and could hear no sounds but sounds of peace, and knew that here I might read
or dream or idle exactly as I chose with never a creature to disturb me,
how grateful I felt to the kindly Fate that has brought me here and given me
a heart to understand my own blessedness, and rescued me from a life like
that I had just seen--a life spent with the odours of other people's dinners
in one's nostrils, and the noise of their wrangling servants in one's ears,
and parties and tattle for all amusement.

But I must confess to having felt sometimes quite crushed
when some grand person, examining the details of my home
through her eyeglass, and coolly dissecting all that I
so much prize from the convenient distance of the open window,
has finished up by expressing sympathy with my loneliness, and on
my protesting that I like it, has murmured, "sebr anspruchslos."
Then indeed I have felt ashamed of the fewness of my wants;
but only for a moment, and only under the withering influence
of the eyeglass; for, after all, the owner's spirit is the same
spirit as that which dwells in my servants--girls whose one idea
of happiness is to live in a town where there are others of their
sort with whom to drink beer and dance on Sunday afternoons.
The passion for being for ever with one's fellows, and the fear of
being left for a few hours alone, is to me wholly incomprehensible.
I can entertain myself quite well for weeks together, hardly aware,
except for the pervading peace, that I have been alone at all.
Not but what I like to have people staying with me for a few days,
or even for a few weeks, should they be as anspruchslos as I am myself,
and content with simple joys; only, any one who comes here and would
be happy must have something in him; if he be a mere blank creature,
empty of head and heart, he will very probably find it dull.
I should like my house to be often full if I could find people