[Illustration: Plan of Ruskin's room]
Here's your letter first thing in the morning, while I'm sipping my
coffee in the midst of such confusion as I've not often achieved at my
best. The little room, which I think is as nearly as possible the size
of your study, but with a lower roof, has to begin with--A, my bed;
B, my basin stand; C, my table; D, my chest of drawers; thus arranged
in relation to E, the window (which has still its dark bars to prevent
the little boy getting out); F, the fireplace; G, the golden or
mineralogical cupboard; and H, the grand entrance. The two dots with a
back represent my chair, which is properly solid and not _un_-easy.
Three others of lighter disposition find place somewhere about. These
with the chimney-piece and drawer's head are covered, or rather
heaped, with all they can carry, and the morning is just looking in,
astonished to see what is expected of it, and smiling--(yes, I may
fairly say it is smiling, for it is cloudless for its part above the
smoke of the horizon line)--at Sarah's hope and mine, of ever getting
that room into order by twelve o'clock. The chimney-piece with its
bottles, spoons, lozenge boxes, matches, candlesticks, and letters
jammed behind them, does appear to me entirely hopeless, and this the
more because Sarah,[45] when I tell her to take a bottle away that has
a mixture in it which I don't like, looks me full in the face, and
says "she _won't_, because I may want it." I submit, because it is
so nice to get Sarah to look one full in the face. She really is the
prettiest, round faced, and round eyed girl I ever saw, and it's a
great shame she should be a housemaid; only I wish she would take
those bottles away. She says I'm looking better to-day, and I think
I'm feeling a little bit more,--no, I mean, a little bit less
demoniacal. But I still can do that jackdaw beautifully.
[Footnote 45: Our Herne Hill parlor-maid for four years. One of quite
the brightest and handsomest types of English beauty I ever saw,
either in life, or fancied in painting.--J. R.]
* * * * *
I am quite sure you would have felt like Albert Duerer, had you gone on
painting wrens.
The way Nature and Heaven waste the gifts and souls they give and
make, passes all wonder. You might have done anything you chose, only
you were too modest.
No, I never _will_ call you my dear lady; certainly, if it comes to
that, something too dreadful will follow.
* * * * *
I am most interested in your criticism of "Queen Mary." I have not
read it, but the choice of subject is entirely morbid and wrong, and I
am sure all you say must be true. The form of decline which always
comes on mental power of Tennyson's passionately sensual character, is
always of seeing ugly things, a kind of delirium tremens. Turner had
it fatally in his last years.
I am so glad you enjoy writing to me more than any one else. The book
you sent me of Dr. John Brown's on books, has been of extreme utility
to me, and contains matter of the deepest interest. Did you read it
yourself? If not I must lend it to you.
I am so glad also to know of your happiness in Chaucer. Don't hurry in
reading. I will get you an edition for your own, that you may mark it
in peace.
* * * * *
I send you two books, neither I fear very amusing, but on my word, I
think books are always dull when one really most wants them. No, other
people don't feel it as you and I do, nor do the dogs and ponies, but
oughtn't we to be thankful that we _do_ feel it. The thing I fancy we
are both wanting in, is a right power of enjoying the past. What
sunshine there _has_ been even in this sad year! I have seen beauty
enough in one afternoon, not a fortnight ago, to last me for a year if
I could rejoice in memory.
I have a painter friend, Mr. Goodwin, coming to keep me company, and
I'm a little content in this worst of rainy days, in hopes there _may_
be now some clearing for him.
Our little kittens pass the days of their youth up against the wall at
the back of the house, where the heat of the oven comes through. What
an existence! and yet with all my indoor advantages
I am your sorrowful and repining
J. R.
* * * * *
I am entirely grateful for your letter, and for all the sweet feelings
expressed in it, and am entirely reverent of the sorrow which you feel
at my speaking thus. If only all were like you! But the chief sins and
evils of the day are caused by the Pharisees, exactly as in the time
of Christ, and "they make broad their phylacteries" in the same way,
the Bible superstitiously read, becoming the authority for every error
and heresy and cruelty. To make its readers understand that the God of
their own day is as living, and as able to speak to them directly as
ever in the days of Isaiah and St. John, and that He would now send
messages to His Seven Churches, if the Churches would hear, needs
stronger words than any I have yet dared to use, against the idolatry
of the historical record of His messages long ago, perverted by men's
forgetfulness, and confused by mischance and misapprehension; and if
instead of the Latin form "Scripture" we put always "writing" instead
of "written" or "write" in one place, and "Scripture" as if it meant
our English Bible, in another, it would make such a difference to our
natural and easy understanding the range of texts.
The peacock's feathers are marvelous. I am very glad to see them. I
never had any of their downy ones before. My compliments to the bird,
upon them, please.
I found a strawberry growing just to please itself, as red as a ruby,
high up on Yewdale crag yesterday, in a little corner of rock all its
own; so I left it to enjoy itself. It seemed as happy as a lamb, and
no more meant to be eaten.
Yes, those are all sweetest bits from Chaucer (the pine new to me);
your own copy is being bound. And all the Richard,--but you must not
copy out the Richard bits, for I like all my Richard alike from
beginning to end. Yes, my "seed pearl" bit is pretty, I admit; it was
like the thing. The cascades here, I'm afraid, come down more like
seed oatmeal.
* * * * *
I believe in my hasty answer to your first kind letter I never noticed
what you said about Aristophanes. If you will indeed send me some
notes of the passages that interest you in the "Birds," it will not
only be very pleasant to me, but quite seriously useful, for the
"Birds" have always been to me so mysterious in that comedy, that I
have never got the good of it which I know is to be had. The careful
study of it put off from day to day, was likely enough to fall into
the great region of my despair, unless you had chanced thus to remind
me of it.
Please, if another chance of good to me come in your way, in another
brown spotty-purple peacock's feather, will you yet send it to me, and
I will be always your most grateful and faithful