... We have another "dogue."... _Trouvé_ is the name of Hector's

successor. 'Cos for why, we found him locked up in one of the barrack

rooms, when I was with Rex on one of his inspections. He is a "left

behind" either of the 1st Battalion 22nd, or the 4th Battalion 60th

Rifles, we do not know which. He has utterly taken to us, and is

especially fond of me I think. He is a big, black fellow, between a

Newfoundland and a retriever. In the "Sweep" line, but not so big. He

is wonderfully graceful and well-mannered (barring a trifling incident

yesterday, when he got into my little cupboard, ate about two pounds

of cheese and all the rolls, and _snuffed_ the butter). And another

trifling occurrence to-day. We chained him to the sofa, which, during

our absence, he _dragged_ (exactly as the dogs dragged _Mons. Jabot's

bed_) across the room, upset the ink on to the carpet, threw my

photo-book down by it, and established himself in Rex's arm-chair. It

was most ludicrous, for the other day he slipped his collar, and

_chose the sofa_ to lie on, but because he was tied to the sofa, with

full permission to use it, he chose the chair! and must nearly have

lugged his own head off. He does wonderfully little damage with his

pranks; there were wine-glasses, bottles, pickles, &c., in the

cupboard when he got the cheese; but he extracted his supper as

daintily as a cat, and not a thing was upset! Oddly enough, when we

are with him, he never thinks of getting into cushions and chairs like

that blessed old sybarite the Bull-dogue. But if we leave him tied up,

he plays old gooseberry with the furniture. I had been fearing it

would be rather a practical difficulty in the way of his adoption, the

question of where he should sleep; but he solved it for himself. He

walks up-stairs after us, flops on to the floor, gives two or three

sighs, and goes gracefully to sleep.... I wish you could have seen him

lying in perverse dignity in the arm-chair, with the sofa attached to

the end of his chain like a locket!!!

To H.K.F.G.

12th Sunday after Trinity.

_Fredericton, N.B._ August 16, 1869.

... We had a great scene with Peter yesterday. Rex has two guns, you

must know--a rifle, and an old fowling-piece--good enough in its way,

but awfully _old-fashioned_ (not a breech-loader), and he determined

to make old Peter a present of this, for he is a good old fellow, and

does not _cheat_ one, and we had resolved to give him something, and

we knew this would delight him. I wish you _could_ have seen him. He

burst out laughing, and laughed at intervals from pure pleasure, and

went away with it laughing. But with the childlike _enjoyment_ (which

negroes have also), the Indians have a power and grace in "expressing

their sentiments" on such an occasion which far exceeds the attempts

of our "poor people," and is most dignified. His first _speech_ was

an emphatic (and _always slow_) "_Too_ good! Too much!" and when Rex

assured him it was very old, not worth anything, etc., etc., he

hastily interrupted him with a _thoroughly_ gentlemanlike air, almost

Grandisonian, "Oh! oh! as good as new to me. Quite as good as new."

They were like two Easterns! For not to be outdone in courtesy, Rex

warned him not to put too large charges of powder for fear the barrel

should burst--being so old. A caution which I believe to be totally

unnecessary, and a mere hyperbole of depreciation--as Peter seemed

perfectly to understand! He told me it was "The first present I ever

receive from a gentleman. Well--well--I never forget it, the longest

day I live." The graceful candour with which he said, "I am very

thankful to you," was quite pretty.

TO MRS. GATTY.

[_Aldershot._] February 23, 1870.

MY DARLING MOTHER,

I was by no means sensible of your iniquities in not acknowledging my

poor Neck,[35] for I had entirely forgotten his very existence! Only I

was thinking it was a long time since I heard from you--and hoping you

were not ill. I am _very_ glad you like the Legend--I was doubtful, and

rather anxious to hear till I forgot all about it. The "Necks" are

Scandinavian in locality, and that desire for immortal life which is

their distinguishing characteristic is very touching. There is one

lovely little (real) Legend in Keightley. The bairns of a Pastor play

with a Neck one day, and falling into disputes they taunt him that he

will never be saved--on which he flings away his harp and weeps

bitterly. When the boys tell their father he reproves them for their

want of charity, and sends them back to unsay what they had said. So

they run back and say, "Dear Neck, do not grieve so; for our father says

that your Redeemer liveth also," on which the Neck was filled with joy,

and sat on a wave and played till the sun went down. He appeared like a

boy with long fair hair and a red cap. They also appear in the form of a

little old man wringing out his beard into the water. I ventured to give

my Neck both shapes according to his age. All the rest is _de

moi-même_....

[Footnote 35: The Neck in "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales."]

[_Aldershot._] March 22, 1870.

MY DARLING MOTHER,

I am so very much pleased that you think better of Benjy[36] now. As I

have plenty of time, I mean to go through it, and soften Benjy down a

bit. He is an awful boy, and I think I can make him less repulsive.

The fact is the story was written _in fragments_, and I was anxious to

show that it was not a little boyish roughness that I meant to make a

fuss and "point a moral" about--nor did I want to go into fine-drawn

questions about the cruelties of sport, and when I came to join the

bits into a whole and copy out, I found I had overproved my point and

made Benjy a _fearful_ brute. But there _are_ some hideously cruel

boys, and I do think a certain devilish type of cruelty is generally

combined with a certain _lowness_ and _meanness_ of general

style--even in born gentlemen--and though quite curable, I would like

to hear what the boys think of it, if it would not bore them to read

it. But I certainly shall soften Benjy down--and will attend to all

your hints--and put in the "Mare's Nest" (many thanks!). Tell D. I do

not know how I could alter about Rough--unless I take out his death

altogether--but beg her to observe that he was not the least neglected

as to food, etc.; what he died of was joy after his anxiety....

[Footnote 36: Included in "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales," vol.

vii.]

[_Aldershot._] May Day, 1870.

... I have got some work into my head which has been long seething

there, and will, I think, begin to take shape. It is about

_flowers_--the ancestry of flowers; whether the flowers will tell

their own family records, or what the _plot_ will be I have not yet

planned, and it will take me some time to collect my data, but the

family histories of flowers which came originally from old Mexico in

the days of Montezuma, and the floating gardens, and the warriors who

wore nosegays, and the Indians who paddled the floating gardens on

which they lived up the waters of that gorgeous city with early

vegetables for the chiefs--would be rather weird! And then the strange

fashions and universal prevalence of Japanese gardening. The wistaria

rioting in the hedges, and the great lilies wild over the hills. Ditto

the camellias. With all the queer little thatched Japanese huts that

always have lumps of _iris_ on the top, which the Japanese ladies use

for bandoline. Then the cacti would have queer legends of South

America, where the goats climb the steep rocks and dig them up with

their horns and roll them down into the valley, and kick and play with

them till the _spines_ get rubbed off, and then devour them at

leisure. I give you these instances in case anything notable about

flowers comes in your way, "when found to make a note of" for me....

TO MRS. ELDER.

_Ecclesfield_, October 25, 1871.

MY DEAREST AUNT HORATIA,

Your letter _was_ shown to me, and I cannot tell you how much obliged

to you I am for the prospect of the gold thimble, _a thing I have

always wished to possess_.

I--(if it fits!!! But, as I told Charlie, if it is too big I _can_

wrap a sly bit of rag round my finger, but if it's too small, unless I

cut the tip, as Cinderella's sisters cut their heels, I don't know how

I can secure it!) shall additionally value it as a testimony of your

approval of my dear old Hermit[37], for that is one of my greatest

favourites amongst my efforts. Miss Yonge prefers it, I believe, to

anything I have ever done, and Rex nearly so....

Your loving niece, J.H.E.

[Footnote 37: "The Blind Hermit and the Trinity Flower," vol. xvi.]

TO C.T. GATTY.

_Aldershot_. Holy Innocents, 1871,

... I had the very latest widow here for two days "charring." She is

the lady alluded to by Rex when he told Stephen that she had been

weighed, and was found wanting. In justice to her physique, I must say

that this was not according to avoirdupois measure!! but figurative.

She whipped about as nimbly as an elephant. She was rather given to

panting and groaning. You can fancy her. [_Sketch_.] "Mrs. Hewin,

ma'am, _don't_ soil your 'ands! _Let_ me! As I says to the parties at

the 'Imperial' at Folkstone, ladies thinks an elderly person can't get

through their work, but they can do a deal more than the young ones

that has to be told every--Using the table-cloth to wipe the dishes am

I? Tst, tst! so I ham! M'm! Hemma! where's your kitchen cloths? I

don't know where things his yet, Mrs. Hewin. But I've 'ad a 'Ome of my

own, Mrs. Hewin, and been use to take care of things"--("Take care,

Mrs. Plumridge")--"Well now! 'owever did _that_ slip through my

fingers now? Tst! tst! tst! There must have been a bit of butter on

the hunder side I think. Eh! deary dear! Ah--! Oh--!" Pause--Solo

recitative--"Eh, dear! If my poor 'usband was but alive, I shouldn't

be wanting now! I Ope I give you satisfaction, Mrs. Hewin. If I'm

poor, I'm honest. I ope I give satisfaction in hevery way, Mrs. Hewin,

Your property is safe in _my_ 'ands, Mrs. Hewin! What do you think of

my papers, Mrs. Hewin? One lady as see them said she didn't know what

more _hany_ one could require." (Said papers chiefly consisting of

baptism registers of the little Plumridges. Marriage lines of Mrs. P.,

and forms in reference to the late Mr. P., a pensioner.)

SEQUEL.

"Emma, where's the water-can?"

"Please 'm, Mrs. Plumberridge, she left it outside of the door

yesterday, and some one's took it."

There is yet a later widow, but I do _not_ think of taking her into

the house. The Widow Bone has taken to _boning_ her daughter's

clothes, so _she_ is forbidden the house....

To A.E.

_Brighton_. April 17, 1872.

... I got here all right, and wonderfully little tired, though the

train shook a good deal the latter part of the way.

Oh! the FLOWERS! The cowslips, the purple orchids, the kingcups, the

primroses! And the grey, drifting cumuli with gaps of blue, and the

cinnamon and purple woods, broken with yellowish poplars and pale

willows, with red farms, and yellow gorse lighted up by the sun!!! The

oaks just beginning to break out in yellowish tufts, [_Sketch._] I

can't tell you what lovely sketches I passed between Aldershot and

Redhill!

On to Brighton I took charge of a small boy being sent by a fond

mother to school. When I mention that he was nine years old,--and

informed me--that he had got "a jolly book," which proved to be _A

School for Fathers_, that his own school wasn't _much of a one_, and

he was going to leave, and ate hard-boiled eggs and crystallized

oranges by the way--you will see how this generation waxes apace!!

_Ecclesfield_. May 27, 1872.

... The weather is very nice now. I stayed till the end of the Litany

in church yesterday, and then slipped out by the organ door and sat

with Mother. I sat on the Boy's school side of the chancel, where a

little lad near me was singing _alto_ (not a "second" of thirds!)

strong and steady as a thrush in a hedge!! The music went very well.

The country looks lovely, _but for the smoke_. If it had but our blue

distance it would be grand. But the

"wreathed smoke afar

That o'er the town like mist upraised

Hung, hiding sun and star,"

gets worse every year! And when I think of our lovely blue and grey

folds of distance, and bright skies, and tints, I feel quite

_Ruskinish_ towards mills and manufactories.

TO C.T. GATTY.

_X Lines, South Camp, Aldershot._

August 10, 1873.

MY VERY DEAR OLD CHARLIE,

Don't you suppose your sister is forgetting you. Two causes have

delayed your drawings.

1. I have been working--oh _so_ hard! It was because Mr. Bell

announced that he wanted a "volume," and that for the Xmas Market one

must begin at once in July!

Such is competition!

He had an idea that something which had not appeared in any magazine

would be more successful than reprints. _So_ I have written "Lob

Lie-by-the-Fire, or the Luck of Lingborough," and you will recognize

your _Cockie_ in it! I have taken no end of pains with it, and it has

been a matter of seven or eight hours a day lately. I mean the last

few days. Rather too much. It knocked me off my sleep, and reduced "my

poor back" to the consistency of pith. But I am picking up, partly by

such gross material aid as _bottled stout_ affords! and any amount of

fresh air blowing in full draughts over my bed at night!!

2. I _have_ been at work for you, but I get so horribly dissatisfied

with my things. No; I must do some real steady _work_ at it. One can't

jump with a little "nice feeling" and plenty of theories into what can

give any lasting pleasure to oneself or any one else. I will send you

shortly (I hope) a copy of one of Sir Hope Grant's Chinnerys, and

perhaps a wee thing of Ecclesfield. The worst of drawing is, it wants

mind as well as hands. One can't go at it _jaded_ from head work, as

one could "sew a long white seam" or any mechanical thing!...

