At least the plans are
done and the ground has been pegged out. "Here," he will say, quite
unmindful of the clouds emptying themselves all over us--with all an
enthusiast's disregard for others, and an enthusiast, moreover, who has his
abode close by, full of changes of raiment--"here," setting his foot firmly
in the mud, "is where the dining-room will be. Here," moving away a few
yards through the slush, "is the billiard-room." Then, pointing towards the
zenith with his stick, "Above it"--here you look up into the pitiless sky
as well as the deluge will permit--"are two spare rooms, one of which will
be yours when you come to see us." And so forth.
He then leads the way round the place, through brake fern wetter than
waves, to indicate the position of the tennis-courts, and in course of time
you are allowed to return to the dry and spend the rest of the day in
borrowed clothes.
Everyone knows these Kubla Khans decreeing pleasure domes and enlarging
upon them in advance of the builders, and never are they so eloquent and
unmindful of rain and discomforts as when their listeners are poor and
condemned to a squalid London existence for ever.
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