Often during those visits to the Thwaite which have grown to be the
best-spent hours of my later years, I have urged my dear friend Miss
Beever to open to the larger world the pleasant paths of this her
Garden Inclosed. The inner circle of her friends knew that she had a
goodly store of Mr. Ruskin's letters, extending over many years. She
for her part had long desired to share with others the pleasure these
letters had given her, but she shrank from the fatigue of selecting
and arranging them. It was, therefore, with no small feeling of
satisfaction that I drove home from the Thwaite one day in February
last with a parcel containing nearly two thousand of these treasured
letters. I was gladdened also by generous permission, both from
Brantwood and the Thwaite, to choose what I liked best for
publication. The letters themselves are the fruit of the most
beautiful friendship I have ever been permitted to witness, a
friendship so unique in some aspects of it, so sacred in all, that I
may only give it the praise of silence. I count myself happy to have
been allowed to throw open to all wise and quiet souls the portals of
this Armida's Garden, where there are no spells save those woven by
love, and no magic save that of grace and kindliness. Here my pleasant
share in this little book would have ended, but Mr. Ruskin has desired
me to add a few words, giving my own description of Susie, and
speaking of my relationship to them both. To him I owe the guidance of
my life,--all its best impulses, all its worthiest efforts; to her
some of its happiest hours, and the blessings alike of incentive and
reproof. In reading over Mr. Ruskin's Preface, I note that, either by
grace of purpose or happy chance, he has left me one point untouched
in our dear friend's character. Her letters inserted here give some
evidence of it, but I should like to place on record how her intense
delight in sweet and simple things has blossomed into a kind of mental
frolic and dainty wit, so that even now in the calm autumn of her
days, her friends are not only lessoned by her ripened wisdom, but
cheered and recreated by her quaint and sprightly humor.
In the Royal Order of Gardens, as Bacon puts it, there was always a
quiet resting-place called the Pleasaunce; there the daisies grew
unchecked, and the grass was ever the greenest. Such a Pleasaunce do
these Letters seem to me. Here and there, indeed, there are shadows on
the grass, but no shadow ever falls between the two dear friends who
walk together hand in hand along its pleasant paths. So may they walk
in peace till they stand at the gate of another Garden, where
"Co' fiori eterni, eterno il frutto dura."
A. F.
NEAUM CRAG,
LOUGHRIGG,
AMBLESIDE.