But neither is this my friend Annabel Lee. For she is more fascinating still, and her castle is even taller, and a deeper red—and more than all she is herself.
[XIX
THE ART OF CONTEMPLATION]
YESTERDAY my friend Annabel Lee and I sat comfortably opposite each other at a small table, eating our luncheon. She was very fair and good-natured—and we had tiny broiled fish, and some tea with slices of lemon in it, and bread, and green lettuce sprinkled over with vinegar and oil and red pepper, and two mugs of ale.
“Food is a lovely thing, don’t you think?” said I.
“One of the best ever invented,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “Have you considered how much would be gone from life if there were no food, and if we had not to eat three times every day?”
“Yes, I’ve considered it,” I replied, “and it’s a pleasure that never palls.”
“It is so much more than pleasure,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “It is a necessity and an art and a relaxation and an unburdening—and, dear me, it brings one up to the level of kings or of the beasts that perish.
“I have fancied,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “a deal table set three times every day under a beautiful yew-tree in a far country. The yew-tree would be in a pasture where cattle are grazing, and always when I sat eating at the deal table the cows would stand about watching me. Sometimes on the deal table there would be brown bread and honey; sometimes there would be salt and cantaloupe; sometimes there would be lettuce with vinegar and pepper and oil; sometimes there would be whole-wheat bread and curds and cream in a brown earthen dish; sometimes there would be walnuts and figs; sometimes there would be two little broiled fish; sometimes there would be peaches; sometimes there would be flat white biscuits and squares of brown fudge; sometimes there would be bread and cheese; sometimes there would be olives and Scotch bannocks; sometimes there would be a blue delft pot of chocolate and an egg; sometimes there would be tea and scones; sometimes there would be plum-cake; sometimes there would be bread and radishes; sometimes there would be wine and olives; sometimes there would be a strawberry tart.