ing to Paradise are dark and steep; so are those of Old Rome leading up to the carved doorway. My shell, my niche is outside the walls, and the result of that is that when from the top of St. Martin's tower they spy an enemy in the plain the town shuts its gates, and the enemy comes to me;—I could get along without that sort of visit, though I like conversation as a general thing. So I leave the key under the door, and get out, but when I come back it sometimes happens that both door and key have disappeared, leaving only the four walls, and then I have to rebuild. My friends say to me, "Stupid! to take all this trouble for the enemy. Come out of your mole-hill into the town where you will be safe." But I always answer, "I know when I am well off. Perhaps I should be safer behind a thick wall, but what could I see there? the wall, and nothing else. That would bore me to death, for I need elbow room; and I like to spread myself out along my river bank, and when I am in my little garden, with nothing to do, I love to watch the reflections in the still water, the bubbles the fish make on the surface and the long-tressed weeds stirring at the bottom. I fish there too, or even wash my clothes, and empty my pots in it. Good or bad, here I have always been, it is too late for me to change; and, after all, nothing
