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.

[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.

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.

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.