To J. H. Reynolds, 21st September, 1819. Winchester

My dear Reynolds;

I was very glad to hear from Woodhouse that you would meet in the Country. I hope you will pass some pleasant time together. I am surprised myself at he pleasure I live alone in. The side streets here are excessively maiden-lady like: the door steps always fresh from the flannel. The knockers have a staid serious, nay almost awful quietness about them.—I never saw so quiet a collection of Lions’ & Rams’ heads—The doors most part black, with a little brass handle just above the keyhole, so that in Winchester a man may very quietly shut himself out of his house. How beautiful the season is now—how fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather—Dian skies—I never liked stubble fields so much as now—Aye better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow a stubble plain looks warm—in the same way that some pictures look warm—this struck me so much in my Sunday’s walk that I am composed of it.