[T]he feature of the large porte-cochère or carriage doorway is certainly sufficient in itself, were there no other dissimilarities, to attract even the most unobservant eye. […] The fact, however, of the porte-cochère taking up so much of the ground-floor is often most ingeniously compensated by making the space to the right or left of the doorway, as the case may be, into an excellent shop. […] [T]he yard at the back into which the porte-cochère opens has planned around it the stables and coach-house, an admirable arrangement of which we have more than once spoken in these columns.

Then, as now, they spent their days walking around the city they love, frequenting favorite restaurants or cooking meals at home, and serving as each other’s creative soundboard.

He has also left a sacrificial ode to the manes of his fever-ridden young friend Liu Tsung-yüan, who had died at his post in Liu-chou in 819, with an offering to the numen of my departed friend, Liu Tzu-hou.

He recommended to me to plant a considerable part of a large moorish farm which I had purchased, and he made several calculations of the expence and profit: for he delighted in exercising his mind on the science of numbers.