It is because the removal is such a small affair,
I suppose, and the change is, the main thing. I always do better for
awhile in a new house--but then I always did seem to get on better
somewhere else.
There are many points, or absence of points, about Skull Terrace that
fit in with Jim's casualness as against Bill's character, therefore
Blue's Point Road ought to be James's Street.
But just now, in the heat of summer, the terrace happens to be full,
and all the blinds are decent--the two new-comers are newly come down
to Skull Terrace, and the other blinds are looked up, washed, and
fixed up by force of example or from very shame's sake.
All of which seems to have nothing whatever to do with the story,
except that the scene is down opposite my balcony as I think and
smoke, and it is a blur on one of the most beautiful harbour views in
the world.
I had been working hard all day, mending the fence, putting up a
fowl-house and some lattice work and wire netting, and limewashing and
painting. Labours of love. I'd rather build a fowl-house than a
"pome" or story, any day. And when finished--the fowl-house, I
mean--I sit and contemplate my handiwork with pure and unadulterated
joy. And I take a candle out several times, after dark, to look at it
again. I never got such pleasure out of rhyme, story, or first-class
London Academy notice. I find it difficult to drag myself from the
fowl-house, or whatever it is, to meals, and harder to this work, and
I lie awake planning next day's work until I fall asleep in the sleep
of utter happy weariness.
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