The Journal of a Disappointed Man

March 12. Archæopteryx and Mudflats Yesterday I collected two distinct and several twinges and hereby save them up. They were more than that--they were pangs, and pangs that twanged. (Why do I make fun of my suffering?) One was when I saw the well-known figure of the Archæopteryx remains in the slab of Lithographic sandstone of Bavaria: a reproduction in an illustrated encyclopædia. The other was when someone mentioned mud, and I thought of the wide estuary of the T----, its stretches of mudflats and its wild-fowl. We were turning over some pages and she said: "What's that?" "Archæopteryx," said I. "Whatever is Archæopteryx?" "An extinct bird," I answered mournfully. Like an old amour, my love of palæontology and anatomy, and all the high hopes I entertained of them, came smarting to life again, so I turned over the page quickly. But why need I explain to you, O my Journal? To others, I could not explain. I was tongue-tied. "I used to get very muddy," I remarked lamentably, "in the old days when stalking birds on the mudflats." And they rather jeered at such an occupation in such a place, just as those beautiful sights and sounds of zostera-covered mud-banks, twinkling runnels, swiftly running thin-legged waders, their whistles and cries began to steal over my memory like a delicate pain. To my infinite regret, I have no description, no photograph or sketch, no token of any sort to remember them by. And their doom is certain. Heavens! how I wasted my impressions and experiences then! Swinburne has some lines about saltings which console me a little, but I know of no other descriptions by either pen or brush.