... André has made the "rough-book" (water colours) of "A week spent

in a Glass Pond, By the Great Water Beetle." I only had it a few

hours, but I scrambled a bit of the title-page on to the enclosed

sheet of green paper for you to see. It is entirely in colours. The

name of the tale is beautifully done in letters, the initials of which

_bud and blossom_ into the Frogbit (which shines in white masses on

the Aldershot Canal!) [_Sketch._] To the left the "Water Soldier"

(_Stratiotes Aloides_) with its white blossoms. At the foot of the

page "the Great Water Beetle" himself, writing his name in the

book--_Dyticus Marginalis_. There is another blank page at the

beginning of the book, where the beetle is standing blacking himself

in a penny ink-pot!!!! and another where he is just turning the leaves

of a book with his antennæ--the book containing the name of the

chromolithographers. He has adopted almost all my ideas, and I told

him (though it is not in the tale) "I should like a _dog_ to be with

the children in all the pictures, and a cat to be with the old

naturalist,"--and he has such a dog (a white bull terrier) [_sketch_],

who waits on the woodland path for them in one picture, _noofles_ in

the colander at the water-beasts in another, examines the beetle in a

third, stands on his hind legs to peep into the aquarium in a fourth,

etc. But I cannot describe it all to you. I have asked to have it

again by and by, and will send you a coloured sketch or two from it. I

am so much pleased!... Perhaps the best part of the book is _the

cover_. It is very beautiful. The Bell Glass Aquarium (lights in the

water beautifully done) carries the title, and reeds, flowers, newts,

beetles, dragon-flies, etc., etc., are grouped with wondrous fancy!

This entirely his own design....

_Jesmond Dene, Newcastle-on-Tyne._

August 30, 1881.

* * * * *

The four Jones children and their nurse are in lodgings at a place

called Whitley on the coast, not far from here. Somebody from here

goes to see them most days. To-day Mrs. J. and I went. As we were

starting dear "Bob" (the collie who used to belong to the

Younghusbands) was determined to go. Mrs. Jones said No. He bolted

into the cab and crouched among my petticoats; I begged for him, and

he was allowed. At the station he was in such haste he _would_ jump

into a 2nd class carriage, and we had hard work to get him out. (This

_is_ rather funny, because she usually goes there 2nd class with the

children: and he looked at the 1st and would hardly be persuaded to

get in.) Well, the coast is rather like Filey, and such a wind was

blowing, and _such_ white horses foamed and fretted, and sent up

wildly tossed fountains of foam against the rocks, and such grey and

white waves swallowed up the sands! I ran and played with the children

and the dog--and built a big sand castle ("Early English if not Delia

Cruscan"!!), and by good-luck and much sharp hunting among the

storm-wrack flung ashore among the foam, found four cork floats, and

made the children four ships with paper sails, and had a glorious dose

of oxygen and iodine. How strange are the properties of the invisible

air! The air from an open window at Ecclesfield gives me neuralgia,

and doubly so at Exeter. To-day the wild wind was driving huge tracts

of foam across the sands in masses that broke up as they flew, and

driving the sand itself after them like a dust-storm. I could barely

stand on the slippery rocks, and yet my teeth seemed to _settle in my

jaws_ and my face to get PICKLED (!) and comforted by the

wild (and very cold) blast.... Now to sweet repose, but I was obliged

to tell you I had been within sound of the sea, aye! and run into and

away from the waves, with children and a dog. This is better than a

Bath Chair in Brompton Cemetery!...

_Thornliebank, Glasgow._ September 8, 1881.

... "It is good to be sib to" kindly Scots! and I am having a very

pleasant visit. You know the place and its luxuries and hospitalities

well.

