"A wonderful region, all this world of islands," he said, waving his
hand to the scenery rushing past us, "but doesn't it strike you there's
something lacking?"
"It's--hard," I answered, after a moment's reflection. "It has a
superficial, glittering prettiness, without--" I hesitated to find the
word I wanted.
John Silence nodded his head with approval.
"Exactly," he said. "The picturesqueness of stage scenery that is not
real, not alive. It's like a landscape by a clever painter, yet without
true imagination. Soulless--that's the word you wanted."
"Something like that," I answered, watching the gusts of wind on the
sails. "Not dead so much, as without soul. That's it."
"Of course," he went on, in a voice calculated, it seemed to me, not to
reach our companion in the bows, "to live long in a place like
this--long and alone--might bring about a strange result in some men."
I suddenly realised he was talking with a purpose and pricked up my
ears.
"There's no life here.
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