When D---- was with me, we went to a _fête_ in the North Camp Gardens,

and I was talking to Lady Grant about the Chinnerys, and the "happy

thought" struck her to introduce me to a Mr. Walkinshaw. They live

somewhere in this country, and Mrs. Walkinshaw came up afterwards to

ask if she might call on me, as they have a Chinnery collection

(gathered in China), and Mr. Walkinshaw would show them to me!... I

mean to collect all possible information on the subject, and either to

write myself, or _prime you_ to write an article on him some day!

TO C.T. GATTY.

_X Lines._ August 20, 1873.

DEAR OLD BOY,

... I enjoyed your letter very much, and am so glad you keep "office

hours." It is very good of you not to be angry with my good advice!

"Experientia does it," as Mr. 'Aughton would say.... _I_ break down

about once in three months like clockwork--from sheer overwork. I

certainly am never happy idle; but I have too often to sit in sackcloth

in the depths of my heart--whilst everybody is beseeching me to be

"idle"--from a consciousness that, not from doing nothing, but by doing

B when I should have done A, and C when I should have done B, a kind of

indolence at the critical moment, I have _wasted_ my strength and time,

not MERELY overworked myself. Also that on _many_ things--drawing,

languages, etc.--I have spent in my life a great deal of labour with

little result, because it has not been consecutive and methodical. One

would like one's own failures to be one's friends' stepping-stones. I

_may_ say too that I have an excuse which, thank GOD, you can't plead

now--ill-health. It is not always easy, even for oneself, to judge when

languor at the precise instant of recurring duty is spine-ache from

brain work, and the sofa is the remedy,--or when it is what (in

reference to an unpublished--indeed unwritten--story on this head) I

call Boneless on the spine! MY back is apt to ache in any case!... I am

trying to teach myself that if one _has_ been working, one has not

necessarily been working to good purpose, and that one may waste

strength and forces of all sorts, as well as time!

Curious that _you_ and D---- should both have quoted that saying of J.H.

Newman to me in one week! I also will adopt it! Indeed "bit by bit" is

the only way _I_ feel equal to improve in _anything_, and I do think it

is GOD's way of teaching and leading us all as a rule, and it is the

principle on the face of all His creation--_Gradual_ growth. The art of

being happy was never difficult to me. I think I am permitted an unusual

_intensity_ of joy in common cheap pleasures and natural beauties--fresh

air, colour, etc., etc., to compensate for some ill-health and

deprivations.

Herewith comes my "Portrait by Spoker," and a copy of a Chinnery. The

first-fruits of "regular" work at drawing an hour a day!!!

Farewell, Beloved.... Ever your very loving old sister,

JULIANA HORATIA EWING.

TO A.E.

_Ecclesfield Vicarage, Sheffield_.

Sunday, Oct. 5, 1873.

... It is all over. She _is_ with your Father and Mother, and the dear

Bishop, and my two brothers, and many an old friend who has "gone

before." Had she been merely a friend she is one of those whose loss

cannot but be felt more as years and experience make one realize the

value of certain noble qualities, and their rarity; but if

GOD has laid a heavy cross upon us in this blow,--which seems

such a blow in spite of long preparing!--He has given us every

comfort, every concession to the weaknesses of our love in the

accidents of her death.... It was an ideal end. GOD Who had

permitted her to suffer so sorely in body, and to be often visited in

old times--by dread of death and of "death-agonies," parted the waves

of the last Jordan, and she "went through dryshod!"... The sense of

her higher state is so overwhelming, one _cannot_ indulge a _common_

sorrow. For myself I can only say that I feel as if I were a child

again in respect of her. She is as much with _me_ now, as with any of

her children, even if I am in Jamaica or Ceylon. _Now_ she knows and

sees my life, and I have a feeling as if she were an ever-present

_conscience_ to me (as a mother's _presence_ makes a child alive to

what is right and what is wrong), which I hope by GOD's grace

may never leave me and may make me more worthy of having had such a

Mother....

TO C.T. GATTY,

_R Lines; South Camp._ January 4, 1874.

DEARLY BELOVED,

What _would_ I give to have a visit from you! I fear you did not get

home at Xmas! Thank you a thousand times for your card--I think it

almost the very prettiest I ever saw!

... As I am not prompt _to time_ with my Xmas Box I may as well be

appropriate in kind. Is there any trifle you are "in want" of?

"Price ner object," as Emmanuel Eaton (the old Nursery man) (very

appropriately) named his latest Fuchsia, when he saw us children

turning down the Wood End Lane in the Donkey Carriage on a birthday,

flush of coppers--and bashful about abating prices!

... I was on the border of sending you a nice collection of

poetry--and a shadow crossed my brain that you have said you "don't

care about poetry"--"Lives there a man with soul so dead"--or does the

great commercial whirl weary out the brain?--If I am wrong and you

like it--will you have (if you don't possess) Trench's fine collection

of poems of all dates?

Your ever devoted

J.H.E.

TO C.T. GATTY,

_X Lines, South Camp._ March 13, 1874.

MY DEAREST CHARLIE,

I am _quite a brute_ not to have written before. I didn't, because (to

say the truth!) I had a "return compliment" in the Valentine line in

my head, and I never got time to do it! You know what the _pressure_

of work is, and I have had a lot in hand, and been _very_ far from

well.

It was VERY good of you to send me a Val., and much appreciated.

I also owe you thanks for a copy of the "fretful" Porcupine [_Sketch_]

duly received. I was very glad to get it--for you have greatly,

wonderfully improved in your writing. I liked your article extremely,

and was so very glad to see the marked improvement....

I am _not_, when I speak of improvement in the art of English

composition, alluding solely to the time when you wrote as follows

(italics and caps your own):

"Mr. Gatty thinks that Messrs. Fisher & Holmes has sent more than he

desired _he said 2s._ or _2s. 6d._ and he thinks there is here more

than that he hopes he will answer and tell me what price the

LOT is and how many plants I may take for _2s._ or _2s. 6d._

by return of post or by Cox which will be better Ecclesfield June

1866."

I wouldn't part with the original of the above under a considerable

sum of money! It always refreshes my brain to go back to it--and I

laugh as often as one laughs, and re-laughs at Pickwick!--the way the

pronouns become entangled and after making an imperfectly distinctive

stand at "_he said_," jump desperately to the pith of the matter in

"what price the LOT is." All difficulties of punctuation

being disposed of by the process of omitting stops entirely--like old

Hebrew--written without points!

(What an autograph for collectors if ever you're the "King Cole" of

Liverpool!)

* * * * *

... I have been staying with M.M. I wish I could impart my mental

gleanings. I made several experiments on her intellect. I tried to

_pin her_ again and again--but QUITE without success--or (on

_her_ part) sense of failure. I tried to remember what she had said

afterwards--and I could not succeed. I couldn't carry a single

sentence.

Generally speaking I gather that--

"The Kelts are destroying themselves--the Teuton Element MUST

prevail--one feels--genius--the thing--Herr Beringer--Dr. Zerffi--but

whatever one may FEEL--so it is! Every other nation COMMENCED where we

LEAVE OFF. WE BEGAN with the DRAMA and left off with the

Epic--Milton's--what-is-it? But there you have Hamlet--where do you find

a character like Hamlet?--NOWHERE! That's the beauty of it. The young

lady's maid never reads anything--but Macbeth. ANNE I _can_ trust with

Faust. I read Lessing myself--and the Greek Testament (not the

Epistles--don't let me exaggerate)--with a bit of dry toast and a cup of

tea without a saucer or anything. I never sit down till the Easter

holidays--before breakfast--I ought to feel--what is it--PROUD. Dr.

Zerffi says he'll show A.B.'s papers at any University against the

first-class men--and they won't understand a word of them. What were

those girls when they came? There's the Duchess of Somerset's 15th coz

twice removed. _Its all blood._ My father drove four-in-hand down this

very hill in the old _coaching_ days (!!!)--and there's not another

school in England where the young ladies read Bopp before breakfast. But

the Vedas are a mine of--you know what--_Sanskrit_ is _English_--change

the letters and I could make myself understood by a Parsee better than

by half the young ladies of this establishment. We're all Indians!"

If her conversation is what it was--and _more so_, her hospitality,

her generosity--and her admirable management of the girls and the

house is as A1 as ever. I never saw a prettier, jollier, nicer set of

girls. H---- is growing _very_ charming, I think. I believe the secret

of her success, in spite of that extraordinary fitful intellect of

hers, is that one never learns anything _well_ but what one learns

_willingly_, and that she makes life so much more pleasant and

reasonable that the girls work themselves, and so get on.

It's getting late! Good-night. I wish we met oftener!

Ever your very loving sister,

J.H.E.

Have you seen March _A.J.M._? I particularly want you to read a thing

of mine called "Our Garden." I'll send it if you can't get it.

_For Private Circulation Only._

(Oh, Charles! Charles!)

Time, 2 p.m. Julie in bed for the sake of "perfect quiet." M.M.

"without a moment to spare."

"I SEE I'm tiring you--I shall NOT stop--I haven't a moment--I can't

speak--I've given lessons on the mixed Languages this morning--and paid

all my bills--Mr. B---- has called--he's better-looking than I thought,

but too much hair--and the BREWER all over--you look very white--you're

killing yourself--why DO you DO it?--and U----'s as bad--I mean D----.

Dear me! what a pleasure it has been! When I THINK of Ecclesfield!!!!

You are NOT to kill yourself--I forbid it--why should you work for daily

bread as I have to do?--Our bread bill doesn't exceed £4 a week--I mean

a month--TEN pounds a month for groceries and wine--spirits we never

have in the house--you've seen all that we have--when I was senseless

and Dr. F---- called--when the other doctors came he left his card and

retired, but we've employed him since--he ordered gin cloths--they sent

out--when the bill came in I said Brown! BROWN! BROWN!!--_what's this?_

GIN! GIN! GIN! WHO'S 'ad GIN! They said YOU! Such is life!

"Dear, dear, IT is a pleasure to see you--but I see your head's bad and

I'm going--I MUST dress.--May I ring your bell for the maid--a black

silk, Julie, good and well cut is economical, my dear. No _underground

to Whiteley's_ for me! Lewis and Allenby--they dress me--I order

nothing--I know nothing--I haven't a rag of clothing in the world--they

line the bodices with silk and you can darn it down to the last--I eat

nothing--I drink nothing--I only _work_--I never sleep--I read German

classics in bed--Lessing--and the second part of Schiller's _Faust_--I

give lessons on it before breakfast in my dressing-gown--this morning

the young ladies hung on my lips--I _know_ the lesson was a good one--It

was the Sorrows of Goethe. Last week Dr. Zerffi said--'All religions are

one and one religion is all--particularly the Brahmas.' It was splendid!

and none of the young ladies knew it before they came. But Poor Mrs.

S----! She didn't seem one bit wiser. I sent him a Valentine on the

14th--designed by the young ladies. He said 'I _knew_ where it came

from--by the word BOPP. Zis is ze only establishment in England where

the word BOPP is known.' He's a great man--and the Teutonic element

_must_ prevail. The Kelts are very charming, but they will GO. We've the

same facial angle as the Hindoo, but poor Mrs. S---- can't see it. Dr.

A---- says I must have some sleep--so I've given up Sanscrit--You can't

do everything even in bed. And it's _English_ when all's done--and Brown

speaks it as well as I do!! _Go_ to India, Julie, if ever you have the

chance, and talk to the natives--they'll understand you. They understand

me. Signor Ricci sometimes does NOT. But then he speaks the modern--the

base--Italian, and _I_--the _classic_. He said, 'I do not understand

you, Mees M----.' I said, 'E vero, Signor--I know you don't. But that's

because I speak _classic_ Italian. All the organ-boys understand me.'

And he smiled. Dear, dear! How pleasant it is to see a Gatty--but I wish

you didn't look so white--when I see other people suffer, and think of

all the years of health I've enjoyed, I never can be thankful

enough--and when I've paid my monthly bills I'm the happiest woman in

England. When I think of how much I have and how little I deserve, I

don't know what to do but say my prayers. Dear, I'm sorry I told you

that story about X----. If she sent this morning for £10 I must let her

have it, if I had to go out and borrow it. I am going out--the Dr. says

I must. In the holidays I go on the balcony--and look down into the

street--and see the four-in-hands--and the policemen--and the han(d)som

cabmen (they're most of them gentlemen--and some of them Irish

gentlemen), and I say--'Such is life!' And poor Mrs. S---- says '_Is

it_, Miss M----?' and I know I speak sharply to her, which I should _not

do_. And I go into Kensington Gardens--and see the Princess--and the

Ducks in the water--and the little ragged boys going to bathe--and I say

'This is a glorious world!' I saw Lord--Lord--dear me! I know his name

as well as my own--Lord--Lord--Oh Lord! he believes in Tichborne--K----,

that's it--Lord K---- in the Row. He always asks after me. HE married a

woman--well. No more about that. He couldn't get a divorce. HER sister

married a parson. SHE was the mother of that poor woman--you know--who

was murdered by those people--THEY lived two streets off Derby

House--the brother--a handsome man--lived opposite Gipsey Hill Station.

