What a sad little letter! written in that returned darkness. How can
_you_ ever be sad, looking forward to eternal life with all whom you
love, and God over all?
It is only so far as I lose hold of that hope, that anything is ever a
trial to me. But I can't think how I'm to get on in a world with no
Venice in it.
You were quite right in thinking I would have nothing to do with
lawyers. Not one of them shall ever have so much as a crooked sixpence
of mine, to save him from being hanged, or to save the Lakes from
being filled up. But I really hope there may be feeling enough in
Parliament to do a right thing without being deafened with lawyers'
slang.
I have never thanked you for the snowdrops. They bloomed here
beautifully for four days. Then I had to leave them to go and lecture
in London. It was nice to see them, but my whole mind is set on
finding whether there is a country where the flowers do not fade. Else
there is no spring for me. People liked the lecture, and so many more
wanted to come than could get in, that I had to promise to give
another.
* * * * *
Here's your little note first of all. And if you only knew how my
wristbands are plaguing me you'd be very sorry. They're too much
starched, and _would_ come down like mittens; and now I've turned
them up, they're just like two horrid china cups upside down, inside my
coat, and I'm afraid to write for fear of breaking them. And I've a
week's work on the table, to be done before one o'clock, on pain of
uproar from my friends, execution from my enemies, reproach from my
lovers, triumph from my haters, despair of Joanie, and--what from
Susie? I've had such a bad night, too; woke at half-past three and
have done a day's work since then--composing my lecture for March, and
thinking what's to become of a godson of mine whose----
Well, never mind. I needn't give _you_ the trouble, poor little
Susie, of thinking too.
* * * * *
I'm going to Oxford to-day (D.V.), really quite well, and rather
merry. I went to the circus with my new pet, and saw lovely riding and
ball play; and my pet said the only drawback to it all, was that she
couldn't sit on both sides of me. And then I went home to tea with
her, and gave mamma, who is Evangelical, a beautiful lecture on the
piety of dramatic entertainments, which made her laugh whether she
would or no; and then I had my Christmas dinner in advance with Joanie
and Arfie and Stacy Marks, and his wife and two pretty daughters, and
I had six kisses--two for Christmas, two for New Year's Day, and two
for Twelfth Night--and everybody was in the best humor with everybody
else. And now my room is ankle deep in unanswered letters, mostly on
business, and I'm going to shovel them up and tie them in a parcel
labeled "Needing particular attention;" and then that will be put into
a cupboard in Oxford, and I shall feel that everything's been done in
a business-like way.
That badger's beautiful. I don't think there's any need for such
beasts as _that_ to turn Christians.
* * * * *
I am indeed most thankful you are well again, though I never looked on
that deafness very seriously; but if you _like_ hearing watches tick,
and boots creak, and plates clatter, so be it to you, for many and
many a year to come. I think I should _so_ like to be deaf, mostly,
not expected to answer anybody in society, never startled by a bang,
never tortured by a railroad whistle, never hearing the nasty cicadas
in Italy, nor a child cry, nor an owl. Nothing but a nice whisper into
my ear, by a pretty girl. Ah well, I'm very glad I can chatter to you
with my weak voice, to my heart's content; and you must come and see
me soon now. All that you say of "Proserpina" is joyful to me. What a
Susie you are, drawing like that! and I'm sure you know Latin better
than I do.
* * * * *
I am better, but not right yet. There is no fear of sore throat, I
think, but some of prolonged tooth worry. It is more stomachic than
coldic, I believe, and those tea cakes are too crisply seductive! What
_can_ it be, that subtle treachery that lurks in tea cakes, and is
wholly absent in the rude honesty of toast?
The metaphysical effect of tea cake last night was, that I had a
perilous and weary journey in a desert, in which I had to dodge
hostile tribes round the corners of pyramids.
A very sad letter from Joanie tells me she was going to Scotland last
night, at which I am not only very sorry but very cross.
A chirping cricket on the hearth advises me to keep my heart up.
* * * * *
Your happy letters (with the sympathetic misery of complaint of dark
days) have cheered me as much as anything could do.
The sight of one of my poor "Companions of St. George," who has sent
me, not a widow's but a parlor-maid's (an old school-mistress) "all
her living," and whom I found last night, dying, slowly and quietly,
in a damp room, just the size of your study (which her landlord won't
mend the roof of), by the light of a single tallow candle--dying, I
say, _slowly_, of consumption, not yet near the end, but
contemplating it with sorrow, mixed partly with fear, lest she should
not have done all she could for her children!
The sight of all this and my own shameful comforts, three wax candles
and blazing fire and dry roof, and Susie and Joanie for friends!
Oh me, Susie, what _is_ to become of me in the next world, who
have in this life all my good things!
* * * * *
What a sweet, careful, tender letter this is! I re-inclose it at once
for fear of mischief, though I've scarcely read, for indeed my eyes
are weary, but I see what gentle mind it means.
Yes, you will love and rejoice in your Chaucer more and more. Fancy,
I've never time, now, to look at him,--obliged to read even my Homer
and Shakespeare at a scramble, half missing the sense,--the business
of life disturbs one so.
* * * * *