I came from Newcastle last Friday, and (in a good hour, etc.) bore more

in the travelling way than I have managed with impunity since I broke

down. I came by the late express, got to Glasgow between 8 and 9 p.m.,

and had rather a hustle to to get a cab, etc. A nice old porter (as

dirty and hairy as a Simian!) secured one at last with a cabby who

jabbered in a tongue that at last I utterly lost the running of, and

when he suddenly (and as it appeared indignantly!) remounted his box,

whipped up, and drove off, leaving me and my boxes, I felt inclined to

cry(!), and said piteously to the porter, "What _does_ he say? I

_cannot_ understand him!" On which the old Ourang-Outang began to pat me

on the shoulder with his paw, and explain loudly and slowly to my

Sassenach ears, "He's jest telling ye--that 't'll be the better forrr

ye--y'unnerstan'--to hev a caaaab that's got an i(ro)n railing on the

tôp of it--for the sake of yourrr boxes." And in due time I was handed

over to a cab with an iron railing, the Simian left me, and so friendly

a young cabby (also dirty) took me in hand that I began to think he was

drunk, but soon found that he was only exceedingly kind and lengthily

conversational! When he had settled the boxes, put on his coat, argued

out the Crums' family and their residences, first with me and then with

his friends on the platform, we were just off when a thought seemed to

strike him, and back he came to the open window, and saying "Ye'll be

the better of havin' this ap"--scratched it up from the outside with

nails like Nebuchadnezzar's. Whether my face looked as if I did not like

it or what, I don't know, but down came the window again with a rattle,

and he wagged the leather strap almost in my face and said, "there's

_hôals_ in't, an' ye can jest let it down to yer own satisfaction if ye

fin' it gets clos." Then he rattled it up again, mounted the box, and

off we went. Oh, _such_ a jolting drive of six miles! Such wrenching

over tramway lines! But I had my fine air-cushions, and my spine must

simply be another thing to what it was six months back. Oh, he was

funny! I found that he did NOT know the way to Thornliebank, but having

a general idea, and a (no doubt just) faith in his own powers, he swore

he did know, and utterly resented asking bystanders. After we got far

away from houses, on the bleak roads in the dark night, I merely felt

one must take what came. By and by he turned round and began to retrace

his steps. I put out my head (as I did at intervals to his great

disgust; he always pitched well into me--"We're aal right--just

com--pôse yeself," etc.), but he assured me he'd only just gone by the

gate. So by and by we drew up, no lights in the lodge, no answer to

shouts--then he got down, and in the darkness I heard the gates grating

as if they had not been opened for a century. Then under overhanging

trees, and at last in the dim light I saw that the walls were broken

down and weeds were thick round our wheels. I could bear it no longer,

and put out my head again, and I shall never forget the sight. The moon

was coming a little bit from behind the clouds, and showed a court-yard

in which we had pulled up, surrounded with buildings in ruins, and

overgrown with nettles and rank grass. We had not seen a human being

since we left Glasgow, at least an hour before,--and of all the places

to have one's throat cut in!! The situation was so tight a place, it

really gave one the courage of desperation, and I ordered him to drive

away at once. I believe he was half frightened himself, and the horse

ditto, and never, never was I in anything so nearly turned over as that

cab! for the horse got it up a bank. At last it was righted, but not an

inch would my Scotchman budge till he'd put himself through the window

and confounded himself in apologies, and in explanations calculated to

convince me that, in spite of appearances, he knew the way to

Thornliebank "pairfeckly well." "Noo, I do beg of ye not to be

narrrr-vous. Do NOT give way to't. Ye may trust me entirely. Don't be

discommodded in the least. I'm just pairfectly acquainted with the road.

But it'll be havin' been there in the winter that's just misled me. But

we're aal right." And all right he did eventually land me here! so late

J. had nearly given me up.

* * * * *

TO MRS. ELDER.

_Greno House, Grenoside, Sheffield._

October 26, 1881.

DEAREST AUNT HORATIA,

* * * * *

D. says you would like some of the excellent Scotch stories I heard

from Mr. Donald Campbell. I wish I could take the wings of a swallow

and tell you them. You must supply gaps from your imagination.

They were as odd a lot of tales as I ever heard--_drawled_ (oh so

admirably drawled, without the flutter of an eyelid, or the quiver of

a muscle) by a Lowland Scotchman, and queerly characteristic of the

Lowland Scotch race!!!! Picture this slow phlegmatic rendering to your

"mind's eye, Horatia!"

A certain excellent woman after a long illness--departed this life,

and the Minister went to condole with the Widower. "The Hand of

affliction has been heavy on yu, Donald. Ye've had a sair loss in

your Jessie."

"Aye--aye--I've had a sair loss in my Jessie--an' a heavy ex-pense."

* * * * *

A good woman lost her husband, and the Minister made his way to the

court where she lived. He found her playing cards with a friend. But

she was _æquus ad occasionem_--as Charlie says!--

"Come awa', Minister! Come awa' in wi' ye. Ye'll see _I'm just hae-ing

a trick with the cairds to ding puir Davie oot o' my heid_."

