Thus, almost
at once, pecuniary embarrassments passed for ever out of his life.
Here is his own epilogue to the time at Claygate, and his
anticipations of the future in Edinburgh.
' . . . . The dear old house at Claygate is not let and the pretty
garden a mass of weeds. I feel rather as if we had behaved
unkindly to them. We were very happy there, but now that it is
over I am conscious of the weight of anxiety as to money which I
bore all the time. With you in the garden, with Austin in the
coach-house, with pretty songs in the little, low white room, with
the moonlight in the dear room up-stairs, ah, it was perfect; but
the long walk, wondering, pondering, fearing, scheming, and the
dusty jolting railway, and the horrid fusty office with its endless
disappointments, they are well gone. It is well enough to fight
and scheme and bustle about in the eager crowd here [in London] for
a while now and then, but not for a lifetime. What I have now is
just perfect. Study for winter, action for summer, lovely country
for recreation, a pleasant town for talk .
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