it. I
have only been waiting to discharge him; and to-day an occasion arose. I
am so much _the old man virulent_, so readily stumble into anger, that I
gave a deal of consideration to my bearing, and decided at last to
imitate that of the late ----. Whatever he might have to say, this
eminently effective controversialist maintained a frozen demeanour and a
jeering smile. The frozen demeanour is beyond my reach; but I could try
the jeering smile; did so, perceived its efficacy, kept in consequence
my temper, and got rid of my friend, myself composed and smiling still,
he white and shaking like an aspen. He could explain everything; I said
it did not interest me. He said he had enemies; I said nothing was more
likely. He said he was calumniated; with all my heart, said I, but there
are so many liars, that I find it safer to believe them. He said, in
justice to himself, he must explain: God forbid I should interfere with
you, said I, with the same factitious grin, but it can change nothing.
So I kept my temper, rid myself of an unfaithful servant, found a method
of conducting similar interviews in the future, and fell in my own
liking. One thing more: I learned a fresh tolerance for the dead ----;
he too had learned--perhaps had invented--the trick of this manner; God
knows what weakness, what instability of feeling, lay beneath. _Ce que
c'est que de nous!_ poor human nature; that at past forty I must adjust
this hateful mask for the first time, and rejoice to find it effective;
that the effort of maintaining an external smile should confuse and
embitter a man's soul.

To-day I have not weeded; I have written instead from six till eleven,
from twelve till two; with the interruption of the interview aforesaid;
a damned Letter is written for the third time; I dread to read it, for I
dare not give it a fourth chance--unless it be very bad indeed. Now I
write you from my mosquito curtain, to the song of saws and planes and
hammers, and wood clumping on the floor above; in a day of heavenly
brightness; a bird twittering near by; my eye, through the open door,
commanding green meads, two or three forest trees casting their boughs
against the sky, a forest-clad mountain-side beyond, and close in by the
door-jamb a nick of the blue Pacific. It is March in England, bleak
March, and I lie here with the great sliding doors wide open in an
undershirt and p'jama trousers, and melt in the closure of mosquito
bars, and burn to be out in