* * * * *

I don't know if the following will _read_ comprehensibly. _Told_ it

was overwhelming, and was a prime favourite with the Scotch audience.

Hoo oor Baby was _burrrned_.

(How our Baby was burnt.)

(You must realize a kind of amiable bland _whine_ in the way of

telling this. A caressing tone in the Scotch drawl, as the good lady

speaks of _oor wee Wullie_, etc. Also a roll of the r's on the word

burned.)

"Did ye never hear hoo oor wee Baby was burrrned? Well ye see--it was

_this_ way. The Minister and me had been to _Peebles_--and we were

awfu' tired, and we were just haeing oor bit suppers--when oor wêê

Wullie cam doon-stairs and he says--'Mither, Baby's _burrrning_.'

"--Y'unerstan it was the day that the Minister and me were at Peebles.

We were _awful_ tired, and we were just at oor suppers, and the

Minister says (very loud and nasal), '_Ca'll Nurrse_!'--but as it

rarely and unfortunitly happened--Nurrse was washing and she couldna

be fashed.

"And in a while our WEE Wullie cam down the stairs again, and

he says--'Mither! Baby's burning.'

"--as I was saying the Minister and me had been away over at Peebles,

and we were in the verra midst of oor suppers, and I said to him--'Why

didna ye call Nurse?'--and off he ran.

"--and there was the misfirtune of it--Nurrse was washing, and she

wouldn't be fashed.

"And--in--a while--oor weee Wullie--came doon the stairs again--and

he says 'Mither! Baby's burrrned.' And that was the way oor poor woe

baby was burnt!"

* * * * *

Now for one English one and then I must stop to-day. I flatter myself

I can tell this with a nice mincing and yet vinegar-ish voice.

"When I married my 'Usbin I had no expectation that he would live

three week.

"But Providence--for wise purposes no doubt!--has seen fit to spare

him three years.

"And there he sits, all day long, a-reading the _Illustrious News_."

Now I must stop....

Your loving niece,

JULIANA HORATIA EWING.

TO A.E.

_Grenoside._ Advent Sunday, 1881.

* * * * *

On one point I think I have improved in my sketching. I have been long

wanting to get a _quick style_ sketching not painting. Because I shall

never have the time, or the time and strength to pursue a more

finished style with success. Now I have got paper on which I can make

no corrections (so it forces me to be "to the point"), and which takes

colour softly and nicely. I have to aim at very correct drawing _at

once_, and I lay in a good deal both of form and shade with a very

soft pencil and then wash colour over; and with the colour I aim at

blending tints as I go on, putting one into the other whilst it is

wet, instead of washing off, and laying tint over tint, which the

paper won't bear. I am doing both figures and landscape, and in the

same style. I think the nerve-vigour I get from the fresh air helps me

to decision and choice of colours. But I shall bore you with this

gallop on my little hobby horse!...

November 30.

... I have sketched up to to-day, but it was cold and sunless, so I

did some village visiting. I am known here, by the bye, as "_Miss

Gatty as was_"! I generally go about with a tribe of children after

me, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin! They are now fairly trained to

keeping behind me, and are curiously civil in taking care of my traps,

pouring out water for me, and keeping each other in a kind of rough

order by rougher adjurations!

"Keep out o' t' _leet_ can't ye?"

"Na then! How's shoo to see through thee?"

"Shoo's gotten t' Dovecot in yon book, and shoo's got little Liddy

Kirk--and thy moother wi' her apron over her heead, and Eliza Flowers

sitting upo' t' doorstep wi' her sewing--and shoo's got t'

woodyard--and Maester D. smooking his pipe--and shoo's gotten _Jack_."

"Nây! Has shoo gotten Jack?"

"Shoo _'as_. And shoo's gotten ould K. sitting up i' t' shed corner

chopping wood, and shoo's bound to draw him and Dronfield's lad

criss-cross sawing."

"Aye. Shoo did all Greno Wood last week, they tell me."

"Aye. And shoo's done most o' t' village this week. What's shoo bound

to do wi' 'em all?"

"_Shoo'll piece 'em all together and mak a big picter of t' whole

place._" (These are true bills!)

Mr. S---- brings in some amusing _ana_ of the village on this subject.

