Page:Tales of Three Cities (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1884).djvu/18

6 the world at large; in Europe it 's part of the particular place. In summer, I dare say, it will be better; and it will go hard with me if I don't find somewhere some leafy lane, some cottage-roof, something in some degree mossy or mellow. Nature here, of course, is very fine, though I am afraid only in large pieces; and with my little yard-measure (it used to serve for the Roman Campagna! ) I don't know what I shall be able to do. I must try to rise to the occasion.

The Hudson is beautiful; I remember that well enough; and Eunice tells me that when we are in villeggiatura we shall be close to the loveliest part of it. Her cottage or villa, or whatever they call it (Mrs. Ermine, by the way, always speaks of it as a "country-seat,") is more or less opposite to West Point, where it makes one of its grandest sweeps. Unfortunately, it has been let these three years that she has been abroad, and will not be vacant till the first of June. Mr. Caliph, her trustee, took upon himself to do that; very impertinently, I think, for certainly if I had Eunice's fortune I shouldn't let my houses—I mean, of course, those that are so personal. Least of all should I let my "country-seat." It 's bad enough for people to appropriate one's sofas and tables, without appropriating one's flowers and trees and even one's views. There is nothing so personal as one's horizon,—the horizon that one commands, whatever it is, from one's window. Nobody else has just that one. Mr. Caliph, by the