F 
CHAPTER? OXTYV 
GROUSE ASPIRATIONS 
i ‘HE wind last night was simply awful. Why it 
has no effect on the sea I cannot understand, for 
it is always calm now. No, there is little beauty in 
the sound of the wind here—no mournful sighings, no 
weary complainings, no intangible strange sounds, but 
a horrible howling and blustering, the whole night 
through, like a mere rage,so that it has not that 
soothing quality that it is wont to have in England: 
there is no lullaby in it. Bed here is dreadful, partly 
on account of its hardness, partly of its narrowness, 
partly of its coming-untuckedness, partly because the 
wind comes in on both sides, through walls and 
clothes, and shares it with one. With all this I lie 
in a continual prologue to a play of lumbago, with 
wandering pains all about me. Oh for a nice little 
cosy, comfy cottage here, with my good old Mrs. 
Brodby to cook for me! I could be always out 
then. For the outdoor part of it, “‘ this life is most 
jolly,” but the indoor part is a weariness, and, with all 
he can do, man, in this country and climate, is a 
wretched indoor animal. If it were not so, I would 
be beetling over the ledges, now, for though moist 
and damp, and under a heavy pall of dun-grey cloud, 
it is yet not raining, so may pass for a fine day here: 
it is not Tahiti. But to get up a fire, to wash, and 
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