You know _that_? _Well._ His wife had a bunch of curls behind (I hate

curls and bunches behind--keep your hair clean and put it up simply).

SHE--got off and so did HE. THEY--that's the parson and his wife--wrote

to Lord K---- and said 'Lady K---- is dead,' He said 'Then bury her.'

and he married again at once. SHE was a Miss A., and she said--'I marry

him because I've been told to'--but that's neither here nor there, and

these things occur. ANN! is that you? My dear, how black you are under

the eyes--DO, Julie, try and take better care of yourself--and _keep

quiet_. If I were Major Ewing I'd _thrash_ you if you didn't. Coming,

Ann!--What was it?--Oh, Lord K---- and Tichborne--well--just let me shut

the door. He IS Tichborne--but _he murdered him_. That's the secret.

"ANN! My black silk--go to my room--murdered who? why--_Castor_.

"Now try and get some sleep. If I find you with papers I'll _burn

them_. Oh! there go all the drags and Mr. M---- on the box--and there

go the 4.45, 5.15, and 5.25 to Baker St.--The days fly! But it's a

glorious life. Work! Work!--Keep quiet, dear--I shall be back

directly."

TO A.E.

_"Sheffield House," New Quay, Dartmouth._

June 4, 1874.

... The above I find is our _correct_ address, though what I sent you

is all-sufficient, especially as you can't land without our seeing you

out of our window, as we are almost within speaking distance of the

steamer....

From Exeter here the line is lovely. Half the way you run along the

shore. The fields ploughed and meadowed, and with trees, and cattle

come down to the shore. [_Sketch._]

TORBAY is in this line. The cliffs are a deep red sandstone,

the sky deep blue, and the fields deep green!! [_Sketch._]

At Dawlish, Torquay, etc. the jutting rocks of worn-away sandstone

mark the points of the little bays with fantastic looking shapes, like

petrified giants. [_Sketch._]

Looking back from Teignmouth is a very curious one on which the

sea-birds sit. Bless their noses! and their legs! How they do enjoy

the waves! [_Sketch._]

Those lazy ripples damp their boots so nicely!

In the Exeter Station sat a ---- [_Sketch_] Bull Dogue. O dear! He

looked so "savidge," and was so nervous; every train made him tremble

in every limb! I bought him a penny bun, but he was too nervous to

eat, though he looked very grateful. The porter promised me to give

him plenty of water, and as I gave the porter plenty of coppers I hope

he did!

Tell Stephen the flowers on the railway banks give you quite a turn!

Crimson, pale pink, and dead-white Valerian against a deep blue sky in

hot sunshine make one not know whether to PAINT or press!

As to Dartmouth itself it is a mixture of Matlock, Whitby and

Antwerp!!! The defect is it is really oil the river, not on the sea,

but the neighbouring bays are so get-at-able we have settled here. The

town is very old. Some of the streets, or rather terraces--if a

perfectly irregular perching and jumbling of houses up and down a

steep lull can be called a terrace--are very curious. [_Sketch._]

Flowers everywhere....

TO H.K.F.G.

July 12, 1874.

Dr. Edghill preached a fine sermon this morning on "Friend! wherefore

art thou come?" Terribly didactic on the fate of Judas, but the

practical application was wonderful and _so_ like him! It being

chiefly on the "patient love of Christ." Quite merciless on Judas, and

on the coarseness, coldness and brutalness of betrayal by the

tenderest sign of human love. "But" (plunging head-first among the

Engineers!) "if there's any man sitting here with a heart and

conscience every bit as black as Judas's _in that hour_: to thee,

Brother, in this hour--in thy worst and vilest hour--Jesus

speaks--'_Friend!_--You may have worn out human love, you may try your

hardest to wear out Mine'"--(parenthesis to the A.S.C. and a nautical

_hitch_ of half his surplice)--("and we all try hard enough, _that's_

certain!)--'but _you never can_--Friend, still My Friend!'" (Pull up,

and obvious need of bronchial troches. Tonsure mopped and a

re-commencement.) "Then there's the appeal to the _conscience_ as well

as to the _heart_. _Wherefore art thou come?_ what art thou

about--what is thy object? I tell you what, I believe if Judas had

answered this in plain language to himself he would have stopped short

even then. And we should stop short of many a sin if we'd _face_ what

we're going to do" (Dangerous precipitation of the whole Chaplain at

the heads of the privates below.) "Some of you ask yourselves that

question to-day--this evening _as you're walking to Aldershot_,

'Wherefore am I come?' And don't let the Devil put something else into

your head, but just _answer it_," etc. etc.

He's not exactly an _equal_ or a _finished_ preacher for highly

educated ears, but that sort of transparent candour which he has makes

him _very_ affecting when on his favourite topic, the inexhaustible

love of God. His face when he quotes--"The Son of God Who loved _Me_

and gave Himself for _Me_," is like a man showing the Rock he has

clung to himself in shipwreck.

TO C.T.G.

_X Lines._ July 22, 1874.

DEAREST CHARLIE,

It was a _great_ disappointment not to see you! Now don't fail me next

week--you scoundrel! I want you _most_ particularly for most selfish

reasons. I am just taking my hero[38] into Victoria Docks, and want to

dip my brush in _Couleur locale_ with your help. Do come, and we'll go

up to London by _barge_ and sketch all the way!!! I know an A1

Bargemaster, and we can get beds at the inns _en route_. A two days'

voyage! Or we can go for a shorter period and come home by rail. It

won't cost us much.

[Footnote 38: "A Great Emergency," vol. xi.]

I am so glad to think of you in the dear _Old_--_New_ Forest.

* * * * *

Now mind you come--if only to see my Nelson (bureau) Relic!! It is

such a comfort to me and _my papers_!

Ever your most loving sister,

J.H.E.

TO MRS. ELDER.

_X Lines, South Camp._ August 7, 1874.

MY DEAR AUNT HORATIA,

I have begged the Tiger Tom for you!

He is the handsomest I ever saw, with such a head! His name is

_Peter_. [_Sketch._]

Nothing--I assure you, can exceed his beauty--or the depth of his

stripes....

If I had not too many cats already I should have adopted Peter long

ago. We always quote William Blake's poem to him when we see him

prowling about our garden.

"Tiger! Tiger! burning bright,

In the forest of the night,

What immortal Hand and Eye

Framed thy fearful symmetry?"

Do you remember it?

I feel _quite a wretch_ not to like your "Ploughman"[39] as well as

usual. There is always poetry in your things, but TO ME the

_spirit_ of this one has not quite that reality which is the highest

virtue of "a sentiment"--or at least its greatest strength. But I may

be wrong. Only that kind of constant lifting of the soul from the

labour of daily drudgery to the Father of our spirits seems to me one

of the highest, latest, and most refined Christian Graces in natures

farthest removed from "the ape and tiger," and most at leisure for

contemplative worship. I know there are exceptions. Rural

contemplative saints among shepherds and ploughmen. But that the

agricultural labourer as a type seeks "Nature's God" at the

plough-tail and in the bosom of his family I fear is _not_ the

case--and it would be very odd if poverty and ignorance did lead to

such results, even in the advantages of an "open-air" life. Perhaps

Burns knew such a Cottar on Saturday Nights as he painted--he wasn't

_sick_ himself! unless you interpret _a neet wi' Burns_ by that

poem!--and there has been one contemplative Shepherd on Salisbury

Plain--though the proverb says--

"Salisbury Plain

Is seldom without a thief or twain."

--_not_ I believe supposed to refer to highwaymen!! and agricultural

labourers stand (among trades) statistically high (or low!) for the

crime of murder.

[Footnote 39: Sonnet by H.S. Elder, _Aunt Judy's Magazine_.]

But I won't inflict any more rigmarole on you, because of an obstinate

conviction _in my inside_ that dear Mother was right in the idea that

it is the learned--not the ignorant--who wonder, and that the

ploughman feels no wonder at all in the glory of the rising

sun--though YOUR mind might overflow with awe and admiration.

As to the last verse--that a "cot" should ever be "cheerful" which

"serves him for" washhouse, kitchen, nursery and all--is a triumph of

the "softening influence of use"--and I concede it to you! But where

"he reigns as a king his toils forgot" is, I am convinced, at the

Black Bull with highly-drugged beer!!!!!!

Now am I _not_ a Brute?

And yet it is _very_ pretty, and--strange to say--the class to whom I

believe it would be acceptable, is the class of whom I believe it is

not (typically) true, and PERHAPS it is good for every class

to have an _ideal_ of its own circumstances before its eyes. But I

don't think it is good for rich people's children to grow up with the

belief that twelve shillings a week, and cider and a pig, are the

wisest and happiest earthly circumstances in which humanity with large

families can be placed for their temporal and spiritual progress. I

don't think it ever leads to a wish in the young Squire to exchange

with Hodge for the good of his own soul, but I think it fosters a

fixed conviction that Hodge has nothing to complain of, _plus_ being

placed at a particular advantage as to his eternal concerns.

Will you ever forgive me? I like the descriptive parts so much, the

"rival cocks at dawn"--the "autumn's mist and spring's soft rain," the

team that "turn in their trace in the furrow's face," and the

life-like descriptions in verse 4. It is as true to one's observation

as it is graceful....

Your loving niece,

J.H.E.

TO A.E.

_Ecclesfield._ May 14, 1876.

[_Sketch._] Do you remember Whitley Hall? I used to be so fond of the

place when I was a child, and no one lived there but an old woman--old

Esther Woodhouse--with a face like an ideal witch--at the lodge. As

you know I always hated _writing down_--but long before I accomplished

a tale on paper I wrote a novel _in my head_ to Whitley Hall, and used

to walk about in the wood there, by the pond--_to think it_!

_York._ February 23, 1879.

... Yesterday was sunny though cold, and I had a delicious drive to

Escrick and Naburn. Oh, it _does_ send thrills of delight through me,

when the hay-coloured hedge-grass begins to mix itself with green, and

the hedges have a very brown-madderish tint in the sun, and all the

trunks of all the old trees are far greener than the fields, and the

earth is turned over, and the rooks hold Parliaments.

* * * * *

[_York._] Easter Day, 1879.

... I went to Church at S. John's, Mr. Wilberforce's Church; I had

never been in it. That window with S. Christopher, and those strange

representations of the Trinity, and the five Master Yorkes kneeling

all in blue on one side, and their four sisters on the other, is very

wonderful. One of the most wonderful. How fascinating these dear old

churches are! Mr. Wilberforce has a fine voice, a most rich and

flexible baritone, and sings ballads with a great deal of taste and

expression. I shall for ever love York and its marble-white walls and

dear old churches, but "Benedetta sia 'l giorno e 'l mese e 'l anno,"

when you set your face with your black poodle towards the island

called Melita! This north-east wind which still blows _cruelly_ would

have made you very ill, I think....

I must tell you of another thing. On Thursday I went to the Blind

School to a concert. I went rather against my will, for you know I was

sadly impressed before by their _very_ unhealthy and miserable look,

but oh, dear, they do sing well! and it was very affecting. One of the

Barnbys teaches them. They have a good organ, and one of the blind men

played very well. They sang very refinedly. No doubt they are well

taught, but no doubt also the sense of hearing is delicate with

them....

_Frimhurst._ April 18, 1879.

I got here safely yesterday, though I had a horrid headache on

Wednesday, and expected to arrive here in very bad condition. I felt

rather bad yesterday morning, but as I drew near, marvellous to

relate, my headache went away! Oh! I thought so much of you, as the

misty network of pines against the sky--the stretches of moor--the

flashes of the canal--and all the dear familiar Heimath Land came

nearer and nearer....

It is still "chill April" even here, but wonderfully different from

Yorkshire. Sunshine--and green things so much more forward--and birds

singing their very throats out.

"Lion," the mastiff, I am rather frightened of, but he loves me and

gives me paws over and over again. He is pawing me now and will

interrupt.

April 22.

The weather is intensely cold again, though nothing can make this

country quite dreary--but cold it is! Still there are all the dear old

features, I did not know the Mitchett side (of the Frimhurst bridge)

of the canal; but I have been a good way down getting water-weeds--but

of course you know it well. It is curiously like bits of the S. John

[New Brunswick] River. One could almost see birch-bark canoes at

points.

