enjoyed; yes,
and even what inspired him to pen this golden sentence--

"_You will never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself
floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens
and crowned with the stars._"

My window, then, looks out from a small library upon a small harbour
frequented by ships of all nations--British, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian,
Russian, French, German, Italian, with now and then an American or a
Greek--and upon a shore which I love because it is my native country. Of
all views I reckon that of a harbour the most fascinating and the most
easeful, for it combines perpetual change with perpetual repose. It
amuses like a panorama and soothes like an opiate, and when you have
realised this you will understand why so many thousands of men around this
island appear to spend all their time in watching tidal water. Lest you
should suspect me of taking a merely dilettante interest in the view, I
must add that I am a Harbour Commissioner.

As for the house, it is a plain one; indeed, very like the house a child
draws on a slate, and therefore pleasing even externally to me, who prefer
the classical to any Gothic style of architecture. Why so many strangers
mistake it with its modest dimensions for a hotel, I cannot tell you.
I found one in the pantry the other day searching for a brandy-and-soda;
another rang the dining-room bell and dumbfoundered the maid by asking
what we had for lunch; and a third (a lady) cried when I broke to her that
I had no sitting-room to let. We make it a rule to send out a chair
whenever some unknown invader walks into the garden and prepares to make a
water-colour sketch of the view.

There are some, too, whose behaviour cannot be reconciled with the
hallucination of a hotel, and they must take the house for a public
institution of some kind, though of what kind I cannot guess.
There was an extremely bashful youth, for instance, who roamed the garden
for a while on the day after the late Duke of Cambridge's funeral, and,
suddenly dashing in by the back door, wanted to know why our flag was not
at half-mast. There was also a lady who called on the excuse that she had
made a life-study of the Brontes, and after opining (in a guarded manner)
that they came, originally, from somewhere in Yorkshire, desired to be
informed how many servants we kept. I have sometimes thought of
rechristening our house The Hotel of the Four