
"I saw birds flying to the perfumed South; I watched the sea gulls seeking warmer coasts; I cursed the hawks for their freedom—I cursed the riches that were the price of my bondage to civilization, the pleasures that were the guerdon of my isolation among a people not my own.
—"'O that I were a cloud,' I cried, 'to drift forever with the hollow wind!—O that I were a wave to pass from ocean to ocean, and chant my freedom in foam upon the rocks of a thousand coasts!—O that I might live even as the eagle, who may look into the face of the everlasting sun!'
"So the summer of my life came upon me, with a madness of longing for freedom—a freedom as of winds and waves and birds—and a vague love for that unknown people whose wild blood made fever in my veins,—until one starless night I fled my home forever.