To-day the Jelfs came. It was an affecting meeting, our first since

he was so ill in Cyprus, and he said, "It used to seem so little

likely one would ever again see the old faces."... He spoke at once

about your calling this country Heimath Land, saying it seemed the

very word.

I am going on Thursday to stay with the Jelfs till Monday; I shall be

so thankful to get a Sunday in the old Tin Tabernacle.

_K Lines, South Camp, Heimath Land._

April 25.

It is a sunny sweet day, so that I have been strolling about in the

garden without a jacket. It is strangely pleasant being here, the old

scenes without, and all Sir Howard Elphinstone's pretty things within.

The Jelfs are staying in the Elphinstones' hut. In the matter of

pictures I do not always agree with Sir Howard, but his decorative

taste is very good, and the things he has picked up in all parts of

the world are delightful. "Et ego, etc." We have things and things as

it is, and shall pick up more! He is so very ingenious, and has made a

dado over the mantelpiece, with a white or coloured border on which he

puts pictures and photographs; in the centre is a square of coloured

material with other things mounted on it. I foresee making a similar

design for our Malta mantelpiece, with a gold Maltese cross in the

centre and tiles round illustrating the eight Beatitudes....

I am intensely enjoying this bit here. Yesterday the Jelfs and the

boys and I had a long wander by the canal where the larches and the

birches are getting their tenderest tints on.... On Thursday evening I

went to the Tin Church, with the old bell _tankling_ as I went in, and

the mess bugles tootling afar as I came out. Bell the schoolmaster and

baritone started as if I were a ghost, and sent me a book for the

special hymn. Not a soul in the officers' seats--but a good choir and

a very fair congregation of men and barrack families. Said I to

myself, "I've been living in wealthy Bowdon and in ecclesiastical

York, and not had this. Well done--the Tug of War and the Tin

Tabernacle and the Camp! and unpaid soldiers and their sons to sing

the Lord's Song in the land of their pilgrimage!"

To-day I went with Mrs. Jelf to a meeting at the Club House about

"Coffee Houses." When we got in a "rehearsal" (dramatic) was going on,

and the chaff was "Have you come for the rehearsal or the

coffee-house?" We "Coffee-housers" adjourned to the Whist Room. Sir

Thos. Steele in the chair. I had a long chat with him. He says Music

and the Drama have declined dreadfully. The meeting was full of

friends. "Mat Irvine" nearly wrung my hand off, and I sat by poor

Knollys, who is heart-broken at the death of that dear little soul,

Captain Barton. It was a first-rate meeting, mixed military and

Aldershot tradesmen--a very "nice feeling" displayed--altogether it

was wonderfully pleasant.

_Exeter._ May 16, 1879.

... The weather alternates here between North-Easters and mugginess, and

I have never slept without fires yet. All the same I have had some

lovely _drives_, which you know are so good for me. When Mrs. Fox

Strangways couldn't go the Colonel has taken me alone 12 or 14 miles in

the dog-cart with a very "free-going" but otherwise prettily-behaved

little mare named Daphne. The tumbledown of hills and dales is very

pretty here, and the deep red of the earth, and the whitewashed and

thatched cottages. Very pretty bits for sketching if it had been

sketching-weather....

I hope to get several things done in London. Jean Ingelow has burst

out rather about my writings, and wants me to do something "in the

style of Madam Liberality," and let her try to get it into _Good

Words_, as she thinks I ought to try for a wider audience. I shall

certainly go and see her, and talk over matters.... I was _very_ much

pleased Sir Anthony Home had been so much pleased with "Jan." To draw

tears from a V.C. and a fine old Scotch medico is very gratifying!

Capt. Patten said their own Dr. Craig had also been delighted with it.

When "We and the World" is done I mean to rest well on my oars, and

then try and aim at something to give me a better footing if I

can....

June 14, 1879.

... I am getting as devoted to Browning as you. It is very funny--this

sudden and simultaneous light on him!

May 23, 1879.

[_Sketch._]

Forty-four of these aquatic plant tubs stand in one part of the back

premises of Clyst S. George Rectory, full of truly wondrous varieties.

The above is a thing like white tassels and purple-pink buds. Fancy

how I revel in them, and in the garden, which holds 1640 species of

herbaceous perennials all labelled and indexed!! The old Rector (he is

89) is as hard at it as ever. He is so pleased to be listened to, and

it is enormously interesting though somewhat fatiguing, and leaves me

no time whatever for anything else! My brain whirls with tiles,

mosaics, tesseræ, bell-castings, bell-marks, and mottos, electros,

squeezes, rubbings, etc., etc. His latest plant fad is Willows and

Bamboos, of which he has countless kinds growing and flourishing!!! He

is infirm, but it is very grand to see life rich with interests, and

with work that will benefit others--so near the grave!

We'd a funny scene this morning when I went over the church with him,

and had to write my name in the book.

Very testily--"The _date_, my dear, put the date!"

"I have put it."

More testily at being in the wrong--"Then put your address, put your

address."

I hesitated, and he threw up his hands: "Bless me! you've not got one.

It has always puzzled me so what made _you_ take a fancy to a

soldier."

He had been very full of all kinds of ancient Church matters--a

wonderful bell dedicated to the Blessed Virgin in a very remarkable

inscription, etc.,--so I seized the pen and wrote--_Strada Maria

Stella, Malta_--and "I du thenk" (as they say here) it will

considerably puzzle the old sexton!!!!!

Soon after sunrise on Ascension Day I was woke clear and clean by the

bells _breaking into song_. You know campanology is his great hobby.

They rang changes, with long pauses between. Bells often try me very

much, at Ecclesfield _par exemple_, but I really enjoyed these....

May 24, 1879.

... A very pathetic bit of private news of poor little MacDowell. He

was sent by the General to tell them to strike the tents, and was

urging on the ammunition to the front, and encouraging the bandsmen to

carry it, when a Zulu shot him. A good and not painful end--God bless

him! The Capt. Jones who told this, said also that one little bugler

killed three big Zulus with his side-arms before he fell! Also that a

private of the 24th saved Chard's life at Rorke's Drift by pushing his

head down, so that a bullet went over it!

_Woolwich._ Whit Monday, 1879.

* * * * *

Don't think you have all the picturesque beggars to yourself! Out in a

street of Woolwich with Mrs. O'Malley the other day I saw

this--[_Sketch._] The eyes though very clear and intense-looking

decided me at once the man was blind, though he had no dog, and was

only walking solemnly on, with a _carved fiddle_ of white wood under

his arm! I ran back after him, and went close in front of him. He

gazed and saw nothing. Then I touched him and said, "Are you blind?"

He started and said, "Very nearly." I gave him a penny, for which he

thanked me, and then I asked about the fiddle. He carved and made it

himself out of firewood in the workhouse! The _handle part_ (forgive

my barbarism!) is "a bit of ash." It was much about the level of North

American Indian _art_, but very touching as to patient ingenuity. He

asked if anybody had told me about him. I said, "No. But I've a

husband who plays the fiddle," and I gave him the balance of my loose

coppers! He said, "Have you? He plays, does he? Well. This has been a

lucky day for me." He was a shipwright--can play the piano, he

says--lives in the workhouse in winter and comes out in summer--with

the flowers--and his fiddle! I knew you would like me to give

something to that _povero fratello_.

_Woolwich._ June 6, 1879.

... _The_ painter of the Academy this year is Mrs. Butler!! I do hope

some day somewhere you may see _The Remnants of an Army_ and _Recruits

for the Connaught Rangers_. The first is in the _Academy Notes_, which

I send you. The second is at least as fine. [_Sketch._] The landscape

effect is the opal-like sky and bright light full of moisture after

rain--heavy clouds hang above--the mountains are a leaden blue--and

the sky of all exquisite pale shades of bright colour. Down the wet

moor road comes the group. Two very tall, dark-eyed Connaught

"boys"--one with a set face and his hands in his pockets looking

straight out of the picture--the other with a yearning of Keltic

emotion looking back at the hills as if his heart was breaking. The

strapping young sergeant looks very grave; but an "old soldier" behind

is lighting his pipe, and a bugler is holding back a dog. One of the

best faces is that of the drummer who walks first, and whose

13-year-old face is so furrowed about the brow with oppressive

anxiety--very truthful!

_The Remnants of an Army_ is of course overpowering by the mere

subject, and it is nobly painted. The man and his horse are wonderful

alike. There is nothing to touch these two. But I _would_ like to

steal Peter Graham's _The Seabirds' Resting-Place_. Such penguins

sitting on wet rocks with wet Fucus _growing on_ them! Such myriads

more in the _sea-mist_ that hides the horizon-line--sitting on distant

rocks!--and _such_ green waves--by the light of a sunbeam into one of

which you see Laminaria fronds and lumps of Fucus tossing up and down.

You feel wet and ozoney to come near it! There are some very fine

men's portraits, and Orchardson's _Gamblers Hard Hit_ is the best

thing of his, I think, that I know....

... There is a very beautiful old gun in the Arsenal upon a

gun-carriage with wheels thus [_Sketch_], and with bas-reliefs of St.

Paul and the Viper. It is needless to say the gun came from the island

called Melita! But for cunning workmanship and fine bold designs and

delicate execution the Chinese guns are the ones! I am taking rubbings

of the patterns for decorative purposes! They were taken in the war.

There is yet one picture I must tell you of--"_A Musical Story by

Chopin_"--the boy playing to a group of lads and a tutor. His utterly

absorbed face is _admirable_. It is a very pretty thing. Not

marvellous, but very good.

August 5, 1879.

* * * * *

I must tell you that it is _on the cards_ that Caldecott is going to

do a coloured picture for me _to write to_, for the October No. of

_A.J.M._ (so that it will bind up with the 1879 volume and be the

Frontispiece). He is so fragile he can't "hustle," but he wants to do

it. D---- and he became great friends in London, and I think now he

would help us whenever he could. We have been bold enough to "speak

our minds" pretty freely to him, about wasting his time over

second-rate "society" work for _Graphic_, etc., etc., when he has such

a genius to interpret humour and pathos for good writers, and no real

writing gifts himself. (He has done some things called _Flirtation in

France_, supplying both letter-press and sketches!--that are terrible

to any one who has gone heart and soul into his House that Jack

built!!!) I've told him frankly if he "_draws down to me_" in the

hopes of making _my_ share easy by making his commonplace, and gives

me a "rising young family in sand-boots and frilled trousers with an

over-fed mercantile mamma," my "few brains will utterly congeal," but

I have made two suggestions to _him_, so closely on his own lines that

if hints help him I think he would find it easy. You know _horses_ are

really his spécialité. I have asked him to give me a coloured thing

and one or two rough sketches, Either

An Old Coaching Day's Idyll

or--A Trooper's Tragedy.

The same beginning for either:

Child learning to ride on

hobby-horse

rocking-horse

donkey

pony

etc. etc.

Then (if coaching) an old haunted-looking posting-house on a coaching

road (Hog's Back!)--a highwayman--a broken-down postilion--a girl on a

pillion, etc., etc.

Or, if military:

A yokel watching a cavalry regiment in Autumn Manoeuvres over a

bridge.

A Horse and Trooper--Riding for life (here or Hereafter!) with another

man across his saddle.

Of course it may only hamper him to have hints (I've not heard yet),

but I hope anyhow he'll do something for me.

* * * * *

August 9, 1879.

* * * * *

I was reading again at _Robert Falconer_ the other day. What _grand_

bits there are in it? With such _bosh_ close by. So like Ruskin in

that, who is ever to me a Giant, half of gold and half of clay!

When G, Macdonald announces (by way of helping one to help the

problems of life!) that the Gospel denounces the sins of the rich, but

nowhere the sins of the poor, one wonders if he "has his senses," or

knows anything about "the poor." "The Gospel" is pretty plain about

drunkards, extortioners, thieves, murderers, cursers, and revilers,

false swearers, whoremongers, and "all liars"--I wonder whether these

trifling vices are confined to the Upper Ten Thousand!

But oh, that description to the _son_ of what it sounded like when

_his father_ played the _Flowers of the Forest_ on his fiddle, isn't

to be beaten in any language I believe! All the Scotch lasses after

Flodden doing the work of an agricultural people in the stead of the

men who lay on Flodden Field!--"Lasses to reap and lasses to

bind--Lasses to stook." etc., etc., and "no a word I'll warrant ye, to

the orra lad that didna gang wi' the lave"!!!![40] and the lad's

outburst in reply, "I'd raither be gratten for nor kissed!"

[Footnote 40: _Robert Falconer_, chap. xix.]

