"What evil demon moved me to make this collection of 'Poems of
Places'? Could I have foreseen the time it would take, and the worry
and annoyance it would bring with it, I never would have undertaken
it. The worst of it is, I have to write pieces now and then to fill up
gaps."
More and more his old friends grew dear to him as the years passed and
"the goddess Neuralgia," as he called his malady, kept him chiefly at
home. He wrote in 1877:--
"When are you coming back from your Cottage
on the Cliffs? The trees on the Common and the fountains are calling
for you.
"'Thee, Tityrus, even the pine-trees,
The very fountains, the very
Copses are calling.'