Who can begin conventional amiability the first thing in the morning?
It is the hour of savage instincts and natural tendencies;
it is the triumph of the Disagreeable and the Cross.
I am convinced that the Muses and the Graces never thought
of having breakfast anywhere but in bed.


November 11th.--When the gray November weather came,
and hung its soft dark clouds low and unbroken over the brown
of the ploughed fields and the vivid emerald of the stretches of
winter corn, the heavy stillness weighed my heart down to a forlorn
yearning after the pleasant things of childhood, the petting,
the comforting, the warming faith in the unfailing wisdom of elders.
A great need of something to lean on, and a great weariness
of independence and responsibility took possession of my soul;
and looking round for support and comfort in that transitory mood,
the emptiness of the present and the blankness of the future sent
me back to the past with all its ghosts. Why should I not go
and see the place where I was born, and where I lived so long;
the place where I was so magnificently happy, so exquisitely wretched,
so close to heaven, so near to hell, always either up on a cloud of glory,
or down in the depths with the waters of despair closing over my head?
Cousins live in it now, distant cousins, loved with the exact measure
of love usually bestowed on cousins who reign in one's stead;
cousins of practical views, who have dug up the flower-beds and
planted cabbages where roses grew; and though through all the years
since my father's death I have held my head so high that it hurt,
and loftily refused to listen to their repeated suggestions that I
should revisit my old home, something in the sad listlessness of
the November days sent my spirit back to old times with a persistency