How did you hit on it?"
He turned to me with a smile.
"Did I not tell you that I, too, in my way was an artist?
I realised in myself the same desire as animated him.
But whereas his medium was paint, mine has been life."
Then Captain Brunot told me a story which I must repeat,
since, if only by way of contrast, it adds something to my
impression of Strickland. It has also to my mind a beauty of
its own.
Captain Brunot was a Breton, and had been in the French Navy.
He left it on his marriage, and settled down on a small
property he had near Quimper to live for the rest of his days
in peace; but the failure of an attorney left him suddenly
penniless, and neither he nor his wife was willing to live in
penury where they had enjoyed consideration. During his sea
faring days he had cruised the South Seas, and he determined
now to seek his fortune there. He spent some months in Papeete
to make his plans and gain experience; then, on money borrowed
from a friend in France, he bought an island in the Paumotus.
It was a ring of land round a deep lagoon, uninhabited,
and covered only with scrub and wild guava.
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