43

scenery, but Italy is *'a land of beautiful distances
and ugly foregrounds." Companionlestj and impatient,
his chief thought was how to get home most com-
fortably, and so he returned no better than he went,

Habits of Work*—-About this time the tide had
turned as regarded the sale of his works, and he
wrote gratefully " the remainder of my life-voyage
was through smooth waters." As the Autobiography
shows, it was a quiet and uneventful voyage. Periods
of work alternated with holidays, many parts of the
country were visited, and angling became more and
more his best recreation, ** Nothing else served so
well to rest my brain and fit it for resumption of
work." Another reaource was billiards, which he
greatly enjoyed. He never could remember whist
or similar games.

On line mornings he used to spend two or three
hours on the Serpentine, alternating rowing and
dictating. After his morning's work and after lunch
he used to walk through Kensington Gardens, Hyde
Park, and the Green Park, without more thin a quarter
of a mile upon pavement, to the Athenaeum Club,
where he akimmed through periodicals and books,
and played his game, Thereafter he sauntered back to
dinner at seven, "which was followed by iuch miscel-
laneous ways of passing the time without excitement
as were available, Thus passed my ordinary days,"
By thii time he had given up novel-reading, only
treating himself to one about once a year, and then in
a doxen or more instilments* He did not care to
multiply social relations, he "avoided acquaintanceships
and cultivated only friendships." M There is in me very
little of the besmn de pnrler \ and hence 1 do not care to, attracted partly by the fact