_20th January, 1879._
You will not doubt the extreme sorrow with which I have heard of all
that was ordered to be, of terrible, in your peaceful and happy
household. Without for an instant supposing, but, on the contrary,
utterly refusing to admit, that such calamities[27] may be used to
point a moral (all useful morality having every point that God meant
it to have, perfectly sharp and bright without any burnishing of
_ours_), still less to adorn a tale (the tales of modern days
depending far too much upon Scythian decoration with Death's heads),
I, yet, if I had been Mr. Chapman, would have pointed out that all
concealments, even of trivial matters, on the part of young servants
from kind mistresses, are dangerous no less than unkind and
ungenerous, and that a great deal of preaching respecting the evil
nature of man and the anger of God might be spared, if children and
servants were only taught, as a religious principle, to tell their
mothers and mistresses, when they go out, exactly where they are going
and what they are going to do. I think both you and Miss Susan ought
to use every possible means of changing, or at least checking, the
current of such thoughts in your minds; and I am in hopes that you may
have a little pleasure in examining the plates in the volume of
Sibthorpe's "F. Graeca" which I send to-day, in comparison with those
of "F. Danica." The vulgarity and lifelessness of Sibthorpe's plates
are the more striking because in mere execution they are the more
elaborate of the two; the chief point in the "F. Danica" being the
lovely artistic skill. The drawings for Sibthorpe, by a young German,
were as exquisite as the Dane's, but the English engraver and colorist
spoiled all.
I will send you, if you like them, the other volumes in succession. I
find immense interest in comparing the Greek and Danish forms or
conditions of the same English flower.
I send the second volume, in which the Rufias are lovely, and scarcely
come under my above condemnation. The _first_ is nearly all of grass.
[Footnote 27: One of our younger servants had gone on to the frozen
lake; the ice gave way, and she was drowned.--S. B.]
* * * * *
BRANTWOOD, _4th February_ (1879).
You know I'm getting my Oxford minerals gradually to Brantwood, and
whenever a box comes, I think whether there are any that I don't want
myself, which might yet have leave to live on Susie's table. And
to-day I've found a very soft purple agate, that looks as if it were
nearly melted away with pity for birds and flies, which is like
Susie; and another piece of hard wooden agate with only a little
ragged sky of blue here and there, which is like me; and a group of
crystals with grass of Epidote inside, which is like what my own
little cascade has been all the winter by the garden side; and so I've
had them all packed up, and I hope you will let them live at the
Thwaite.
Then here are some more bits, if you will be a child. Here's a green
piece, long, of the stone they cut those green weedy brooches out of,
and a nice mouse-colored natural agate, and a great black and white
one, stained with sulphuric acid, black but very fine always, and
interesting in its lines.
Oh dear, the cold; but it's worth _any_ cold to have that delicious
Robin dialogue. Please write some more of it; you hear all they say,
I'm sure.
I cannot tell you how delighted I am with your lovely gift to Joanie.
The perfection of the stone, its exquisite color, and superb weight,
and flawless clearness, and the delicate cutting, which makes the
light flash from it like a wave of the Lake, make it altogether the
most perfect mineralogical and heraldic jewel that Joanie could be
bedecked with, and it is as if Susie had given her a piece of Coniston
Water itself.
And the setting is delicious, and positively must not be altered. I
shall come on Sunday to thank you myself for it. Meantime I'm working
hard at the Psalter, which I am almost sure Susie will like.
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