Excerpt from Summers and Winters at Balmawhapple, Vol. 2: A Second Series of the Table-Talk of Shirley Western Island; and to this, when May had set in with its wintry severity, and its six weeks of east wind, the whole family retreated. But the letters which Mark wrote to his friend, the Editor of The Tomahawk, gave us a lively insight into the life they led on the moist seaboard of the Atlantic, and became for some seasons the standing dish of Balma whapples sole literary organ. I know nothing sorrier than an old newspaper; it is surely the dreariest pos sible commentary upon the vanity of life and the futil ity of popular favour. Why these frantic cheers? We ask ourselves, when we find that the orator's most stirring appeal fails to elicit even the most languid response. And then we remember blankly that we ourselves were Of the audience that roared and yelled like maniacs. Some such feeling I experienced when seeking through a file of The Tomahawk for Mark's Letters from the West. The ink had faded; the paper was musty; the people were dead. Whenever I had secured what I wanted, I Opened the window, so that the fresh air might blow the cobwebs away. I had sometimes said to myself - Is not the man who has once taken part in the Great Game permanently disabled for playing the pastoral pipe, and joining in the Shepherd's dance? To him, sunset or sunrise, the bloom of heather or the song of lark or mavis, is at best an Interlude of which he will tire before Finis is reached. But it would seem after all that Mark had not tired. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.