We are safe arrived at our cottage, which is more beautiful than I
thought it, and more convenient. It is a perfect model for cottages,
and I think for palaces of magnificence, only enlarging not altering
its proportions, and adding ornaments and not principles. Nothing
can be more grand than its simplicity and usefulness. Simple without
intricacy, it seems to be the spontaneous expression of humanity,
congenial to the wants of man. No other formed house can ever please
me so well, nor shall I ever be persuaded, I believe, that it can be
improved either in beauty or use.
Mr. Hayley received us with his usual brotherly affection. I have
begun to work. Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is
more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden
gates: her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial
inhabitants are more distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly
seen; and my cottage is also a shadow of their houses. My wife and
sister are both well, courting Neptune for an embrace.
Our journey was very pleasant; and though we had a great deal of
luggage, no grumbling. All was cheerfulness and good humour on the
road, and yet we could not arrive at our cottage before half-past
eleven at night, owing to the necessary shifting of our luggage from
one chaise to another; for we had seven different chaises and as many
different drivers. We set out between six and seven in the morning of
Thursday, with sixteen heavy boxes and portfolios full of prints.
And now begins a new life, because another covering of earth is
shaken off. I am more famed in heaven for my works than I could well
conceive. In my brain are studies and chambers filled with books and
pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages of eternity
before my mortal life; and those works are the delight and study of
archangels. Why then should I be anxious about the riches or fame of
mortality? The Lord our Father will do for us and with us according to
His divine will, for our good.
You, O dear Flaxman! are a sublime archangel,--my friend and companion
from eternity. In the divine bosom is our dwelling-place. I look back
into the regions of reminiscence, and behold our ancient days before
this earth appeared in its vegetated mortality to my mortal vegetated
eyes. I see our houses of eternity which can never be separated,
though our mortal vehicles should stand at the remotest corners of
heaven from each other.
Farewell, my best friend! Remember me and my wife in love and
friendship to our dear Mrs. Flaxman, whom we ardently desire to
entertain beneath our thatched roof of rusted gold.