A LETTER WITH A POSTSCRIPT
There are moments of annoyance,
Void of every kind of joyance,
In the complicated course of Man's affairs;
But the very worst of any
He experiences when he
Meets a young, but active, lion on the stairs.
Sentiment unexceptionable. But as to the reason for the existence of the fragment, his mind was a blank. He shut the book impatiently. It was plain that no assistance was to be derived from it.
His thoughts wandered back to the idea of leaving London. London might have suited Dr. Johnson, but he had come to the conclusion that what he wanted to enable him to give the public of his best (as the reviewer of the Academy, dealing with his last work, had expressed a polite hope that he would continue to do) was country air. A farmhouse by the sea somewhere … cows … spreading boughs … rooks … brooks … cream. In London the day
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