A.W., a nice lad training for schoolmaster, was walking to Chapeltown

with several _rolls of wall paper_ and a big wall paste-brush, when he

was met by "Ould K." (a cynical old beggar, and vainer than any girl,

who has been affronted because I put Master D. into my foreground, and

not him), who said to him--"Well, lad! I see thou's _going out

mapping_, like t' rest on 'em." This evening Mr. S---- tells me his

landlord told him that some men who work for a very clever file-cutter

here, who is _facile princeps_ at his trade, but _mean_, and keeps

"the shop" cold and uncomfortable for his workmen--devised yesterday

the happy thought of going to their Gaffer and telling him that I had

been sketching down below (true) and was coming up their way, and that

I was sure to expect a glint of fire in the shop, which ought to look

its best. According to N. he took the bait completely, piled a roaring

fire, and as the day wore on kept wandering restlessly out and peering

about for me! When they closed for the night he said it was strange I

hadn't been, but he reckoned I was sure to be there next day, and he

could wish I would "tak him wi' his arm uplifted to strike." (He is a

very powerful smith.) I think I _must_ go if the shop is at all

picturesque....

Nov. 25, 1881.

* * * * *

Be happy in a small round. But, none the less, all the more does it

refresh me to get the wave of all your wider experience to flood my

narrow ones--and to enjoy all the _calm_ bits of your language study

and the like. And oh, I am _very_ glad about the Musical Society!

Though I dare say you'll have some _mauvais quarts d'heure_ with the

strings in damp weather!...

I have really got some pretty sketches done the last few days. Not

_finished_ ones, the weather is not fit for long sitting; but H.H. has

given me some "Cox" paper, a rough kind of stuff something like what

_sugar_ is wrapped up in, and with a very soft black pencil I have

been getting in quick outlines--and then tinting them with thin pure

washes of colour. I have been doing one of the Clog-shop. This quaint

yard has doors--old doors--which long since have been painted a most

charming red. Then the old shop is red-tiled, and an old stone-chimney

from which the pale blue smoke of the wood-fire floats softly off

against the tender tints of the wood, on the edge of which lie fallen

logs with yellow ends, ready for the clog-making, and all the bare

brown trees, and the green and yellow sandstone walls, and Jack the

Daw hopping about. The old man at the clog-yard was very polite to me

to-day. He said, "It's a pratty bit of colour," and "It makes a nicet

sketch now you're getting in the _dit_tails." He went some distance

yesterday to get me some india-rubber, and then wanted me to keep it!

He's a perfect "picter card" himself. I must try and get _his_

portrait.

* * * * *

_Ecclesfield._ Dec. 23, 1881.

... I cannot tell you the pleasure it gives me that you say what you

do of "Daddy Darwin." No; it will not make me overwork. I think, I

hope, nothing ever will again. Rather make me doubly careful that I

may not lose the gift you help me to believe I have. I have had very

kind letters about it, and Mrs. L. sent me a sweet little girl dressed

in pink--a bit of Worcester China!--as "Phoebe Shaw."...

Aunt M. sent "Daddy Darwin" to T. Kingdon (he is now Suffragan Bishop

to Bishop Medley), and she sent us his letter. I will copy what he

says: "'Daddy Darwin' is very charming--directly I read it I took it

off to the Bishop--and he read it and cried over it with joy, and then

read it again, and it has gone round Fredericton by this time. The

story is beautifully told, and the picture is quite what it should be.

When I look at the picture I think nothing could beat it, and then

when I read the story I think the story is best--till I look again at

the picture, and I can only say that _together_ I don't think they

could be beaten at all in their line. I have enjoyed them much. There

is such a wonderful fragrance of the Old Country about them."

I thought you would like to realize the picture of our own dear old

Bishop crying with joy over it! What a young heart! tenderer than many

in their teens; and what unfailing affection and sympathy....

January 17, 1882.

* * * * *

Mrs. O'M. is delighted with "Daddy Darwin." I had a most curious

letter about it from Mrs. S., a very clever one and very flattering!

