I've sent for, and hope to get him for you. He was shot before he had
done half his Psalter--His sister finished it, but very meanly in
comparison, you can tell the two hands on the harp at a mile off.
The photograph--please say--like all photos whatsoever, is only
nature dirtied and undistanced.--If that is all one wants in
trees,--they might be dead all the year round.
* * * * *
_25th May_ (1879).
This is a most wonderful stone that Dr. Kendall has found--at least to
_me_. I have never seen anything quite like it, the arborescent forms
of the central thread of iron being hardly ever assumed by an ore of
so much metallic luster. I think it would be very desirable to cut it,
so as to get a perfectly smooth surface to show the arborescent forms;
if Dr. Kendall would like to have it done, I can easily send it up to
London with my own next parcel.
I want very much to know exactly where it was found; might I come and
ask about it on Dr. Kendall's next visit to you? I could be there
waiting for him any day.
What lovely pictures you would have made in the old butterfly times,
of opal and felspar! What lost creatures we all are, we nice ones! The
Alps and clouds that _I_ could have done, if I had been shown how.
* * * * *
_27th June_ (1879).
Everybody's gone! and I have all the new potatoes, and all the
asparagus, and all the oranges and everything, and my Susie too, all
to myself.
I wrote in my diary this morning that really on the whole I never felt
better in my life. Mouth, eyes, head, feet, and fingers all fairly in
trim; older than they were, yes, but if the head and heart grow wiser,
they won't want feet or fingers some day.
And I'll come to be cheered and scolded myself the moment I've got
things a little to rights here. I think imps get into the shelves and
drawers, if they're kept long locked, and must be caught like mice.
The boys have been very good, and left everything untouched; but the
imps; and to hear people say there aren't any! How happy you and I
should always be if it weren't for them!
How gay you were and how you cheered me up after the dark lake.
Please say "John Inglesant" is harder than real history and of no
mortal use. I couldn't read four pages of it. Clever, of course.
* * * * *
HERNE HILL, _14th August, 1880_.
I've _just_ finished my Scott paper:[28] but it has retouchings and
notings yet to do. I couldn't write a word before; haven't so much as
a syllable to Diddie, and only a move at chess to Macdonald, for, you
know, to keep a chess player waiting for a move is like keeping St.
Lawrence unturned.
[Footnote 28: "Fiction Fair and Foul", No. 3.]
* * * * *
_21st August, 1880._
I'm leaving to-day for Dover, and a line from you to-morrow or Monday
would find me certainly at Poste Restante, Abbeville.
I have not been working at all, but enjoying myself (only that takes
up time all the same) at Crystal Palace concerts, and jugglings, and
at Zoological Gardens, where I had a snake seven feet long to play
with, only I hadn't much time to make friends, and it rather wanted to
get away all the time. And I gave the hippopotamus _whole_ buns, and
he was delighted, and saw the cormorant catch fish thrown to him six
yards off; never missed one; you would have thought the fish ran along
a wire up to him and down his throat. And I saw the penguin swim under
water, and the sea lions sit up, four of them on four wooden chairs,
and catch fish also; but they missed sometimes and had to flop off
their chairs into the water and then flop out again and flop up
again.
And I lunched with Cardinal Manning, and he gave me _such_ a
plum pie. I never tasted a Protestant pie to touch it.
* * * * *
Now you're just wrong about my darling Cardinal. See what it is to be
jealous! He gave me lovely soup, roast beef, hare and currant jelly,
puff pastry like Papal pretensions--you had but to breathe on it and
it was nowhere--raisins and almonds, and those lovely preserved
cherries like kisses kept in amber. And told me delicious stories all
through lunch. _There_!
And we really do see the sun here! And last night the sky was all a
spangle and delicate glitter of stars, the glare of them and spikiness
softened off by a young darling of a moon.
* * * * *
AMIENS, _29th August, 1880_.
You have been made happy doubtless with us by the news from Herne
Hill. I've only a telegram yet though, but write at once to
congratulate you on your little goddaughter.
Also to say that I am very well, and sadly longing for Brantwood; but
that I am glad to see some vestige of beloved things here, once more.
We have glorious weather, and I am getting perfect rest most of the
day--mere saunter in the sunny air, taking all the good I can of it.
