To me, in my character
of the Amateur Parisian, this island traffic, and even
the island world, were beyond the bounds of curiosity,
and how much more of knowledge? I stood there on the
extreme shore of the West and of to-day. Seventeen
hundred years ago, and seven thousand miles to the
east, a legionary stood, perhaps, upon the wall of
Antoninus, and looked northward toward the mountains of
the Picts. For all the interval of time and space, I,
when I looked from the cliff-house on the broad
Pacific, was that man's heir and analogue: each of us
standing on the verge of the Roman Empire (or, as we
now call it, Western civilisation), each of us gazing
onward into zones unromanised. But I was dull. I
looked rather backward, keeping a kind eye on Paris;
and it required a series of converging incidents to
change my attitude of nonchalance for one of interest,
and even longing, which I little dreamed that I should
live to gratify.
The first of these incidents brought me in acquaintance
with a certain San Francisco character, who had
something of a name beyond the limits of the city, and
was known to many lovers of good English.
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