F.S. too wrote to D., and said things almost exactly similar. It seems

odd that people should express such a sense of "purity" with the "wit

and wisdom" of one's writing! It seems such an odd reflection on the

tone of other people's writings!!! But the minor writers of the

"Fleshly school" are perhaps producing a reaction! Though it's

_marvellous_ what people will read, and think "so clever!" Some novels

lately--_Sophy_ and _Mehalah_, deeply recommended to me, have made me

aghast. I'm not very young, nor I think very priggish; but I do

decline to look at life and its complexities solely and entirely from

a point of view that (bar Christian names and the English language)

would do equally well for a pig or a monkey. If I _am_ no more than a

Pig, I'm a fairly "learned" pig, and will back myself to get some

small piggish pleasures out of this mortal stye, before I go to the

Butcher!! But--IF--I am something very different, and very much

higher, I won't ignore my birthright, or sell it for Hog'swash,

because it involves the endurance of some pain, and the exercise of

some faith and hope and charity! _Mehalah_ is a well-written book,

with a delicious sense of local colour in nature. And it is (pardon

the sacrilege!) a LOVE _story_! The focus point of the hero's

(!) desire would at quarter sessions, or assizes, go by the plain

names of outrage and murder, and he succeeds in drowning himself with

the girl who hates him lashed to him by a chain. In not one other

character of the book is there an indication that life has an aim

beyond the lusts of the flesh, and the most respectable characters are

the tenants whose desires are summed up in the desire of more suet

pudding and gravy!! To any one who KNOWS the poor! who knows

what faiths and hopes (true or untrue) support them in consumption and

cancer, in hard lives and dreary deaths, the picture is as untrue as

it is (to me!) disgusting.

* * * * *

March 22, 1882.

* * * * *

On Saturday night I went down with A. and L. to Battersea, to one of

the People's Concerts. I enclose the programme. It is years since I

have enjoyed anything so much as _Thomas's_ Harp-playing. (He is not

Ap-Thomas, but he _is_ the Queen's Harper.) His hands on those strings

were the hands of a _Wizard_, and form and features nearly as quaint

as those of Mawns seemed to dilate into those of a poet. It was very

marvellous.

Did I tell you that Lady L. has sent _me_ a ticket this year for her

Sunday afternoons at the Grosvenor? We went on Sunday. The paintings

there just now are Watts's. Our old blind friend at Manchester has

sent a lot. It is a very fine collection. I think few paintings do

beat Watts's 'Love and Death'--Death, great and irresistible, wrapped

in shrowd-like drapery, is pushing relentlessly over the threshold of

a home, where the portal is climbed over by roses and a dove plays

about the lintel. You only see his back. But, facing you, Love, as a

young boy, torn and flushed with passion and grief, is madly striving

to keep Death back, his arms strained, his wings crushed and broken in

the unequal struggle.

Beside the paintings it was great fun seeing the company! Princess

Louise was there, and lots of minor stars. And--my Welsh Harper was

there! I had a long chat with him. He talks like a true artist, and

WE must know him hereafter. When I said that when I heard him

play the 'Men of Harlech,' I understood how Welshmen fought in the

valleys if their harpers played upon the hills (_most true!_), he

seized my hand in both his, and thanked me so excitedly I was quite

alarmed for fear Mrs. Grundy had an eye round the corner!!!

* * * * *

_Amesbury_, May 28, 1182.

... 'Tis a sweet, sweet spot! Not one jot or one tittle of the old

charm has forsaken it. Clean, clean shining streets and little

houses, pure, pure air!--a changeful and lovely sky--the green

watermeads and silvery willows--the old patriarch in his smock--the

rushing of the white weir among the meadows, the grey bridge, the big,

peaceful, shading trees, the rust-coloured lichen on the graves where

the forefathers of the hamlet sleep (oh what a place for sleep!), the

sublime serenity of that incomparable church tower, about which the

starlings wheel, some of them speaking words outside, and others

replying from the inside (where they have no business to be!) through

the belfry windows in a strange chirruping antiphon, as if outside

they sang:

"Have you found a house, and a nest where you may lay your young?

(and from within):

Even Thy altars, O Lord of Hosts! my King and my God!"

D. and I wandered (how one _wanders_ here) a long time there yesterday

evening. Then we went up to the cemetery on the hill, with that

beautiful lych-gate you were so fond of. I picked you a forget-me-not

from the old Rector's grave, for he has gone home, after fifty-nine

years' pastorship of Amesbury. His wife died the year before. Their

graves are beautifully kept with flowers.

_Whit-Monday_, 9.30 p.m. We are in the upper sitting-room to-day, the

lower one having been reserved for "trippers." It is a glorious

night--beyond the open window one of several Union Jacks waves in the

evening breeze, and one of several brass bands has just played its way

up the street. How these admirable musicians have found the lungs to

keep it up as they have done since an early hour this morning they

best know! Oh, how we have laughed! How _you_ would have laughed!! It

has been the most good-humoured, civil crowd you can imagine! Such

banners! such a "gitting of them" up and down the street by ardent

"Foresters" and other clubs in huge green sashes and flowers

everywhere! Before we were up this morning they were hanging flags

across the street, and seriously threatening the stability of that

fine old window!