Poor Z----! They don't teach that at Academies and Staff Colleges, nor

in the Penny-a-line of newspaper correspondents and the like--but he

should get some woman to soak it into his brains that the men women

will love are men who would rather be "gratten for" in honour than be

kissed in shame.

* * * * *

_Ecclesfield._ August 23, 1879.

* * * * *

Talking of drawings, what do you think? Caldecott has done me the most

_lovely_ coloured thing to write a short tale to for October _A.J.M._

It is very good of him. He has simply drawn what I asked, but it is

quite lovely!

A village Green, sweet little old Church, and house and oak tree,

etc., etc. in distance, a small boy with aureole of fair hair on a

red-haired pony, coming full tilt across it blowing a penny trumpet

and scattering pretty ladies, geese, cocks and hens from his path. His

dog running beside him! You will be delighted!

* * * * *

September 1, 1879.

I have done my little story to Caldecott's picture, and I have a

strong notion that it will please you. It is called "Jackanapes."... I

shall be so _disappointed_ if you don't like "Jackanapes." But I think

it is just what you will like!! I think you will cry over him!

September 19, 1879.

Isn't it a great comfort that I have finished the serial story, and

"Jackanapes"?--so that I am now quite free, and never mean to write

against time again. I know you never cared for the serial; however, it

is done, and tolerably satisfactory I think. "Jackanapes" I do hope

you will like, picture and all. C---- sent Mr. Ruskin "Our Field," and

I am proud to hear he says it is not a mere story--it's a poem! Great

praise from a great man!

October 11, 1879.

* * * * *

I was knocked up yesterday in a good cause. We went to see Mr. Ruskin

at Herne Hill. I find him _far_ more _personally_ lovable than I had

expected. Of course he lives in the incense of an adoring circle, but

he is absolutely unaffected himself, and with a GREAT charm.

So much gentler and more refined than I had expected, and such clear

Scotch turquoise eyes.

He had been out to buy buns and grapes for _me_ (!), carrying the buns

home himself very carefully that they might not be crushed!! We are so

utterly at one on some points: it is very delightful to hear him talk.

I mean it is uncommonly pleasant to hear things one has long thought

very vehemently, put to one by a Master!! _Par exemple._ You know my

mania about the indecent-cruel element in French art, and how the

Frenchiness of Victor Hugo chokes me from appreciating him: just as we

were going away yesterday Mr. Ruskin called out, "There is something I

MUST show Aunt Judy," and fetched two photos. One, an old

court with bits of old gothic tracery mixed in with a modern

tumbledown building--peaceful old doorway, wild vine twisting up the

lintel, modern shrine, dilapidated waterbutt, sunshine straggling

in--as far as the beauty of contrast and suggestiveness and form and

(one could fancy) colour could go, perfect as a picture. (R---- didn't

say all this, but we agreed as to the obvious beauty, etc.) Then he

brought out the other photo, and said, "but the French artist cannot

rest with that, it must be heightened and stained with blood," and

there was the court (photo from a French picture), with two children

lying murdered in the sunshine.

Another point we met on was my desire to write a tale on Commercial

Honour. He was delighted, and will I think furnish me with "tips." His

father was a merchant of the old school. And then to my delight I

found him soldier-mad!! So we got on very affably, and I hope to go

and stay there when I go home next summer.

* * * * *

November 7, 1879.

Friends are truly kind. Miss Mundella sent two season tickets for the

Monday "Pop." to D---- and me. I managed to go and stay for most of

it. Norman Neruda, Piatti, and _Janotha_--have you heard Janotha play

the piano? I think she is _very_ wonderful. It is so absolutely

without affectation, and so _selfless_, and yet such a mastery of the

instrument. Her _rippling_ passages are like music writ in water, and

she has a singing touch too, and when she accompanies, the

subordination and sympathy are admirable. She is not pretty, nor in

any way got up, but is elfish and quaint-looking, and quite young. We

sat quite near to Browning, who is a nice-looking old man,

delightfully _clean_. He seemed to delight in Neruda and Piatti, and

followed the music with a score of his own.

_Ecclesfield._ Saturday, January 31, 1880.

How beautiful a day is to-day I cannot tell you! It does refresh

me!... Head and spine very shaky this morning so that I could not get

warm; but I wrapped in my fur cloak, and went out into the sunshine,

up and down, up and down the churchyard flags. A sunny old kirkyard is

a nice place, I always think, for aged folk and invalids to creep up

and down in, and "Tombstone Morality" isn't half as wearing to the

nerves as the problems of _life_!...

* * * * *

_Greno House_, Tuesday.

Harry Howard drove me up yesterday. It was _just_ as much as I could

bear; but I lay on the sofa till dinner, and went to bed at eight, and

though my head kept me awake at first, I did well on the whole.

Breakfast in bed, a bigger one than I have eaten for three weeks, and

since then I have had an hour's drive. The roughness of the roads is

unlucky, but the air _divine_! Such sweet sunshine, and Greno Wood,

with yellow remains of bush and bracken, and heavy mosses on the

sandstone walls, and tiny streams trickling through boggy bits of the

wood, and coming out over the wall to overflow those picturesque stone

troughs which are so oddly numerous, and which I had in my head when I

wrote the first part of "Mrs. Overtheway."

* * * * *

January 11, 1880.

* * * * *

Very dear to me are all your "tender and true" regards for the old

home--the grey-green nest (more grey now than green!) a good deal

changed and weatherbeaten, but not quite deserted--which is bound up

with so much of our lives! It is one of the points on which we feel

very much alike, our love for things, and places, and beasts!!!

Another chord of sympathy was very strongly pulled by your writing of

the "grey-green fields," and sending your love to them. No one I ever

met has, I think, _quite_ your sympathy with exactly what the external

world of out-of-doors is to me and has been ever since I can

remember. From days when the batch of us went-out-walking with the

Nurses, and the round moss-edged holes in the roots of gnarled trees

in the hedges, and the red leaves of Herb Robert in autumn, and all

the inexhaustible wealth of hedges and ditches and fields, and the

Shroggs, and the brooks, were happiness of the keenest kind--to now

when it is as fresh and strong as ever; it has been a pleasure which

has balanced an immense lot of physical pain, and which (between the

affectation of the sort of thing being fashionable--and other people

being destitute of the sixth sense to comprehend it--so that one feels

a fool either way)--one rarely finds any one to whom one can

comfortably speak of it, and be _understanded_ of them. It is the one

of my peculiarities which you have never doubted or misunderstood ever

since we knew each other! I fancy we must (as it happens) _see_ those

things very much alike. That grey-green winter tone (for which I have a

particular love) has been "on my mind" for days, and it was odd you

should send your love to it. Don't think me daft to make so much of a

small matter, I am sure it is not so to me. It is what would make me

_content_ in so many corners of the world! And I thought when I read

your letter, that if we live to be old together, we have a common and

an unalienable source of "that mysterious thing felicity" in any small

sunny nook where we may end our days--so long as there is a bit of

yellow sandstone to glow, or a birch stem to shine in the sun!...

[_Grenoside._] February 21, 1880.

* * * * *

I whiled away my morning in bed to-day by going through the _Lay of

the Last Minstrel_. There are lovely bits in it.

Reading away at Mrs. Browning lately has very much confirmed my notion

that the fault of her things is lack of condensation. They are almost

without exception too long. I doubt if one should ever leave less than

fifty per cent. of a situation to one's readers' own imagination, if

one aims at the highest class of readers. That swan song to Camöens

from his dying lady would have been very perfect in FIVE

verses. As it is, one gets tired even of the exquisite refrain

"Sweetest eyes, were ever seen" (an expression he had used about her

eyes in a song, and which haunts her).

The other night we had Sergeant Dickinson up. He has lately settled in

the village. He was in the Light Cavalry Charge at Balaklava (17th

Lancers), and also at Alma, Inkerman, and Sebastopol. He has also the

Mutiny Medal and Good Conduct and Service one, so he is a good

specimen. Curious luck, he never had a _scratch_ (!). Says he has had

far "worse wounds" performing in Gyms., as he was a good swordsman,

etc. He told us some _dear_ tales of old Sir Colin Campbell. He said

his men idolized him, but their wives rather more so, and if any of

them failed to send home remittances, the spouses wrote straight off

to Sir Colin, who had up "Sandy or Wully" for remonstrance, and

stopped his grog "till I hear again from your wife, man."

On one occasion he saw a drummer-boy drunk, and a sergeant near. Sir

Colin: "Sergeant, does yon boy belong to your company?"

Sergeant: "He does not, sir."

"Does he draw a rum allowance?"

"He does, sir."

"Well, away to the Captain of his company, and say it's my orders that

the oldest soldier in this bairn's company is to draw his rum, till he

feels convinced it's for the lad's benefit that he should tak it

himsel'--and that'll not be just yet awhile I'm thinking."

Some brilliant tales too of the wit and gallantry of Irish comrades,

several of whom wore the kilt. And almost neatest of all, a story of

coming across a fellow-villager among the Highlanders:

"But I were fair poozled He came from t' same place as me, and a

clever Yorkshireman too, and he were talking as Scotch as any of 'em.

So I says, 'Why I'm beat! what are YOU talking Scotch for,

and you a Knaresborough man?' 'Whisht! whisht! Dickinson,' he says,

'we mun A' be Scotch in a Scotch regiment--or there's no

living.'"...

February 19, 1880.

I have been re-reading the _Legend of Montrose_ and the _Heart of

Midlothian_ with _such_ delight, and poems of both the Brownings, and

Ruskin, and _The Woman in White_, and _Tom Brown's Schooldays_, etc.,

etc.!!! I have got two volumes of _The Modern Painters_ back with me

to go at.

What a treat your letters are! Bits are _nearly_ as good as being

there. The sunset you saw with Miss C----, and the shadowy groups of

the masquers below in the increasing mists of evening, painted itself

as a whole on to my brain--in the way _scenes_ of Walter Scott always

did. Like the farewell to the Pretender in _Red Gauntlet_, and the

black feather on the quicksand in _The Bride of Lammermuir_.

March 1, 1880.

* * * * *

The ball must have been a grand sight, but I think, judging from the

list, that your dress as Thomas the Rhymer stands out in marked

_individuality_. Nothing shows more how few people are at all

_original_ than the absence of any thing striking or quaint in most of

the characters assumed at a Fancy Ball. This, however, is Pampering

the Pride of you members of the Mutual Admiration Society. You must

not become cliquish--no not Ye Yourselves!!!!

Above all _you_ must never lose that gracious quality (for which I

have so often given you a prize) of patience and sympathy with small

musicians and jangling pianos in the houses of kind and hospitable

Philistines. Besides, I like you to be largely gracious and popular.

All the same I confess that it is a grievance that music (and sherry!)

are jointly regarded as necessary to be supplied by all hosts and

hostesses--whether they can give you them good or not! People do not

cram their bad drawings down your throats in similar fashion, Still

what is, is--and Man is more than Music--and I have never felt the

real mastership you hold in music more than when you have beaten a

march out of some old tub for kindness' sake with a little gracious

bow at the end! Don't you remember my telling you about that wisp of

an organist whom Mr. R---- petted till he didn't know his shock head

from his clumsy heels, and the insufferable airs he gave himself at

their party over the piano, and the audience, and the lights, and

silence, and what he would or would not play to the elderly merchants.

And of all the amateur-and-water performances!!! I have heard enough

good playing to be able to gauge him!...

Incapacity for every other kind of effort is giving me leisure for a

feast of reading and _re-reading_ such as I have not indulged for

years. Amongst other things I have read for the first time Black's

_Strange Adventures of a Phaeton_--it is _very_ charming indeed, and

if you haven't read it, some time you should. As a rule I detest

German heroes _to English books_, but Von Rosen is irresistible! and

the refrain outbreaks of his jealousy are really high art, when he

unconsciously brings every subject back to the original motif--"but

that young man of Twickenham--he is a most pitiful fellow--" you feel

Dr. Wolff was never more simply sincere and self-deluded, than Von

Rosen's belief that it is an abstract criticism. Also you know how

tedious broken English in a novel is, as a rule. But Black has very

artistically managed his hero's idioms so as to give great effect. And

as we have a brain wave on about Womanhood you may like, as much as I

have, V. Rosen's sketch of English women (to whom he gives the palm

over those of other nations). Speaking of some others--"very nice to

look at perhaps, and very charming in their ways perhaps, but not

sensible, honest, frank like the English woman, _and not familiar with

the seriousness of the world, and not ready to see the troubles of

other people_. But your English-woman _who is very frank to be

amused_, and can enjoy herself when there is a time for that, who is

_generous in time of trouble and is not afraid_, and can be firm and

active and yet very gentle, and who does not think always of herself,

but is ready to help other people, and can look after a house and

manage affairs--that is a better kind of woman I think--more to be

trusted--more of a companion--oh, there is no comparison!"

