simple, natural, easy way--care not you, as I care not, how discursively--a little touch of modest egotism, even, I will forgive on this occasion, if you find that--" Here, dear Christopher, I recalcitrate, and decline printing the rest of the sentence; but as to "_Things in General_"--I am somewhat smitten with the suggestion. 'Tis a taking title--a roomy subject, in which one can flit about from gay to grave, from lively to severe, according to the humour of the moment; and since you really do not dislike the idea of an old contributor's gossip on men and things, given you in his own way, I shall forthwith begin to pour out my little thoughts as unreservedly as if you and I were sitting together alone here. _Here_; but where? As I said before, at the seaside; at my favourite resort--where (eschewing "Watering-places" with lively disgust) I have spent many a happy autumn. When I first found it out, I thought that the _lines_ had indeed _fallen_ to me in _pleasant places_, and I still think so; but were I to tell the public, through your pages, of this green spot, I suspect that by this time next year the sweet solitude and primitive simplicity of the scene around me would have vanished: greedy speculating builders, tempting the proprietors of the soil, would run up in all directions vile, pert, vulgar, brick-built, slate-roofed, Quakerish-looking abominations, exactly as a once lovely nook in the Isle of Wight--Ventnor to wit--has become a mere assemblage of eyesores, a mass of _un_favourable eruptions, so to speak--Bah! I once used to look forward to the Isle of Wight with springy satisfaction. Why, the infatuated inhabitants were lately talking of having a railroad in the island!!