Excerpt from A Man of Sark

And first, let me say that I hold myself a Sercq man born and bred, in spite of the fact that - well, you will come to that presently. And I count our little isle of Sercq the very fairest spot on earth, and in that I am not alone. The three years I spent on ships trading legitimately to the West Indies and Canada and the Mediterranean made me familiar with many notable places, but never have I seen one to equal this little pearl of all islands.

You will say that, being a Sercq man, that is quite how I ought to feel about my own Island. And that is true, but, apart from the fact that I have lived there the greater part of my life, and loved there, and suffered there, and enjoyed there greater happi ness than comes to all men, and that therefore Seroq is to me what no other land ever could be - apart from all that, I hold, and always shall hold, that in the matter of natural beauty, visible to all seeing eyes, our little Island holds her own against the world.

My grandfather, who had voyaged even more widely than myself, always said the same, and he was not a man given to windy talk, nor, indeed, as I have said, to overmuch talk of any kind.

And for the Opening of my eyes to the rare delight and full enjoyment of the simple things of Nature, just as God has fashioned them with His wonderful tools, the wind, the wave, and the weather, I have to thank my mother, Rachel Carré, and my grand father, Philip Carré, - for that and very much more.

It has occurred to me at times, when I have been thinking over their lives as I knew them, - the solitari ness, the quietness, the seeming grayness and dead levelness of them, - that possibly their enjoyment and apprehension of the beauty of all things about them.

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