to sleep, I know I shall see before them--a
phenomenon to which both Fanny and I are quite accustomed--endless vivid
deeps of grass and weed, each plant particular and distinct, so that I
shall lie inert in body, and transact for hours the mental part of my
day business, choosing the noxious from the useful. And in my dreams I
shall be hauling on recalcitrants, and suffering stings from nettles,
stabs from citron thorns, fiery bites from ants, sickening resistances
of mud and slime, evasions of slimy roots, dead weight of heat, sudden
puffs of air, sudden starts from bird-calls in the contiguous
forest--some mimicking my name, some laughter, some the signal of a
whistle, and living over again at large the business of my day.

Though I write so little, I pass all my hours of field-work in continual
converse and imaginary correspondence. I scarce pull up a weed, but I
invent a sentence on the matter to yourself; it does not get written;
_autant en emportent les vents_; but the intent is there, and for me (in
some sort) the companionship. To-day, for instance, we had a great talk.
I was toiling, the sweat dripping from my nose, in the hot fit after a
squall of rain: methought you asked me--frankly, was I happy. Happy
(said I); I was only happy once; that was at Hyeres; it came to an end
from a variety of reasons, decline of health, change of place, increase
of money, age with his stealing steps; since then, as before then, I
know not what it means. But I know pleasure still; pleasure with a
thousand faces, and none perfect, a thousand tongues all broken, a
thousand hands, and all of them with scratching nails. High among these
I place this delight of weeding out here alone by the garrulous water,
under the silence of the high wood, broken by incongruous sounds of
birds. And take my life all through, look at it fore and back, and
upside down,--though I would very fain change myself--I would not change
my circumstances, unless it were to bring you here. And yet God knows
perhaps this intercourse of writing serves as well; and I wonder, were
you here indeed, would I commune so continually with the thought of you.
I say "I wonder" for a form; I know, and I know I should not.

So far, and much further, the conversation went, while I groped in slime
after viscous roots, nursing and sparing little spears of grass, and
retreating (even with outcry) from the prod of the wild lime. I wonder
if any one had ever the same attitude to N