It is very good, isn't it?--and he is mending the fire during this

outburst, and keeps piling coal on coal as he warms with his subject.

I must also just throw you two quotations from Macaulay's most

interesting _Life and Letters_. Quotations within quotations, for they

are extracts.

"Antoni Stradivari has an eye

That winces at false work and loves the true."

(BROWNING.)

"There is na workeman

That can both worken wel and hastilie

This must be done at leisure parfaitlie."

(CHAUCER.)

By the bye, the italics in Black's quotations are _mine_. Good wording

I think.

But how one does go back with delight to Scott! I confess I think to

have written the _Heart of Midlothian_ is to have put on record the

existence of a moral atmosphere in one's own nation as grand as the

ozone of mountains. WHAT a contrast to that of French novels

(with no disrespect to the brilliant art and refreshing brain

quickness of the latter); but Ruskin's appeal to the responsibility of

those who wield Arts instead of Trades recurs to one as one under

which Scott might have laid his hand upon his breast, and looked

upwards with a clear conscience....

March 16, 1880.

* * * * *

I quite agree with you about an artlessness and roughness in Scott's

work. I thought what I had dwelt on was the magnificent _tone_ of the

_H. of Midlothian_. Also he has two of the first (first in rank and

order if not first in degree) qualifications for a writer of

fiction--Dramatism and individuality amongst his characters. He had

(rather perhaps one should say), the quality which is _nascitur non

fit_--Imagination. It is the great defect, _I think_, of some of our

best modern writers. They are marvellously FIT and terribly

little NASCITUR. It is why I can never concede the highest

palm in her craft to G. Eliot. Her writing is glorious--Imagination

limited--Dramatism--nil!

She draws people she has seen (Mrs. Poyser) like a photograph--she

imagines a Daniel Deronda, and he is about "as natural as waxworks."

"I've been reading Jean Ingelow's _Fated to be Free_ lately, and it is

a marvellous mixture of beauty and failure. But _lovely_ passages.

Incisive as G. Eliot, and from the point of view of a tenderer mind

and experience. This is beautiful, isn't it?

"Nature before it has been touched by man is almost always beautiful,

strong, and cheerful in man's eyes; but nature, when he has once given

it his culture and then forsaken it, has usually an air of sorrow and

helplessness. He has made it live the more by laying his hand upon it

and touching it with his life. It has come to relish of his humanity,

and it is so flavoured with his thoughts, and ordered and permeated by

his spirit, that if the stimulus of his presence is withdrawn it

cannot for a long while do without him, and live for itself as fully

and as well as it did before."

The double edge of the sentiment is very exquisite, and the truth of

the natural fact very perfect as observation, and the book is full of

such writing. But oh, dear! the confusion of plot is so maddening you

have a delirious feeling that everybody is getting engaged to his

half-sister or widowed stepmother, and keep turning back to make sure!

But the dramatism is very good and leads you on....

March 22, 1880.

... I am getting you a curious little present. It is Thos. À Kempis's

_De Imitatione Christi_ in Latin _and Arabic_. A scarce edition

printed in Rome. I think you will like to have it. That old Thomas was

much more than a mere monk. A man for all time, his monasticism being

but a fringe upon the robe of his wisdom and _honest_ Love of God. It

will be curious to see how it lends itself to Arabic. Well, I fancy.

Being in very proverbial mould. Such verses as this (I quote roughly

from memory):

"That which thou dost not understand when thou readest thou shalt

understand in the day of thy visitation: for there be secrets of

religion which are not known till they be felt and are not felt but in

the Day of a great calamity!" (a piece of wisdom with application to

other experiences besides religious ones). I think this will read well

in the language of the East. As also "In omnibus rebus Respice Finem,"

etc.....

* * * * *

Tuesday.

I am quite foolishly disappointed. The À Kempis is gone already! It is

a new Catalogue, and I fancied it was an out-o'-way chance. It seems

Ridler has no other Arabic books whatever. He may not have known its

value. It "went" for six shillings!!!

* * * * *

TO THE BISHOP OF FREDERICTON.

_131, Finborough Road, South Kensington._

March 23, 1880.

MY DEAR LORD,

I thank you with all my heart for the gift of your book,[41] and yet

more for the kindly inscription, which affected me much.

[Footnote 41: _The Book of Job_, translated from the Hebrew Text by

John, Bishop of Fredericton.]

As one gets older one feels distance--or whatever parts one from

people one cares for--worse and worse, I think!--However, whatever

helps to remedy the separation is all the dearer!

I had devoured enough of your notes, to have laughed more than once

and almost to have heard you speak, before I moved from the chair in

which the book found me, and had read all the Introduction. I could

HEAR you say that "Bildad uttered a few trusims in a pompous

tone"!

What I have read of your version seems to me grand, bits here and

there I certainly had never felt the poetical power of before. Rex

will be delighted with it!

I fully receive all you say about Satan and the Sons of God. But I

think a certain painfulness about such portions of Holy Writ--does not

come from (1) Unwillingness to lay one's hand upon one's mouth and be

silent before God. (2) Or difficulty about the Personality of Satan. I

fancy it is because in spite of oneself it is painful that one of the

rare liftings of the Great Veil between us and the "ways" of the

Majesty of God should disclose a scene of such petty features--a sort

of wrangling and experimentalizing, that it would be _pleasanter_ to

be able to believe was a parable brought home to our vulgar

understandings rather than a real vision of the Lord our Strength.

I am, my dear Lord,

Your grateful and ever affectionate old friend,

J.H.E.

TO J.H.E.

_Fredericton._ April 8, 1880.

MY DEAR MRS. EWING,

I will not let the mail go out without proving that I am not a bad

correspondent, and without thanking you for your delightful letter.

Oh! why don't you squeeze yourself sometimes into that funny little

house opposite Miss Bailey's, and let me take a cup of tea off the

cushions, or some other place where the books would allow it to be

put? And why don't you allow me to stumble over my German? And why

doesn't Rex, Esq. (for Rex is too familiar even for a Bishop) correct

my musical efforts? How terrible this word _past_ is! The past is at

all events _real_, but the future is so shadowy, and like the ghosts

of Ulysses it entirely eludes one's grasp. I speak of course of things

that belong to this life. It was (I assure you) a treat to lay hold of

you and your letters, and (a minor consideration) to find that even

your handwriting had not degenerated, and had not become like spiders'

legs dipped in ink and crawling on the paper, as is the case of some

nameless correspondents. There was only one word I could not make out.

In personal appearance the letters stood thus, _[Greek: us]_. It looks like

"us," or like the Greek _[Greek: un]_, which being interpreted is

"pig." But M----, who is far cleverer than I am, at once oracularly

pronounced it "very," and I believe her and you too....

I was greatly tickled in your getting _amusement_ out of "Job," the

last book where one would have expected to find it; but stop--I

recollect it is out of _me_, not the patriarch, that you find

something to smile at, and no doubt you are right, for no doubt I say

ridiculous things sometimes. _Au sérieux_, it pleases me much that you

enter into my little book, and evidently have _read_ it, for I have

had complimentary letters from people who plainly had not read a word,

and to the best of my belief never will. I wish you had been more

critical, and had pointed out the faults and defects of the book, of

which there are no doubt some, if not many, to be found. I flatter

myself that I have made more clear some passages utterly

unintelligible in our A.V., such as, "He shall deliver the island of

the innocent, yea," etc., chap. xxii. 30, and chap, xxxvi. 33, and the

whole of chap. xxiv. and chap. xx. What a fierce, cruel, hot-headed

Arab Zophar is! How the wretch gloats over Job's miseries. Yet one

admires his word-painting while one longs to kick him! I am glad to

see the _Church Times_ agrees with me in the early character of the

book. There is not a trace in it of later Jewish history or feeling.

The argument on the other side is derived from Aramaic words only,

which words are not unsuitable to a writer who either lived, _or had

lived_ out of Palestine, and scholars agree now that they may belong

either to a very late or a very early time, and are used by people

familiar with the cognate languages of the East.

A word about your very natural feeling on the subject of Satan. I

suppose that Inspiration does not interfere with the character of mind

belonging to the inspired person. The writer thinks Orientally, within

the range of thought common to the age, and patriarchal knowledge, so

that he could neither think nor write as S. Paul or S. John, even

though inspired. We criticize his writing (when we do criticize it)

from the standpoint of the nineteenth century, _i.e._ from the

accumulated knowledge, successive revelations, and refined

civilization of several thousand years.

Its extreme simplicity of description may appear to us trivial. But is

not the fact indubitable that God tries us as He did Job, though by

different methods? And is not our Lord's expression, "whom Satan hath

bound, lo! these eighteen years," and S. Paul's, "to deliver such an

one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh," analogous to the

account in Job? One has only to try to transfer oneself to the

patriarchal age, when there was no Bible, no Lord Jesus come in the

flesh, but when at intervals divine revelations were given by personal

manifestations and then withdrawn, and to take out of oneself all one

has known about God from a child, to view the account as an Oriental

would look at it, not as a Western Christian. The "experiment" (so to

speak) involves one of the grandest questions in the world--Is

religion only a refined selfishness, or is there such a thing as real

faith and love of God, apart from any temporal reward? The devil

asserts the negative and so (observe) do Job's so-called friends; but

Job proves the affirmative, and hence amidst certain unadvised

expressions he (in the main) speaks of God the thing that is right.

I do not know that there is in the early chapters anything that can be

called "petty," more than in the speech of the devils to our Lord,

and His suffering them to go into the swine.

We must, however, beware that we do not, when we say "petty," merely

mean at bottom what is altogether different from our ordinary notions,

formed by daily and general experience of life, as we ourselves find

it.

All this long yarn, and not a word about your health, which is

shameful. We both do heartily rejoice that you are better, and only

hope for everybody's sake and your own, you will nurse and husband

your strength....

Your affectionate old friend,

JOHN FREDERICTON.

TO A.E.

April 10, 1880.

* * * * *

The night before last I dined with Jean Ingelow. I went in to dinner

with Alfred Hunt (a water-colour painter to whose work Ruskin is

devoted). A _very_ unaffected, intelligent, agreeable man; we had a

very pleasant chat. On my other side sat a dear old Arctic Explorer,

old _Ray_. I fell quite in love with him, and with the nice Scotch

accent that overtook him when he got excited. Born and bred in the

Orkneys, almost, as he said, _in the sea_; this wild boyhood of

familiarity with winds and waves, and storms and sports, was the

beginning of the life of adventure and exploration he has led. He told

me some very interesting things about Sir John Franklin. He said that

great and good as he was there were qualities which he had not, the

lack of which he believed cost him his life. He said Sir John went

well and gallantly at his end, if he could keep to the lines he had

laid down; but he had not "fertility of resource for the unforeseen,"

and didn't _adapt_ himself. As an instance, he said, he always made

his carriers _march_ along a given line. If stores were at A, and the

point to be reached B, by the straight line from A to B he would send

the local men he had _hired_ through bog and over boulder, whereas if

he said to any of them, "B is the place you must meet me at," with

the knowledge of natives and the instinct of savages they would have

gone with half the labour and twice the speed. He said too that

Franklin's party suffered terribly because none of his officers were

_sportsmen_, which, he said, simply means starvation if your stores

fail you. We had a long talk about scientific men and their

_deductions_, and he said quaintly, "Ye see, I've just had a lot of

rough expeerience from me childhood; and things have happened now and

again that make me not just put implicit faith in all scientific

dicta. I must tell you, Mrs. Ewing, that when I was a young man, and

just back from America and the Arctic Regions, where I'd lived and

hunted from a mere laddie, I went to a lecture delivered by one of the

verra _first_ men of the day (whose name for that reason I won't give

to ye) before some three thousand listeners and the late Prince

Consort; and there on the table was the head and antlers of a male

reindeer--beasts that, as I'm telling ye, I knew _sentimately_, and

had killed at all seasons. And this man, who, as I'm telling ye, was

one of the verra furrrst men of the day (which is the reason why I'm

not giving ye his name) spoke on, good and bad, and then he said,

'Ladies and gentlemen, and your Royal Highness, be good enough to look

at the head of this Reindeer. Here ye see the antlers,' and so forth,

'and ye'll obsairve that there's a horn that has the shape of a shovel

and protrudes over the beast's eyes in a way that must be horribly

inconvenient. But when ye see its shape, ye'll perceive one of the

most beautiful designs of Providence, a _proveesion_ as we may say;

for this inconvenient horn is so shaped that with it the beast can

shovel away the deep winter snow and find its accustomed food.'

