At the first there was nothing but a queer white house of which the original has fallen to ruins at Rathcoffey in Ireland.

This house stood alone in a wide flat emerald plain that stretched like an untravelled sea to a circle of curving sky.

There was room to build, you see, and when I left Rathcoffey and became a wanderer, the building went on apace.

There are dark lanes there from Avignon between great frowning houses, narrow climbing streets from Meran, arcades from Verona, and a park of many thickets and tall poplar-trees with a long silver stretch of water.

One day you will see that park from the windows of St.James.It has a wall too, my city,--a round wall enclosing it within a perfect circle; and from whatever quarter of the plain you come towards it, you only see this wall, there's not so much as a chimney visible above it.