He could not write letters just them. He was not feeling
sufficiently Rabelaisian. Epicurus was his God for the moment. In a
mood of heathen wistfulness he lit a cigar and leaned back in the chair
trying to recapture his serenity.
It was his favourite corner of the domain--a kind of projecting spur or
platform shaded by a few grandiose umbrella pines. Near at hand, on a
slightly lower level, rose a group of flame--like cypresses whose
shapely outlines stood out against the sea, shining far below like a
lake of pearl. The milky sheen of morning, soon to be dispelled by the
breeze, still hung about the water and distant continent--it trembled
upon the horizon in bands of translucent opal. His eye roved round the
undulating garden, full of sunlight and flowers and buzzing insects.
From a verbena hard by came the liquid song of a blackcap. It gave him
pleasure; he encouraged the blackcaps, delighting in their music and
because they destroyed the spiders whose troublesome webs were apt to
come in contact with his spectacles.
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