* * * * *
_April 14th, 1874._
I sent off such a long letter to you yesterday, my dear friend. Did
you think of your own quotation from Homer, when you told me that
field of yours was full of violets? But where are the four fountains
of _white_ water?--through a meadow full of violets and parsley? How
delicious Calypso's fire of finely chopped cedar! How shall I thank
you for allowing _me_, Susie the little, to _distill_ your writings?
Such a joy and comfort to me--for I shall need much very soon now. I
do so thank and love you for it; I am sure I may say so to _you_. I
rejoice again and again that I have such a friend. May I never love
him less, never prove unworthy of his friendship! How I wanted my
letter, and now it has come, and I have told our Dr. John of your safe
progress so far. I trust you will be kept safe from _everything_ that
might injure you in any way.
The snow has melted away, and this is a really sweet April day and
_ought_ to be enjoyed--if only Susie _could_. But both she and her
dear friend must strive with their grief. When I was a girl--(I was
once)--I used to delight in Pope's Homer. I do believe I rather
enjoyed the killing and slaying, specially the splitting down the
_chine_! But when I tried to read it again not _very_ long ago, I got
tired of this kind of thing. If _you_ had only translated Homer! then
I should have had a feast. When a school-girl, going each day with my
bag of books into Manchester, I used to like Don Quixote and Sir
Charles Grandison with my milk porridge. I must send you only this
short letter to-day. I can see your violet field from this window. How
sweetly the little limpid stream would _tinkle_ to-day; and how the
primroses are sitting listening to it and the little birds sipping it!
I have come to the conclusion that bees go more by _sight_ than by
scent. As I stand by my peacock with his gloriously gorgeous tail all
spread out, a bee comes _right at it_ (very vulgar, but expressive);
and I have an Alpine Primula on this window stone brightly in flower,
and a bee came and alighted, but went away again at once, not finding
the expected honey. I wonder what you do the livelong day, for I know
you and idleness are not acquaintances. I am so sorry your favorite
places are spoiled. But dear Brantwood will grow prettier and prettier
under your care.
* * * * *
_April 9th._
I have just been pleased by seeing a blackbird enjoying with
school-boy appetite, portions of a moistened crust of bread which I
threw out for him and his fellow-creatures. How he dug with his orange
bill!--even more orange than usual perhaps at this season of the year.
At length the robins have built a nest in the ivy in our yard--a very
secure and sheltered place, and a very convenient distance from the
crumb market. Like the old woman _he_ sings with a merry devotion, and
_she_ thinks there never was such music, as she sits upon her eggs; he
comes again and again, with every little dainty that his limited
income allows, and _she_ thinks it all the sweeter because _he_ brings
it to her. Now and then she leaves her nest to stretch her wings, and
to shake off the dust of care, and to prevent her pretty _ankles_
being cramped. But she knows her duty too well to remain absent long
from her precious eggs.
Now another little note from Dr. John, and he actually begins, "My
dear 'Susie,'"--and ends, "Let me hear from you soon. Ever yours
affectionately." Also he says, "It is very kind in you to let me get
at once close to you." The rest of his short letter (like you, he was
busy) is nearly all about _you_, so of course it is interesting to
_me_, and he hopes you are already getting good from the change, and I
indulge the same hope.
* * * * *
_10th April._
Brantwood looked so very nice this morning decorated by the coming
into leaf of the larches. I wish you could have seen them in the
distance as I did: the early sunshine had glanced upon them lighting
up one side, and leaving the other in softest shade, and the tender
green contrasted with the deep browns and grays stood out in a
wonderful way, and the trees looked like spirits of the wood, which
you might think would melt away like the White Lady of Avenel.
Dear sweet April still looks coldly upon us--the month you love so
dearly. Little white lambs are in the fields now, and so much that is
sweet is coming; but there is a shadow over this house _now_; and
also, my dear kind friend is far away. The horse-chestnuts have thrown
away the winter coverings of their buds, and given them to that dear
economical mother earth, who makes such good use of everything, and
works up old materials again in a wonderful way, and is delightfully
unlike most economists,--the very soul of generous liberality. Now
some of your own words, so powerful as they are,--you are speaking of
the Alp and of the "Great Builder"--of your own transientness, as of
the grass upon its sides; and in this very sadness, a sense of strange
companionship with past generations, in seeing what they saw. They
have ceased to look upon it, you will soon cease to look also; and the
granite wall will be for others, etc., etc.
My dear friend, was there ever any one so pathetic as you? And you
have the power of bringing things before one, both to the eye and to
the mind: you do indeed paint with your pen. Now I have a photograph
of you--not a very satisfactory one, but still I am glad to have it,
rather than none. It was done at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Were you in search
of something of Bewick's?
I have just given the squirrel his little _loaf_; (so you see I am a
lady,)[48] he has bounded away with it, full of joy and gladness. I
wish that this were my case and _yours_, for whatever we may wish for,
that we have not. We have a variety and abundance of loaves. I have
asked Dr. J. Brown whether he would like photographs of your house and
the picturesque breakwater. I do so wish that you and he and I did not
suffer so much, but _could_ be at least moderately happy. I am sure
you would be glad if you knew even in this time of sorrow, when all
seems stale, flat, unprofitable, the pleasure and interest I have had
in reading your Vol. 3 ["Modern Painters"]. I study your character in
your writings, and I find so much to elevate, to love, to admire--a
sort of education for my poor old self--and oh! such beauty of thought
and word.
