chattering away to you on this bit of paper. All the way along I
was thanking God that he had made me and the birds and everything
just as they are and not otherwise; for although there was no sun,
the air was so thrilled with robins and blackbirds that it made the
heart tremble with joy, and the leaves are far enough forward on
the underwood to give a fine promise for the future. Even myself,
as I say, I would not have had changed in one IOTA this forenoon,
in spite of all my idleness and Guthrie's lost paper, which is ever
present with me - a horrible phantom.

No one can be alone at home or in a quite new place. Memory and
you must go hand in hand with (at least) decent weather if you wish
to cook up a proper dish of solitude. It is in these little
flights of mine that I get more pleasure than in anything else.
Now, at present, I am supremely uneasy and restless - almost to the
extent of pain; but O! how I enjoy it, and how I SHALL enjoy it
afterwards (please God), if I get years enough allotted to me for
the thing to ripen in. When I am a very old and very respectable
citizen with white hair and bland manners and a gold watch, I shall
hear three crows cawing in my heart, as I heard them this morning:
I vote for old age and eighty years of retrospect. Yet, after all,
I dare say, a short shrift and a nice green grave are about as
desirable.

Poor devil! how I am wearying you! Cheer up. Two pages more, and
my letter reaches its term, for I have no more paper. What
delightful things inns and waiters and bagmen are! If we didn't
travel now and then, we should forget what the feeling of life is.
The very cushion of a railway carriage - 'the things restorative to
the touch.' I can't write, confound it! That's because I am so