cripple man was an intrusion on the beautiful world in which I was
walking. He could no more sing than I could; and his voice was
cracked and rusty, and altogether perished. To think that that
wreck may have walked the streets some night years ago, as glad at
heart as I was, and promising himself a future as golden and
honourable!

SUNDAY, 11.20 A.M. - I wonder what you are doing now? - in church
likely, at the TE DEUM. Everything here is utterly silent. I can
hear men's footfalls streets away; the whole life of Edinburgh has
been sucked into sundry pious edifices; the gardens below my
windows are steeped in a diffused sunlight, and every tree seems
standing on tiptoes, strained and silent, as though to get its head
above its neighbour's and LISTEN. You know what I mean, don't you?
How trees do seem silently to assert themselves on an occasion! I
have been trying to write ROADS until I feel as if I were standing
on my head; but I mean ROADS, and shall do something to them.

I wish I could make you feel the hush that is over everything, only
made the more perfect by rare interruptions; and the rich, placid
light, and the still, autumnal foliage. Houses, you know, stand
all about our gardens: solid, steady blocks of houses; all look
empty and asleep.

MONDAY NIGHT. - The drums and fifes up in the Castle are sounding
the guard-call through the dark, and there is a great rattle of
carriages without. I have had (I must tell you) my bed taken out
of this room, so that I am alone in it with my books and two
tables, and two chairs, and a coal-skuttle (or SCUTTLE) (?) and a
DEBRIS of broken pipes in a corner, and my old school play-box, so