Also my cane chair is becoming most pitiably weary; it aches in every limb. The sun was poor and pale enough; now it has gone altogether, a greyness has blown out of Thibet, my fingers are almost too numb to say how cold it is. The air is full of an apprehension of rain--if it rains do you suppose I am to come in? Indeed no, I am to have an umbrella. Uncomforted, uncomfortable fate! I wish it would rain; I could then pity myself so profoundly, so abjectly, I would lie heroic, still and stoic; and at the appointed time I would take my soaking, patient person into the house with a trail of drops, pursued by Thisbe with hot-water bottles, which I would reject, to her greater compassion and more contrition. And in the morning it would be a queer thing if I couldn’t produce rheumatism somewhere. Short of rain, however, it will be impossible to give a correct and adequate impression of the bald inhospitality of out-of-doors. They will think I want to be pitied and admired, and Thisbe will say, “But didn’t you really enjoy it--just a little?” Walls are necessary to human happiness--that I can asseverate. Tiglath-Pileser, in bringing me to this miserable point, argued that I should experience the joys of primitive man when he took all nature for his living-room; subtle, long-lost sensations would arise in me, he said, of such a persuasive character that in the end I should have to combat the temptation to take entirely to the woods. I expect nothing of the kind. My original nomad is too far away, I cannot sympathize with him in his embryotic preferences across so many wisest centuries. Moreover, if the poor barbarian had an intelligent idea it was to get under shelter, and that is the only one, doubtless, for which we have to thank him. The windows are blank; they think it kindest, I suppose, not to appear to find entertainment in my situation. It is certainly wisest; if Thisbe showed but the tip of her pretty nose I should throw it up. The windows are blank, the door is shut, but hold--there is smoke coming out of the drawing-room chimney! Thisbe has lighted unto herself a fire and is now drawn up around it awaiting the tea-things. The house as an ordinary substantive is hard enough to resist, but the-house-with-a-fire! No, I cannot. Besides it is already half-past four and I was to come in at five to tea. I will obey the spirit and scorn the letter of the law--I will go in now. CHAPTER II A road winds round the hill above our heads; another winds round the hill below our feet; between is a shelf jutting out.