Even yet my birds want so much bread; I do believe the worms are
sealed up in the dry earth, and they have many little mouths to fill
just now--and there is one old blackbird whose devotion to his wife
and children is lovely. I should like him never to die, he is _one_ of
my heroes. And now a dog which calls upon me sometimes at the window,
and I point kitchenwards and the creature knows what I mean, and goes
and gets a good meal. So if I can only make a dog happy (as you do,
only you take yours to live with you, and I cannot do that) it is a
pleasant thing. I do so like to make things happier, and I should like
to put bunches of hay in the fields for the poor horses, for there is
very scant supply of grass, and too many for the supply.
[Footnote 48: See "Fors Clavigera", Letter XLV., and "Sesame and Lilies."]
* * * * *
_1st May._
I cannot longer refrain from writing to you, my dear kind friend, so
often are you in my thoughts. Dearest Joanie has told you, I doubt
not, and I know how sorry you are, and how truly you are feeling for
your poor Susie. So _knowing that_ I will say no more about my sorrow.
There is no need for words. I am wishing, oh, so much, to know how you
are: quite safe and well, I hope, and able to have much real enjoyment
in the many beautiful things by which you are surrounded. May you lay
up a great stock of good health and receive much good in many ways,
and then return to those who so much miss you, and by whom you are so
greatly beloved.
Coniston would go into your heart if you could see it now--so very
lovely, the oak trees so early, nearly in leaf already. Your beloved
blue hyacinths will soon be out, and the cuckoo has come, but it is
long since Susie has been out. She only stands at an open window, but
she must try next week to go into the garden; and she is finding a
real pleasure in making extracts from your writings, _for you_, often
wondering "will he let that remain?" and hoping that he will.
Do you ever send home orders about your Brantwood? I have been
wishing so much that your gardener might be told to mix quantities of
old mortar and soil together, and to fill many crevices in your new
walls with it; then the breezes will bring fern seeds and plant them,
or rather sow them in such fashion as no human being can do. When time
and the showers brought by the west wind have mellowed it a little,
the tiny beginnings of mosses will be there. The sooner this can be
done the better. Do not think Susie presumptuous.
We have hot sun and a _very_ cool air, which I do not at all like.
I hope your visit to Palermo and your lady have been all that you
could wish. Please _do_ write to me; it would do me so much good and
so greatly refresh me.
This poor little letter is scarcely worth sending, only it says that I
am your loving Susie.
* * * * *
_14th May._
MY DEAREST FRIEND,--Your letter yesterday did me so much good, and
though I answered it at once, yet here I am again. A kind woman from
the other side has sent me the loveliest group of drooping and very
tender ferns, soft as of some velvet belonging to the fairies, and of
the most exquisite green, and primroses, and a slender stalked white
flower, and so arranged, that they continually remind me of that
enchanting group of yours in Vol. 3, which you said I might cut out.
What would you have thought of me if I had? Oh, that you would and
could sketch this group--or even that your eye could rest upon it! Now
you will laugh if I ask you whether harpies[49] ever increase in
number? or whether they are only the "old original." They quite
torment me when I open the window, and blow chaff at me. I suppose at
this moment, dearest Joanie is steaming away to Liverpool; one always
wants to know now whether people accomplish a journey safely. When the
blackbirds come for soaked bread, they generally eat a nice little lot
themselves, before carrying any away from the window for their little
ones; but Bobbie, "our little English Robin," has just been twice,
took none for himself, but carries beak-load after beak-load for his
speckled infants. How curious the universal love of bread is; so many
things like and eat it--even flies and snails!
You know you inserted a letter from Jersey about fish.[50]
A lady there tells me that formerly you might have a bucket
of oysters for sixpence and that now you can scarcely get
anything but such coarse kinds of fish as are not liked; and
she has a sister, a sad invalid, to whom fish would be a very
pleasant and wholesome change. This is really a sad state of
things, and _here_ the railways seem very likely to carry away
our butter, and it is now such a price, quite ex[h]orbitant.
Why did I put an _h_ in? Is it to prove the truth of what
you say, that ladies do not spell well? A letter which I once
wrote when a girl was a wonderful specimen of bad spelling.
[Footnote 49: See "Queen of the Air,"]
[Footnote 50: See "Fors Clavigera," Letter XXX.]
* * * * *
_15th May._
I have found such lovely passages in Vol. 1 this morning that I am
delighted, and have begun to copy one of them. You do float in such
beautiful things sometimes that you make me feel I don't know how!
How I thank you for ever having written them, for though late in the
day, they were written for _me_, and have at length reached me!
You are so candid about your age that I shall tell you mine! I am
astonished to find myself sixty-eight--very near the Psalmist's
threescore and ten. Much illness and much sorrow, and then I woke up
to find myself _old_, and as if I had lost a great part of my life.
Let us hope it was not all lost.
I think _you_ can understand me when I say that I have a great fund of
love, and no one to spend it upon, because there are not any to whom
I could give it _fully_, and I love my pets so dearly, but I _dare
not_ and cannot enjoy it fully because--they _die_, or get injured,
and then my misery is intense. I feel as if I could tell _you_ much,
because your sympathy is so refined and so tender and true. Cannot I
be a sort of second mother to you? I am sure the first one was often
praying for blessings for you, and in this, at least, I resemble her.
Am I tiresome writing all this? It just came, and you said I was to
write what did. We have had some nice rain, but followed not by
warmth, but a cruel _east_ wind.
* * * * *