When I was dressed enough to pull up the blind and open the window

some green leaves fluttered in in the delicious breeze. I went off

into raptures, thinking it was a big _Vine_ I had not noticed before,

creeping outside!!

It was a maypole of sycamore branches, placed there by the

Foresters!!!

Frances Peard laughed at me much for something like to this I said at

Torquay! She said, "You are just like my old mother. Whenever we pass

a man who has used a fusee, she always becomes knowing about tobacco,

and says, _There_, Frances, my dear--there IS a fine cigar.'"

* * * * *

... We came here last Thursday. When I got to Porton D. had sent an

air-cushion in the fly, and though I had a five miles drive it was

through this exquisite air on a calm, lovely evening, and by the time

we got to a spot on the Downs where a little Pinewood breaks the

expanse of the plains, the good-humoured driver and I were both on our

knees on the grass digging up plots of the exquisite Shepherd's Thyme,

which carpets the place with blue!

Yesterday we drove by Stonehenge to Winterbourne Stoke. It was

glaring, and I could not do much sketching, but the drive over the

downs was like drinking in life at some primeval spring. (And this

though the wind did give me acute neuralgia in my right eye, but yet

the air was so exquisitely refreshing that I could cover my eye with a

handkerchief and still enjoy!) The charm of these unhedged, unbounded,

un-"cabined, cribbed, confined" _prairies_ is all their own, and very

perfect! And _such_ flowers _enamel_ (it _is_ a good simile in spite

of Alphonse Karr!) the close fine grass! The pale-yellow rock cistus

in clumps, the blue "shepherd's thyme" in tracts of colour, sweet

little purple-capped orchids, spireas and burnets, and everywhere "the

golden buttercup" in sheets of gleaming yellow, and the soft wind

blows and blows, and the black-nosed sheep come up the leas, and I

drink in the breeze! Oh, those flocks of black-faced lambs and sheep

are TOO-TOO! and I must tell you that the old Wiltshire

"ship-dog" is nearly extinct. I regret to say that he is not found

equal to "the Scotch" in business habits, and one see Collies

everywhere now....

_London._ June 29, 1882.

* * * * *

I had a great treat last Sunday. One you and I will share when you

come home. D., U., and I took Jack to church at the Chelsea Hospital,

and we went round the Pensioners' Rooms, kitchen, sick-wards, etc.

afterwards, with old Sir Patrick Grant and Col. Wadeson, V.C. (Govr.

and Lieut.-Govr.), and a lot of other people.

It is an odd, perhaps a savage, mixture of emotions, to kneel at one's

prayers with some _pride_ under fourteen French flags--_captured_

(including one of Napoleon's while he was still Consul, with a red cap

of Liberty as big as your hat!), and hard by the FIVE bare

staves from which the FIVE standards taken at Blenheim have

rotted to dust!--and then to pass under the great Russian standard

(twenty feet square, I should say!) that is festooned above the door

of the big hall. If Rule Britannia IS humbug--and we are mere

Philistine Braggarts--why doesn't Cook organize a tour to some German

or other city, where we can sit under fourteen captured British

Colours, and be disillusioned once for all!!! Where is the Hospital

whose walls are simply decorated like some Lord Mayor's show with

trophies taken from us and from every corner of the world? (You know

Lady Grant was in the action at Chillianwallah and has the medal?) We

saw two Waterloo men, and Jack was handed about from one old veteran

to another like a toy. "Grow up a brave man," they said, over and over

again. But "The Officer," as he called Colonel Wadeson, was his chief

pride, he being in full uniform and cocked hat!!

And I must tell you--in the sick ward I saw a young man, fair-curled,

broad-chested, whose face seemed familiar. He was with Captain

Cleather at the Aldershot Gym., fell, and is "going home"--slowly, and

with every comfort and kindness about him, but of spinal paralysis.

It _did_ seem hard lines! He was at the Amesbury March Past, and we

had a long chat about it.

* * * * *

July 21, 1882.

* * * * *

I cannot tell you how it pleases me that you liked the bit about

Aldershot in "Lætus." I hope that it must have _grated_ very much if I

had done it badly or out of taste, on any one who knows it as well as

you do; and that its moving your sympathies does mean that I have done

it pretty well. I cannot tell you the pains I expended on it! All

those sentences about the Camp were written in scraps and corrected

for sense and euphony, etc., etc., bit by bit, like "Jackanapes"!!!