"And when I heard this I just shook with laughing till a man I knew

saw me, and asked what I was laughing at, and I said, 'Because I

happen to know that the male reindeer _sheds its antlers_ every year

in the beginning of November, _snow shovel_ and all, and does not

resume them till spring.'"!!!!!!

* * * * *

April 26, 1880.

* * * * *

Curious your writing to me about Dante's Hell--and Lethe. Two books in

my childhood gave the outward and visible signs of that inward and

spiritual interest in Death and the Life to Come which is one of the

most vehement ones of childhood (and which breaks out QUITE

as strongly in those who have been carefully brought up apart from

"religious convictions" as in those whose minds have been soaked in

them). One was Flaxman's _Dante_, the other Selous's illustrations in

the same style to the _Pilgrim's Progress_. I do not know whether I

suffered more in my childhood than other children. Possibly, as my

head was a good deal too big for my body! But I remember two troubles

that haunted me. One that I should get tired of Eternity. Another that

I couldn't be happy in Heaven unless I could _forget_. And in this

latter connection I loved indescribably one of Flaxman's best designs.

[_Sketch._] I can't remember it well enough to draw decently, but this

was the attitude of Dante whom Beatrice was just laving in the Waters

of Forgetfulness before they entered Paradise.

And even more fond was I of the passing of the great river by

Christiana and her children, and by that mixed company of the brave

and the weak, the young and the old, the gentle and the

impatient,--and that grand touch by which the "Mr. Ready-to-Halt" of

the long Pilgrimage crossed the waters of Death without fear or

fainting.

* * * * *

Why should you think I should differ with Dante in his estimate of

sin? I doubt if I could rearrange his Circles, except that "Lust" is a

wide word, as = Passion I should probably leave it where it is; but

there are hideous forms of it which are inextricably mingled, if not

identical with Cruelty,--and Cruelty I should put at the lowest round

of all.

_Clyst S. George._ April 30, 1880.

* * * * *

We have had rather a chaff with Mr. Ellacombe (who in his ninety-first

year is as keen a gardener as ever!) because he has many strange sorts

of _Fritillary_, and when I told him I had seen and gone wild over a

sole-coloured pale yellow one which I saw exhibited in the

Horticultural Gardens, he simply put me down--"No, my dear, there's no

such thing; there's a white Fritillary I can show you outside, and

there's _Fritillaria Lutea_ which is yellow and spotted, but there's

no such plant as you describe." Still it evidently made him restless,

and he kept relating anecdotes of how people are always sending him

_shaves_ about flowers. "I'd a letter the other day, my dear, to

describe a white Crown Imperial--a thing that has _never been_!" Later

he announced--"I have written to Barr and Sugden--'Gentlemen! Here's

another White Elephant. A lady has seen a sole-coloured Yellow

Fritillary!'"

This morning B. and S. wrote back, and are obliged to confess that "a

yellow Fritillary has been produced," but (not being the producers)

they add, "It is not a good yellow." _Pour moi_, I take leave to judge

of colours as well as Barr and Sugden, and can assure you it is a very

lovely yellow, pale and chrome-y. It has been like a chapter out of

Alphonse Karr!

One of the horticultural papers is just about to publish Mr.

Ellacombe's old list of the things he has grown in his own garden.

Three thousand species!

* * * * *

I hope you liked that _Daily Telegraph_ article on the Back Gardener I

sent you? It is really fine workmanship in the writing line as well as

being amusing. I abuse the Press often enough, but I will say such

Essays (for they well deserve the name) are a great credit to the

age--in Penny Dailies!!!

"The Nursery Nonsense of the Birds," "A Stratified Chronology of

Occupancies," "Waves of Whims," etc., etc., are the work of a man who

can use his tools with a master's hand, or at least a _skilled_

worker's!

I am reading another French novel, by Daudet, _Jack_. So far (as I

have got) it is marvellous _writing_. "Le petit Roi--Dahomey" in the

school "des pays chauds" is a Dickenesque character, but quite

marvellous--his fate--his "gri-gri"--his final Departure to the land

where all things are so "made new" that "the former" do not "come into

mind"--having in that supreme hour _forgotten_ alike his sufferings,

his tormentors, and his friends--and only babbling in Dahomeian in

that last dream in which his spirit returned to its first earthly home

before "going home" for Good!--is superb!!! The possible meanness and

brutality of civilized man in Paris--the possible grandeur and obvious

immortality of the smallest, youngest, "gri-gri" worshipping nigger of

Dahomey oh it is wonderful altogether, and I should fancy

SUCH a sketch of the _incompris_ poet and the rest of the

clique!! "_C'est_ LUI."

* * * * *

_Ecclesfield, Sheffield._ July 23, 1880.

MY DEAR MR. CALDECOTT,

I am sending you a number of "Jackanapes" in case you have lost your

other.

I have made marks against places from some of which I think you could

select easy scenes; I mean easy in the sense of being on the lines

where your genius has so often worked.

I will put some notes about each at the end of my letter. What I now

want to ask you is whether you _could_ do me a few illustrations of

the vignette kind for "Jackanapes," so that it might come out at

Christmas. Christmas _ought_ to mean October! so it would of course be

very delightful if you could have completed them in September--and as

soon as might be. But do not WORRY your brain about dates. I

would rather give it up than let you feel the fetters of Time, which,

when they drag one at one's work, makes the labour double. But if you

will begin them, and _see_ if they come pretty readily to your

fingers, I shall only too well understand it if after all you can't

finish in time for this season!

In short I won't press _you_ for all my wishes!--but I do feel rather

disposed to struggle for a good place amongst the hosts of authors who

are besetting you; and as I am not physically or mentally well

constituted for surviving amongst the fittest, if there is _much

shoving_ (!) I want to place my plea on record.

So will you try?--

* * * * *

It was very kind of you and your wife to have us to see your sketches.

I hope you are taking in ozone in the country.

Yours ever,

J.H.E.

[NOTES.]

Respectfully suggested scenes to choose from.

Initial T out of the old tree on the green, with perhaps _to secure

portrait_ the old POSTMAN sitting there with his bag _à la_

an old Chelsea Pensioner.

1. A lad carrying his own long-bow (by regulation his own height) and

trudging by his pack-horse's side, the horse laden with arrows for

Flodden Field (September 9, 1513). Small figures back view (!) going

westwards--poetic bit of moorland and sky.

2. If you _like_--a portrait of the little Miss Jessamine in Church.

3 to 5. You may or may not find some bits on page 706, such as the

ducking in the pond of the political agitator (very small figures

including the old Postman, ex-soldier of Chelsea Pensioner type). Old

inn and coach in distance, geese (not the human ones) scattered in the

fray.

The Black Captain, with his hand on his horse's mane, bigger--(so as

to secure portrait) and vignetted if you like; or _small_ on his horse

stooping to hold his hand out to a child, Master Johnson, seated in a

puddle, and Nurses pointing out the bogy; or standing looking amused

behind Master Johnson (page 707).

6. Pretty vignetted portrait of the little Miss J., three-quarter

length, about size of page 29 of _Old Christmas_. Scene, girl's

bedroom--she with her back to mirror, face buried in her hands,

"crying for the Black Captain"; her hair down to just short of her

knees, the back of her hair catching light from window and reflected

in the glass. Old Miss Jessamine (portrait) talking to her "like a

Dutch uncle" about the letter on the dressing-table; aristocratic

outline against window, and (as Queen Anne died) "with one finger

up"!!!!! (These portraits would make No. 2 needless probably.)

7. Not worth while. I had thought of a very small quay scene with

slaves, a "black ivory"--and a Quaker's back! (Did you ever read the

correspondence between Charles Napier and Mr. Gurney on Trade and

War?)

8. A very pretty elopement please! Finger-post pointing to

Scotland--Captain _not_ in uniform of course.

9 or 10--hardly; too close to the elopement which we _must_ have!

11. You are sure to make that pretty.

12. Might be a very small shallow vignette of the field of Waterloo. I

will look up the hours, etc., and send you word.

13. As you please--or any part of this chapter.

16. I mean a tombstone like this [_Sketch of flat-topped tombstone_],

very common with us.

17, 18. I leave to you.

19 or 20, might suit you.

21. Please let me try and get you a photo of a handsome old general!!

I think I will try for General MacMurdo, an old Indian hero of the

most slashing description and great good looks.

22. I thought some comic scene of a gentleman in feather-bed and

nightcap with a paper--"Rumours of Invasion" conspicuous--might be

vignetted into a corner.

23 might be fine, and go down side of page; quite alone as vignette,

or distant indication of Jackanapes looking after or up at him.

24. Should you require military information for any scene here?

25-26. I hope you could see your way to 26. Back view of

horses--"Lollo the 2nd" and a screw, Tony lying over his holding on by

the neck and trying to get at his own reins from Jackanapes' hand.

J.'s head turned to him in full glow of the sunset against which they

ride; distant line of dust and "retreat" and curls of smoke.

The next chapter requires perhaps a good deal of "war material" to

paint with, and strictly soldier-type faces.

27. The cobbler giving his views might be a good study with an

advertisement somewhere of the old "souled and healed cheap."

28. This scene I think you might like, and please on the wall have a

hatchment with "Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori" (excuse my bad

Latinity if I have misquoted).

29 would make a pretty scene, I think, and

30 would make me too happy if you scattered pretty groups and back

views of the young people, "the Major" and one together, in one of

your perfect bits of rural English summer-time.

If there _were_ to be a small vignette at the end, I should like a

wayside Calvary with a shadowy Knight in armour, lance in rest,

approaching it from along a long flat road.

Now please (it is nearly post time!) forgive how very badly I have

written these probably confusing suggestions. I am not very well, and

my head and _thumb_ both fail me.

If you can do it, do it as you like. I will send you a photo of an

officer who will do for the Black Captain, and will try and secure a

General also. If you could lay your hands on the Illustrated Number

that was "extra" for the death of the Prince Imperial--a R.A. officer

close by the church door, helping in one end of the coffin, is a very

typical military face.

Yours, J.H.E.

TO A.E.

July 30, 1880.

* * * * *

Oh, with what sympathy I hear you talk of Shakespeare. Nay! not Dante

and not Homer--not Chaucer--and not Goethe--"not Lancelot nor another"

are really his peers.

Here blossom sonnets that one puts on a par with his--there, _in

another man's_ work the illimitable panorama of varied and life-like

men and women "merely players," may draw laughter and tears (Crabbe,

and much of Dickens and other men, and Don Quixote). His coarse wit

and satire and shrewdness, when he is least pure, may I suppose find

rivals in some of the eighteenth or seventeenth century English

writers, and in the marvellous brilliancy of French ones. When he is

purest and highest I cannot think of a Love Poet to touch him.

Tennyson perhaps nearest. But _he_ seems quite unable to fathom the

heart of a noble woman with any _strength_ of her own, or any

knowledge of the world. "Enid" is to me intolerable as well as the

degraded legend it was founded on. Perhaps the brief thing of Lady

Godiva is the nearest approach, and Elaine faultless as the picture of

a maiden-heart brought up in "the innocence of ignorance." But he can

write fairly of "fair women." Scott runs closer, but his are paintings

from without. "Jeanie Deans" is bad to beat!!

Shelley comes to his side when _weirdness_ is concerned.

"Five fathom deep thy father lies," etc.,

is run hard by--

"Its passions will rock thee

As the storms rock the ravens on high:

Bright reason will mock thee,

Like the sun from a wintry sky.

From thy nest every rafter

Will rot, and thine eagle home

_Leave thee naked to laughter,

When leaves fall and cold winds come._"

But I will not bore you with comparisons. My upshot is that no one of

the many who may rival him in SOME of his perfections, COMBINE them all

in ONE genius. In all these philosophizing days--who touches him in

philosophy? From the simplest griefs and pleasures and humanity at its

simplest--Macduff over the massacre of his wife and children--to all

that the most delicate brain may search into and suffer, as Hamlet--or

the ten thousand exquisite womanish thoughts of Portia, a creature of

brain power and feminine fragility--

"By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this great world."

* * * * *

TO C.T.G.

_Greno House, Grenoside, Sheffield._

Aug. 3, 1880.

* * * * *

_À propos_ of my affairs ... next year we might do something with some

of my "small gems." Don't _you_ like "Aldegunda" (Blind Man and Talking

Dog)? D. does so much. Do you like the "Kyrkegrim turned Preacher,"

"Ladders to Heaven," and "Dandelion Clocks"?...

