are rusting in their drawers, and their horrible
cool parlours, where people pretend to read the
Every-Day Book and not to be afraid, are doing
penance for their grimness in white sheets. The
light-weight of shrewd appearance, with one eye
always shut up, as if he were eating a sharp
gooseberry in all seasons, who usually stands at
the gateway of the livery stables on very little
legs under a very large waistcoat, has gone to
Doncaster. Of such undesigning aspect is his
guileless Yard now, with its gravel and scarlet
beans, and the yellow Break housed under a glass
roof in a corner, that I almost believe I could
not be taken in there, if I tried. In the places
of business of the great tailors, the cheval-
glasses are dim and dusty for lack of being
looked into. Ranges of brown paper coat and
waistcoat bodies look as funereal as if they were
the hatchments of the customers with whose
names they are inscribed; the measuring tapes
hang idle on the wall; the order-taker, left on
the hopeless chance of some one looking in,
yawns in the last extremity over the books of
patterns, as if he were trying to read that
entertaining library. The hotels in Brook-street have
no one in them, and the staffs of servants stare
disconsolately for next season out of all the
windows. The very man who goes about like an erect
Turtle, between two boards recommendatory of
the Sixteen Shilling Trousers, is aware of
himself as a hollow mockery, and eats filberts while
he leans his hinder shell against a wall.

Among these tranquillising objects, it is my
delight to walk and meditate. Soothed by the
repose around me, I wander insensibly to
considerable distances, and guide myself back by
the stars. Thus, I enjoy the contrast of a few
still partially inhabited and busy spots where all
the lights are not fled, where all the garlands
are not dead, whence all but I have not
departed. Then, does it appear to me that in this
age three things are clamorously required of
Man in the miscellaneous thoroughfares of the
metropolis. Firstly, that he have his boots cleaned.
Secondly, that he eat a penny ice. Thirdly, that
he get himself photographed. Then do I speculate,
What have those seam-worn artists been who
stand at the photograph doors in Greek caps,
sample in hand, and mysteriously salute the public
—the female public with a pressing tenderness—
to come in and be "took"? What did they do with
their greasy blandishments, before the era of cheap
photography? Of what class were their previous
victims, and how victimised? And how did they
get, and how did they pay for, that large
collection of likenesses, all purporting to have been
taken inside, with the taking of none of which
had that establishment any more to do than with
the taking of Delhi?

But these are small oases, and I am soon back
again in metropolitan Arcadia. It is my
impression that much of its serene and peaceful
character is attributable to the absence of
customary Talk. How do I know but there may
be subtle influences in Talk, to vex the souls of
men who don't hear it? How do I know but
that Talk, five, ten, twenty miles off, may get
into the air and disagree with me? If I get up,
vaguely troubled and wearied and sick of my
life, in the session of Parliament, who shall say
that my noble friend, my right reverend friend,
my right honourable friend, my honourable
friend, my honourable and learned friend, or my
honourable and gallant friend, may not be
responsible for that effect upon my nervous
system? Too much Ozone in the air, I am
informed and fully believe (though I have no idea
what it is), would affect me in a marvellously
disagreeable way; why may not too much Talk?
I don't see or hear the Ozone; I don't see or
hear the Talk. And there is so much Talk; so
much too much; such loud cry, and such scant
supply of wool; such a deal of fleecing, and so
little fleece! Hence, in the Arcadian season, I
find it a delicious triumph to walk down to
deserted Westminster, and see the Courts shut
up; to walk a little further and see the Two
Houses shut up; to stand in the Abbey Yard,
like the New Zealander of the grand English
History (concerning which unfortunate man a
rookery of mares' nests is generally being
discovered), and gloat upon the ruins of Talk.
Returning to my primitive solitude and lying
down to sleep, my grateful heart expands with
the consciousness that there is no adjourned
Debate, no ministerial explanation, nobody to
give notice of intention to ask the noble Lord
at the head of her Majesty's Government five-
and-twenty bootless questions in one, no term
time with legal argument, no Nisi Prius with
eloquent appeal to British Jury; that the air
will to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
remain untroubled by this superabundant
generating of Talk. In a minor degree it is a
delicious triumph to me to go into the club, and see
the carpets up, and the Bores and the other dust
dispersed to the four winds. Again New
Zealander-like, I stand on the cold hearth, and
say in the solitude, "Here I watched Bore A 1,
with voice always mysteriously low and head
always mysteriously drooped, whispering
political secrets into the ears of Adam's confiding
children. Accursed be his memory for ever and
a day!"

But I have all this time been coming to the
point, that the happy nature of my retirement
is most sweetly expressed in its being the abode
of Love. It is, as it were, an inexpensive
Agapemone: nobody's speculation: everybody's
profit. The one great result of the resumption
of primitive habits, and (convertible terms) the
not having much to do, is, the abounding of
Love.

The Klem species are incapable of the softer
emotions; probably, in that low nomadic race,
the softer emotions have all degenerated into
flue. But with this exception, all the sharers
of my retreat make love.

I have mentioned Saville-row. We all know
the Doctor's servant. We all know what a
respectable man he is, what a hard dry man, what
a firm man, what a confidential man: how he
lets us into the waiting-room, like a man who
knows minutely what is the matter with us, but