palavering species! I am often abundantly solitary in heart;
and regret the old days when we used to speak oftener together.

I have not quitted Town this year at all; have resisted calls to
Scotland both of a gay and a sad description (for the Ashburtons
are gone to John of Groat's House, or the Scottish _Thule,_ to
rusticate and hunt; and, alas, in poor old Annandale a tragedy
seems preparing for me, and the thing I have dreaded all my days
is perhaps now drawing nigh, ah me!)--I felt so utterly broken
and disgusted with the jangle of last year's locomotion, I judged
it would be better to sit obstinately still, and let my thoughts
_settle_ (into sediment and into clearness, as it might be); and
so, in spite of great and peculiar noises moreover, here I am and
remain. London is not a bad place at all in these months,--with
its long clean streets, green parks, and nobody in them, or
nobody one has ever seen before. Out of La Trappe, which does
not suit a Protestant man, there is perhaps no place where one
can be so perfectly alone. I might study even but, as I said,
there are noises going on; a _last_ desperate spasmodic effort
of building,--a new top-story to the house, out of which is to be
made one "spacious room" (so they call it, though it is under
twenty feet square) where there shall be air _ad libitum,_ light
from the sky, and no _sound,_ not even that of the Cremorne
Cannons, shall find access to me any more! Such is the prophecy;
may the gods grant it! We shall see now in about a month;--then
adieu to mortar-tubs to all Eternity:--I endure the thing,
meanwhile, as well as I can; might run to a certain rural
retreat near by, if I liked at any time; but do not yet: the
worst uproar here is but a trifle to that of German inns, and
horrible squeaking, choking railway trains; and one does not go