“All the visitors have gone; Mount Rorke and I are quite alone. He is
kindness itself, and does not bother me about his memoirs; but from what
I hear that book will make one of the biggest sensations ever made in
the literary world. I want him to publish it now, but he only smiles and
shakes his head. He says: 'What is the use of setting the world talking
about you when you are alive; as long as I am alive I can see those
I want to see, and be with them far more personally than I could by
placing in their hands three volumes in 8vo; the 8vos are only useful
when you have passed into darkness, and are not yet reconciled to dying
quite out of the minds of men. I do not desire to be remembered by those
who will live three hundred years hence, but I confess that I should
like to modulate the pace of forgetfulness according to my fancy, and be
remembered, let us say, for the next sixty or seventy years. I find
no fault with death but its abruptness, and that I hope to be able to
correct. The vulgar and most usual plan is children, but children are no
anodyne to oblivion, whereas a good book in a certain measure is.'
“These are almost the words Mount Rorke used, and I quote them as
exactly as possible, so that you may see what kind of man he is. We
pulled our chairs round to the fire and had a real good talk. I know
no better company than Mount Rorke. He has seen everything, read
everything, and known everybody worth knowing; he is a mine of
information, and, what is far better, he is a complete man of the world;
and long contact with the world has left him a little cynical, otherwise
he is perfect. I told him the story about Berkins, and he laughed;
I never saw him laugh so before; and when I told him that I had told
Berkins, as he was tying up his leg, that so far as the incident with
the dog was concerned, I regretted deeply what had occurred, he could
not contain himself. He rang the bell, and we had old Triss up. He asked
a great deal about you; I leave you to imagine what I said. How did he
expect me to describe my darling? I told him of your subtle, fascinating
ways, of your picturesque attitudes, and your exquisite little black
eyes. 'I think I see her,' he said; 'little eyes that light up are
infinitely more interesting than those big, limpid, silly eyes that
everybody admires.' I am now doing a water-colour sketch from the
photograph--the one in which you stand with your hands behind your back
and your head on one side--for him. I am getting on with it pretty well.
Ah! if only I had you here for an hour (I should like to have you here
for ever, of course; but now I am speaking artistically, not humanly),
I think I could get it really like you; there are one or two things
that the photo does not give me. I shall send the sketch to Dublin to be
framed; it will be a nice present for Mount Rorke.
“My darling, you must not be anxious; all will come right in time--have
a little patience. He is already much more reconciled to the match than
he was when I arrived, and if your father will refrain from speaking too
much about that hateful question, I am sure that all difficulties can be
surmounted.”
She wrote to him three or four times a week, and on beautiful hand-made
paper, delicately scented.