Page:A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems. (Thomson, Dobell).djvu/52

 by shrubbery, lawn, meadow and kitchen garden. Host and hostess (sister) are kindness itself, as are all other Leicester friends. We lead the most healthy of lives, save for strong temptations to over-feeding on excellent fare, and host's evil and powerfully contagious habit of sitting up till about two smoking and reading or chatting. I now leave him to his own wicked devices at midnight or as soon after as possible. Despite the showery weather we have had good drives and walks (country all green and well-wooded), jolly little picnics, and lawn-tennis ad infinitum. (N.B.—Lawn-tennis even more than lady's fine pen responsible for the uncouthness of this scrawl.) In brief we have been so busy with enjoyment, that this is the first note I have accomplished (or begun) in the seventeen days P.S.—Grass and ground too wet for lawn-tennis this morning, else this scrawl might not have got scrawled."

It will most likely occur to the reader that there is some degree of incongruity between the passage just quoted, and the general tenor of the narrative. But in truth the change was so great from his solitary existence in London to the comfort and cheerfulness of his life in Leicester, that it is no wonder if he became for a time comparatively happy. In London he lodged in one narrow room, which was bed-room and sitting-room in one, and where he could hardly help feeling a sense of poverty and isolation. A morning spent at the British Museum, an afternoon walk through the streets, and an evening passed in reading or writing: such was the usual course of his daily life in London. Visits to or from his few London friends sometimes varied the monotony of