WHEN I am in a thoughtful mood, I often succeed in diverting the
current of some mournful reflections, by conjuring up a number of
fanciful associations with the objects that surround me, and
dwelling upon the scenes and characters they suggest.

I have been led by this habit to assign to every room in my house
and every old staring portrait on its walls a separate interest of
its own. Thus, I am persuaded that a stately dame, terrible to
behold in her rigid modesty, who hangs above the chimney-piece of
my bedroom, is the former lady of the mansion. In the courtyard
below is a stone face of surpassing ugliness, which I have somehow
- in a kind of jealousy, I am afraid - associated with her husband.
Above my study is a little room with ivy peeping through the
lattice, from which I bring their daughter, a lovely girl of
eighteen or nineteen years of age, and dutiful in all respects save
one, that one being her devoted attachment to a young gentleman on
the stairs, whose grandmother (degraded to a disused laundry in the
garden) piques herself upon an old family quarrel, and is the
implacable enemy of their love. With such materials as these I
work out many a little drama, whose chief merit is, that I can
bring it to a happy end at will. I have so many of them on hand,
that if on my return home one of these evenings I were to find some
bluff old wight of two centuries ago comfortably seated in my easy
chair, and a lovelorn damsel vainly appealing to his heart, and
leaning her white arm upon my clock itself, I verily believe I
should only express my surprise that they had kept me waiting so
long, and never honoured me with a call before.

I was in such a mood as this, sitting in my garden yesterday