I have had three influenzas: but this is no wonder: for I live in a
hut with walls as thin as a sixpence: windows that don't shut: a clay
soil safe beneath my feet: a thatch perforated by lascivious sparrows
over my head. Here I sit, read, smoke, and become very wise, and am
already quite beyond earthly things. I must say to you, as Basil Montagu
once said, in perfect charity, to his friends: 'You see, my dear fellows,
I like you very much, but I continue to advance, and you remain where you
are (you see), and so I shall be obliged to leave you behind me. It is
no fault of mine.' You must begin to read Seneca, whose letters I have
been reading: else, when you come back to England, you will be no
companion to a man who despises wealth, death, etc. What are pictures
but paintings--what are auctions but sales! All is vanity. Erige animum
tuum, mi Lucili, etc. I wonder whether old Seneca was indeed such a
humbug as people now say he was: he is really a fine writer. About three
hundred years ago, or less, our divines and writers called him the divine
Seneca; and old Bacon is full of him. One sees in him the upshot of all
the Greek philosophy, how it stood in Nero's time, when the Gods had worn
out a good deal. I don't think old Seneca believed he should live again.
Death is his great resource. Think of the _rocococity_ of a gentleman
studying Seneca in the middle of February 1844 in a remarkably damp
cottage.

I have heard from Alfred also, who hates his water life--[Greek text] he
calls it--but hopes to be cured in March. Poor fellow, I trust he may.
He is not in a happy plight, I doubt. I wish I lived in a pleasant
country where he might like to come and stay with me--but this is one of
the ugliest places in England--one of the dullest--it has not the merit
of being bleak on a grand scale--pollard trees over a flat clay, with
regular hedges. I saw a stanza in an old book which seemed to describe
my condition rather--

Far from thy kyn cast thee:
Wrath not thy neighbour next thee,
In a good corn country rest thee,
And sit down, Robin, and rest thee. {152}

Funny advice, isn't it? I am glad to hear Septimus is so much improved.
I beg you will felicitate him from me: I have a tacit regard of the true
sort for him, as I think I must have for all of the Tennyson build. I
see so many little natures about that I must draw to the large, even if
their faults be on the same scale as their virtues.