CORRESPONDENCE.
A FIT OF HOMESICKNESS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.-] SIR,—I am in Canada writing in a huge Western hotel, within earshot of a big public " banquet," and am earnestly endeavour- ing to realise the sensations of Cinderella before the arrival of the fairy godmother. But it will not work. The distant inarticu- late hum of the great dining-room only calls to my mind two very small boys seated on the last stair but one, and waiting hungrily for the appearance of the butler with the bread-sauce. The game they reject with scorn, but the bread-sauce is a feast to dream of. And after that there will be meringues, and, we are nearly sure, ice-cream. Then the wicked old witch will appear at the next landing in the shape of the nurse, and the two small boys will promptly vanish, with the aid of the sympathetic butler. They have two hiding-places. One is behind the door that leads to the kitchen steps. But that is very dark, and they feel safer when both together. It is crowded too, for the presence of an old- fashioned filter, which drips monotonously into a tin pan, makes the least movement dangerous. The other is infinitely more perilous of approach, but a true city of refuge when once reached. There is a big screen in the dining-room itself, near the door, and it is possible, by careful skirmishing on all fours, to reach its friendly shelter unseen. Once here, we are safe ; we can even make faces at the servants, and pinch their legs, and reduce them to a state of nervous prostration from suppressed laughter without fear of betrayal. On one memorable occasion a small sister, driven by a feminine thirst for knowledge, managed to find her way unobserved under the dinner table itself. There she enjoyed herself hugely for a time, and carried on an animated conversation by the aid of a code of signals with the corner of the screen. However, like her elders, she found that it was easier to get into a scrape than to get out of it, and a rearrangement of seats, caused by the rest of her sex leaving the room, cut off all hopes of retreat. Being of a philosophical turn of mind, and not realising her unexampled opportunity of finding out what the men talk about when the women have left the room, she curled herself up in a knot and went to sleep. Her absence from bed—for she was in her dream-gown all the time—was not discovered till her mother went into the nursery to kiss her good-night. Then there was a hue-and- cry. There was another advantage about the lurking-place in the dining-room. If a small head was seen suddenly peering round the corner, or if a startled servant gave vent to a wild scream, the result of an unexpected nip, the guests were sure to beg you off. Not only that, but they insisted on helping you to peaches, and nectarines, and almonds and raisins, and giving you just one sip of claret, which always looked so much nicer than it tasted. But to-day, alas! one of the small boys is rejoicing that he is not at the dinner party. If the fairy godmother appeared and told him that his dress clothes were all ready and his studs in his shirt, that she would tie his necktie herself and pin in his button-hole, be would argue the case politely. He would urge that he didn't want to sit for three or four hours in a hot room, and wake up the next morning with a swollen head and a contrite heart. That he is particularly anxious to interview his godmother on certain events of great interest to him that are now going on in Fairyland, and that this can be done so much better tete:1-te'te over a cigarette. He has no objection whatever to fairy godmothers smoking fairy cigarettes and blowing fairy rings; indeed he likes to watch them doing it. Surely the politics of Fairyland are more interesting than-those of the• Great West, or even of South Africa- There are times when we would rather watch the small fleet of mother-of-pearl drawn by tiny sea-horses, and see overhead the great gulls hover, their white wings faintly flushed with pink from the dying sunset, than strain after a couple of racing machines in a frantic mob of . smoky excursion steamers. For good fairy godmothers show you these pictures sometimes, aye, even in mid-prairie; when you come of the Island-race, and have not seen the sea for seven years. I know a man who keeps hidden in a drawer, not a lock of woman's hair, but a piece of seaweed. Sometimes, when he is alone, he damps it and presses it close to his face; and his fairy godmother comes to him and whispers in his ear words that sound like the ripple and wash and splash of saltwater in rocky pools. And she shows him sea- anemones that are more lovely in his eyes than. all the flowers of earth, and small crabs who pause, and leer at him know- ingly, as at an old friend. And I know another man, an Irishman this, who keeps a bit of peat, about half the size of a brick, a genuine sod from far-off Connemara. Once or twice a year he breaks off a little piece, as big as a lump of sugar, and sets it alight, and locks the door of his room. Then a little godmother appears quickly, dressed all in green, with shamrock in her hair, and she shows him a wide waste of bog, and brown water, and marsh plants that tremble and quiver when the lightest step draws near. Only this, and just a peep of the Atlantic, and Achill Island rising like a great blue, cloud in the distance. But she smiles him good- night—a smile of perfect understanding, and a little humour, and all the sadness of life—and vanishes, taking her toll with her. What she has taken he does not know, only he feels that something is gone from him, something that perhaps will be repaid with usury when he enters Fairyland himself. Meanwhile he laughs a little, and sets to work to clean his gun for to-morrow's shoot, or mend his game-bag, or do any- thing that wW keep him from thinking. For to be too long with fairy godmothers is not good for a man.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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