It
changes occasionally to bright yellow, which is (is it?) the Imperial
colour in China, and also the antithesis to purple (_vide_ Coleridge and
Eastlake's "Goethe")--even as the Eastern and Western Dynasties are
antithetical, and yet, by the law of extremes, potentially the same
(_vide_ Coleridge, etc.). Is this aesthetic? Is this exegetical? How glad
I shall be if you can assure me that it is! But, nonsense apart and
begged pardon for, pray write me a line to say how you are, directing to
this pretty place. "The soil is in general a moist and retentive clay,
with a subsoil or pan of an adhesive silicious brick formation; adapted
to the growth of wheat, beans, and clover--requiring, however, a summer
fallow (as is generally stipulated in the lease) every fourth year,
etc." This is not an unpleasing style on agricultural subjects--nor an
uncommon one....
* * * * *
You know my way of life so well that I need not describe it to you, as
it has undergone no change since I saw you. I read of mornings--the same
old books over and over again, having no command of new ones; walk with
my great black dog of an afternoon, and at evening sit with open
windows, up to which China-roses climb, with my pipe, while the
blackbirds and thrushes begin to rustle bedwards in the garden, and the
nightingale to have the neighbourhood to herself.
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