"And when it is hot you will be sunburnt and your skin spoilt."

"I don't mind my skin."

"And you will be dull."

"Dull?"

It often amuses me to reflect how very little the Man of Wrath really
knows me. Here we have been three years buried in the country, and I as
happy as a bird the whole time. I say as a bird, because other people
have used the simile to describe absolute cheerfulness, although I do
not believe birds are any happier than any one else, and they quarrel
disgracefully. I have been as happy then, we will say, as the best of
birds, and have had seasons of solitude at intervals before now during
which dull is the last word to describe my state of mind. Everybody, it
is true, would not like it, and I had some visitors here a fortnight ago
who left after staying about a week and clearly not enjoying themselves.
They found it dull, I know, but that of course was their own fault; how
can you make a person happy against his will? You can knock a great deal
into him in the way of learning and what the schools call extras, but if
you try for ever you will not knock any happiness into a being who has
not got it in him to be happy. The only result probably would be that
you knock your own out of yourself. Obviously happiness must come from
within, and not from without; and judging from my past experience and my
present sensations, I should say that I have a store just now within me
more than sufficient to fill five quiet months.

"I wonder," I remarked after a pause, during which I began to suspect