... As you know, these _little_ things are the chief favourites with

my more educated friends, whose kindness consoles me for the much

labour I spend on so few words (The "Kyrkegrim turned Preacher" was

"in hand" two years!!!), and I think their only chance would be to be

so dressed and presented as to specially and downrightly appeal to

those who would value the Art of the Illustrator, and perhaps

recognize the refinement of labour with which the letter-press has

been ground down, and clipped, and condensed, and selected--till, as

it would appear to the larger buying-public, there is _wonderfully

little left you for your money_!!...

Poor old Cruikshank! How well--and willingly--he would have done

"Kyrkegrim turned Preacher." He said, when he read my things, "the

Fairies came and danced to him"--which pleased me much.

* * * * *

Yesterday I pulled myself together and wrote straight to the printers,

to the effect that the suffering the erratic and careless printing of

"We and the World" cost me was such that I was obliged to protest

against X. and Sons economizing by using boys and untrained incapables

to print (printing from print being easier, and therefore adapted for

teaching the young P.D. how to set up type), pointing out one sentence

in which (clear type in _A.J.M._) the words "insist on guiding my fate

by lines of their own ruling" was printed to the effect that they

wouldn't insist on _gilding_ my _faith_, etc., _their_ being changed

to _there_. All of which the _reader_ had overlooked--to concern

himself with my Irish brogue--and certain _reiterations of words_

which he mortally hates, and which I regard the chastened use of, as

like that of the _plural of excellence_ in Hebrew!

(He would have put that demoniacal mark [symbol: checkmark]

against one of the summers in "All the fragrance of summer

when summer was gone"!!!)

I sent SUCH a polite message PER X. to his reader,

thanking him much for trying to mend my brogue (which had already

passed through the hands of three or four Irishmen, including Dr.

Todhunter and Dr. Littledale), but proposing that for the future we

should confine ourselves to our respective trades,--That the printer

should print from copy, and not out of his own head--that the reader

should read for clerical errors and bad printing, which would leave me

some remnant of time and strength to attend to the language and

sentiments for which I alone was responsible. My dear love, I must

stop.

Ever your devoted,

J.H.E.

TO A.E.

_Farnham Castle, Surrey._

Oct. 10, 1880.

DIARY OF MRS. PEPYS.

"_Oct. 9._--Passed an ill night, and did early resolve to send a

carrier pigeon unto the Castle to notify that I must lie where I was,

being unable to set forward. But on rising I found myself not so ill

that I need put others to inconvenience; so I did but order a cab and

set forth at three in the afternoon, in pouring rain. My hostess sent

with me David her footman, who saved me all trouble with my luggage,

and so forth from Frimley to Farnham. A pause at the South Camp

Station, dear familiar spot, a little before which the hut where my

good lord lay before we were married loomed somewhat drearily through

the mist and rain. At Farnham the Lord Bishop's servitor was waiting

for me, and took all my things, leading me to a comfortable carriage

and so forth to the Castle.

Somewhat affrighted at the hill, which is steep, and turns suddenly;

but recovered my steadfastness in thinking that no horses could know

the way so well as these.

The Bishopess and her daughter received me on the stair-case, and we

had tea in the book-gallery, a most pleasing apartment.

Thence to my room to rest till dinner. It is a mighty fine apartment,

vast and high, with long windows having deep embrasures, and looking

down upon the cedars and away over the whole town, which is a pretty

one.

Methinks if I were a state prisoner, I would fain be imprisoned in an

upper chamber, looking level with these same cedar-branches, whereon,

mayhap, some bird might build its nest for mine entertainment.

Dinner at 8.15. Wore my ancient brocade newly furbished with

olive-green satin, and tinted lace about my neck, fastened with a

brooch made like to a Maltese Cross, green stockings and shoes

embroidered with flowers.

Was taken down to dinner by Sir Thos. Gore Browne, an exceeding

pleasant old soldier, elder brother to the Bishop,--having before

dinner had much talk with his Lordship, whom I had not remembered to

have been the dear friend of our dear friend the Lord Bishop of

Fredericton, when both prelates were curates in Exeter."

* * * * *

I am very much enjoying my visit to this dear old Castle. They are

superabundantly kind! After the evening yesterday everybody, visitors

and family, all trooped into the dimly-lighted chapel for Evening

Prayer. They sang "Jerusalem the Golden," and Gen. Lysons sang away

through his glass, in his K.C.B. star, and came up to compliment me

about it afterwards....

October 22, 1880.

Yesterday was Trafalgar Day. About half-a-dozen old Admirals of ninety

and upwards met and dined together! I don't know what I would not have

given to have been present at that most ghostly banquet! How like a

dream, a shadow, a bubble, a passing vapour, and all the rest of it,

must life not have seemed to these ex-midshipmen of the _Victory_ and

the _Téméraire_! muffling their poor old throats against this sudden

frost, and toddling to table, and hobnobbing their glass in

old-fashioned ways to immortal memories,

"here in London's central roar,

Where the sound of those, he wrought for,

And the feet of those he fought for,

Echo round his bones for Evermore!"

The cold is sudden and most severe. I fear it will hustle some of

those dear old Admirals to rejoin their ancient comrade--the "Saviour

of the silver-coasted isle."

* * * * *

May 1881.

"The Harbour Bay was clear as glass--

So smooth--ly was it strewn!

And on--the Bây--the moonlight lay

And--the--Shad--ow of--the Moon!"

--thus was it at 11 p.m. on the night of the 4th of May, when I looked

out of my bedroom window at Plâce Castle, Fowey, on the coast of

Cornwall!!!!--(and we must also remember that Isolde was married to

the King of Cornwall, and lived probably in much such a place as

Plâce!)

* * * * *

I caught a train on to Fowey, which I reached about 5. There I found a

brougham and two fiery chestnuts waiting for me, and after some

plunging at the train away went my steeds, and we turned almost at

once into the drive. There is no park to Plâce that I could see, but

the drive is _sui generis_! You keep going through _cuttings_ in the

rock, so that it has an odd feeling of a drive _on the stage_ in a

Fairy Pantomime. On your right hand the cliff is _tapestried_, almost

hidden, by wild-flowers and ferns in the wealthiest profusion!

Unluckily the wild garlic smells dreadfully, but its exquisite white

blossoms have a most aërial effect, with pink campion, Herb Robert,

etc., etc. On the left hand you have perpetual glimpses of the harbour

as it lies below--oh, _such_ a green! I never saw such before--"as

green as em-er-âld!"--and the roofs of the ancient borough of

Fowey!--I hope by next mail to have photographs to send you of the

place. It perpetually reminded me of the Ancient Mariner. As to Plâce

(P. Castle they call it now), the photographs will really give you a

better idea of it than I can. You must bear in mind that the harbour

of Fowey and a castle, carrying artillery, have been in the hands of

the Treffrys from time immemorial.... We went over the Church, a fine

old Church with a grand tower, standing just below the Castle. The

Castle itself is chiefly Henry VI, and Henry VII. I never saw such

elaborate stone carving as decorates the outside. There are beautiful

"Rose" windows close to the ground, and the Lilies of France, of

course, are everywhere. The chief drawing-room is a charming room,

hung with pale yellow satin damask, and with beautiful Louis Quinze

furniture. The porphyry hall is considered one of _the_ sights, the

roof, walls, and floor are all of red Cornish porphyry....

_Frimhurst_, May 10, 1881.

I have been into the poor old Camp. I will tell thee. Did you ever

meet Mr. F., R.E.? a young engineer of H.'s standing, and his chief

friend. A Lav-engro (Russian is his present study) with a nice taste

in old brass pots and Eastern rugs, and a choice little book-case, and

a terrier named "Jem "--the exact image of dear old "Rough." He asked

us to go to tea to see the pictures you and I gave to the Mess and so

forth. So the General let us have the carriage and pair and away we

went. It _is_ the divinest air! It was like passing quickly through

BALM of body and mind. And you know how the birds sing, and

how the young trees look among the pines, and the milkmaids in the

meadows, and the kingcups in the ditches, and then the North Camp and

the dust, and Sir Evelyn Wood's old quarters with a new gate, and then

the racecourse with polo going on and more dust!--and then the R.E.

theatre (where nobody has now the spirit to get up any theatricals!),

and the "Kennêl" (as Jane Turton called it) where I used to get flags

and rushes, and where Trouvé, dear Trouvé! will never swim again! And

then the Iron Church from which I used to _run_ backwards and forwards

not to be late for dinner every evening, with the "tin" roof that used

to shake to the "Tug of War Hymn,"--and then more dust, and (it must

be confessed) dirt and squalor, and _back views_ of ashpit and

mess-kitchens and wash-houses, and turf wall the grass won't grow on,

and rustic work always breaking up! and so on into the R.E. Lines! Mr.

F. was not quite ready for us, so we drove on a little and looked at

No. 3. N. Lines. T.'s hut is nearly buried in creepers now. An _Isle

of Man_(do you remember?) official lives there, they say; but it

looked as if only the Sleeping Beauty could. Our hut looks just the

same. Cole's greenhouse in good repair. But through all the glamour of

love one could see that there _is_ a good deal of dirt and dust, and

refuse and coal-boxes!!!

Then a bugle played!--

"The trumpet blew!"

I _think_ it was "Oh come to the Orderly Room!" _We_ went to the

Mess. The Dining-Room is much improved by a big window, high pitched,

opposite the conservatory. It is new papered, prettily, and our

pictures hang on each side of the fireplace. Mr. G. joined us and we

went into the Ante-Room. Then to the inevitable photo books, in the

window where poor old Y. used to sit in his spotless mufti. When G.

(who is not _spirituel_) said, turning over leaves for the young

ladies, "that and that are killed" I turned so sick! Mac G. and Mac

D.! Oh dear! There be many ghosts in "old familiar places." But I have

no devouter superstition than that the souls of women who die in

childbed and men who fall in battle go straight to Paradise!!!

Requiescant in Pace.

Then to tea in Mr. F.'s quarters next to the men. Then--now mark you,

how the fates managed so happy a coincidence--G. said casually, "I saw

Mrs. Jelf in the Lines just now!" I nearly jumped out of my boots, for

I did not know she had got to England. Then F. had helped to nurse

Jelf in Cyprus and was of course interested to see her, so out went G.

for Mrs. J., and anon, through the hut porch in she came--Tableau--!

Then I sent the girls with Messrs F. and G. to "go round the stables,"

and M. and _Jem_ and I remained together. Jem went to sleep (with one

eye open) under the table, and the sun shone and made the roof very

hot, and outside--"The trumpets blew!"

It was an afternoon wonderfully like a Wagner opera, thickset with

recurring _motifs_....

_Frimhurst._ June 15, 1891.

* * * * *

The old editions of Dickens are here, and I have been re-reading

_Little Dorrit_ with keen enjoyment. There is a great deal of poor

stuff in it, but there is more that is first-rate than I thought. I

had quite forgotten Flora's enumeration of the number of times Mr. F.

proposed to her--"seven times, once in a hackney coach, once in a

boat, once in a pew, once on a donkey at Tunbridge Wells, and the rest

on his knees." But she is very admirable throughout.

I've also been reading some more of that American novelist's work,

Henry James, junior,--_The Madonna of the Future_, etc. He is not

_great_, but very clever.

Used you not to like the first-class Americans you met in China very

much? It is with great reluctance--believing Great Britons to be the

salt of the earth!!--but a lot of evidence of sorts is gradually

drawing me towards a notion that the best type of American Gentleman

is something like a generation ahead of our gentlemen in his attitude

towards women and all that concerns them. There are certain points of

view commonly taken up by Englishmen, even superior ones, which always

exasperate women, and which seem equally incomprehensible by American

men. You will guess the sort of things I mean. I do not know whether

it is more really than the _élite_ of Yankees (in which case we also

have our _ámes d'élite_ in chivalry)--but I fancy as a race they seem

to be shaking off the ground-work idea of woman as the lawful

PREY of man, who must keep Mrs. Grundy at her elbow, and

_show cause why she shouldn't be insulted_. (An almost exclusively

_English_ feeling even in Great Britain, I fancy. By the bye, what odd

flash of self-knowledge of John Bull made Byron say in his will that

his daughter was not to marry an Englishman, as either Scotch or

Irishmen made better husbands?)...

July 6, 1881.

* * * * *

The Academy this year is very fine. Some truly beautiful things. But

before one picture I stood and simply laughed and shook with laughing

aloud. It is by an Italian, and called "A frightful state of things."

It is a baby left in a high chair in a sort of Highland cottage, with

his plate of "parritch" on his lap--and every beastie about the place,

geese, cocks, hens, chicks, dogs, cats, etc., etc., have invaded him,

and are trying to get some of his food. The painting is exquisite, and

it is the most indescribably funny thing you can picture: and so like

dear Hector, with one paw on little Mistress's eye eating her

breakfast!!!...

* * * * *

_Ecclesfield._ August 24, 1881.