xxii MEMOIR. 
when he was again a prisoner to his room at home. 
Writing on April 23d (1862), during this period of 
confinement, he says, " I see the tree-tops tipped 
with green, and hear the thrush's voice, telHng me 
of old times, and asking me why I keep house, and 
I've no doubt spring is here. So I want to be 
out again, and to greet her as an old friend." And 
presently he was out again, revelling in the spring 
sunshine with his friends, the birds. But this is 
not the intended quotation. Sufficiently recovered 
from this illness for the journey back to Oxford, 
he returned there on May 9th to find the place 
''shaded with its great green trees, and with its 
gray old walls looking almost joyous." It was not, 
however, till two evenings later that he " came in 
for the full benefit of the May aspect of things," as 
he describes it, when he took a long ramble into 
the country to Wytham, and first saw the rich 
pastoral country which surrounds Oxford in its 
summer dress. His account of this walk, written 
(again to the same friend) on May 12th, tells 
forcibly of his appreciation of all country sights and 
sounds. 
"... Your letter arrived yesterday morning," 
he says, "and of course my evening was at once 
laid out for me, and now I come to what I ought 
to have begun with — my ramble of last night. You 
perhaps thought, as it grew dusk, that I was still 