To-morrow we get (D.V.) to Beauvais, where perhaps I may find a letter
from Susie; in any case you may write to Hotel Meurice, Paris.
The oleanders are coming out and geraniums in all cottage windows, and
golden corn like Etruscan jewelry over all the fields.
* * * * *
BEAUVAIS, _3d September, 1880_.
We are having the most perfect weather I ever saw in France, much less
anywhere else, and I'm taking a thorough rest, writing scarcely
anything and sauntering about old town streets all day.
I made a little sketch of the lake from above the Waterhead which goes
everywhere with me, and it is so curious when the wind blows the leaf
open when I am sketching here at Beauvais, where all is so differently
delightful, as if we were on the other side of the world.
I think I shall be able to write some passages about architecture yet,
which Susie will like. I hear of countless qualities being discovered
in the new little Susie! And all things will be happy for me if you
send me a line to Hotel Meurice saying _you_ are happy too.
* * * * *
PARIS, _4th September_ (1880).
I have all your letters, and rejoice in them; though it is a little
sadder for you looking at empty Brantwood, than for me to fancy the
bright full Thwaite, and then it's a great shame that I've everything
to amuse me, and lovely Louvres and shops and cathedrals
and coquettes and pictures and plays and prettinesses of every color
and quality, and you've only your old, old hills and quiet lake. Very
thankful I shall be to get back to them, though.
We have finished our Paris this afternoon, and hope to leave for
Chartres on Monday.
* * * * *
HOTEL DE MEURICE, PARIS,
_4th September_ (1880).
Is it such pain to you when people say what they ought not to say
about _me_? But when do they say what they ought to say about
anything? Nearly everything I have ever done or said is as much above
the present level of public understanding as the Old Man is above the
Waterhead.
We have had the most marvelous weather thus far, and have seen Paris
better than ever I've seen it yet,--and to-day at the Louvre we saw
the Casette of St. Louis, the Coffre of Anne of Austria, the porphyry
vase, made into an eagle, of an old Abbe Segur, or some such name. All
these you can see also, you know, in those lovely photographs of Miss
Rigbye's, if you can only make out in this vile writing of mine what I
mean.
But it is so hot. I can scarcely sit up or hold the pen, but tumble
back into the chair every half minute and unbutton another button of
waistcoat, and gasp a little, and nod a little, and wink a little, and
sprinkle some eau de Cologne a little, and try a little to write a
little, and forget what I had to say, and where I was, and whether
it's Susie or Joan I'm writing to; and then I see some letters I've
never opened that came by this morning's post, and think I'd better
open them perhaps; and here I find in one of them a delightful account
of the quarrel that goes on in this weather between the nicest
elephant in the Zoo' and his keeper, because he won't come out of his
bath. I saw them at it myself, when I was in London, and saw the
elephant take up a stone and throw it hard against a door which the
keeper was behind,--but my friend writes, "I _must_ believe from what
I saw that the elephant knew he would injure the man with the stones,
for he threw them hard to the _side_ of him, and then stood his
ground; when, however, he threw water and wetted the man, he plunged
into the bath to avoid the whip; not fearing punishment when he merely
showed what he could do and did not."
The throwing the stone hard at the door when the keeper was on the
other side of it, must have been great fun for him!
I am so sorry to have crushed this inclosed scrawl. It has been
carried about in my pocket to be finished, and I see there's no room
for the least bit of love at the bottom. So here's a leaf full from
the Bois de Boulogne, which is very lovely; and we drive about by
night or day, as if all the sky were only the roof of a sapphire
palace set with warm stars.
* * * * *
CHARTRES, _8th September_ (1880).
(_Hotel du Grande Monarque._)
I suppose _I'm_ the grand Monarque! I don't know of any other going
just now, but I don't feel quite the right thing without a wig.
Anyhow, I'm having everything my own way just now,--weather, dinner,
news from Joanie and news from Susie, only I don't like her to be so
very, very sad, though it _is_ nice to be missed so tenderly. But
I do hope you will like to think of my getting some joy in old ways
again, and once more exploring old streets and finding forgotten churches.
The sunshine is life and health to me, and I am gaining knowledge
faster than ever I could when I was young.
This is just to say where I am, and that you might know where to
write.
The cathedral here is the grandest in France, and I stay a week at
least.
* * * * *