Did I tell you about "Tuck of Drum"? Several people who saw the proof,

pitched into me, "Never heard of such an expression." I was convinced

I knew it, and as I said, as a _poetical_ phrase; but I could not

charge my memory with the quotation: and people exasperated me by

regarding it as "camp slang." I got Miss S. to look in her

_Shakespeare's Concordance_, but in vain, and she wrote severely, "My

Major lifts his eyebrows at the term." I was in despair, but I sent

the proof back, trusting to my instincts, and sent a postcard to Dr.

Littledale, and got a post-card back by return--"Scott"--"Rokeby."

"With burnished brand and musketoon,

So gallantly you come,

I rede you for a bold dragoon,

That lists the tuck of drum."--

"I list no more the tuck of drum,

No more the trumpet hear;

But when the beetle sounds his hum,

My comrades take the spear."

And I copied this on to another postcard and added, _Tell your Major!_

and despatched it to Miss S.! She said, "You _did_ Cockadoodle!"--

But isn't it _exquisite_? _What_ a creature Scott was! Could words,

could a long romance, give one a finer picture of the ex-soldier

turned "Gentleman of the Road"? The touch of regret--"I list no more

the tuck of drum," and the soldierly necessity for a "call"--and then

_such_ a call!

When the Beetle _sounds his hum_--

The Dor Beetle!--

I hope you will like the tale as a whole. It has been long in my head.

* * * * *

Oh! how funny Grossmith was! Yesterday I was at the Matinée for the

Dramatic School, and he did a "Humorous Sketch" about Music, when he

said with care-carked brows that there was only one man's music that

_thoroughly_ satisfied him (after touching on the various

schools!)--and added--"my own." It was inexpressibly funny. His

"Amateur Composer" would have made you die!

Ah, but THE treat, such a treat as I have not heard for

years--was that old Ristori RECITED the 5th Canto of the

_Inferno_. I did not remember which it was, and feared I should not be

able to follow, but it proved to be "Francesca." Never could I have

believed it possible that reciting could be like that. I could have

gone into a corner and cried my heart out afterwards, the tension was

so extreme. And oh what power and WHAT refinement!

* * * * *

July 28, 1882.

* * * * *

Last Saturday D. and I went down to Aldershot to the Flat Races!!! As

we went along, tightly packed in a carriage full of ladies in what may

be termed "dazzling toilettes," pretty girls and Dowager Mammas

everywhere!--and as we ran past the familiar "Brookwood North Camp,"

where white "canvas" shone among the heather (and the heather, the cat

heather, oh SO bonny! with here and there a network of the

red threads of the dodder, so thick that it looked like red flowers),

and all the ladies, young and old, craned forward to see the tents,

etc., I really laughed at myself for the accuracy of my own

descriptions in "Lætus"! P. met us at the R.E. Mess, where we had

luncheon. After lunch we went to the familiar stables, and inspected

the kit for Egypt. Then P. drove us to the Race Course. I met a lot of

old friends. The Duke and Duchess of Connaught were there. It all

looked very pretty, the camp is so much grown up with plantations now.

The air was wondrous sweet. P. drove us back to the Mess for tea, and

then down to the station. It was a great pleasure, though rather a sad

one. Everybody was very grave. A sort of feeling, "What will be the

end?"...

_The Castle, Farnham._

Aug. 17, 1882.

* * * * *

It is one of the sides of X.'s mind which makes me feel her so

_limited_ an artist that she seems almost to take up a school as she

takes up a lady-friend--"one down another come on." I think her abuse

of Wagner now curiously _narrow_. I can't see why one should not feel

the full spell and greater purity of Brahms without dancing in his

honour on Wagner's bones!! It seems like her refusing to see any merit

in, or derive any enjoyment from modern pictures because she has been

"posted" in the Early Italian School. So from year to year these good

people who have been to Florence will not even look at a painting by

Brett or Peter Graham, though by the very qualities and senses through

which one feels the sincerity, the purity, the nobleness, and the fine

colour of those great painters, the photographs of whose pictures even

stir one's heart,--one surely ought also to take delight in a

landscape school which simply did not exist among the ancients. If sea

and sky as GOD spreads them before our eyes are admirable, I

can't think how one can be blind to delight in such pictures as 'The

Fall of the Barometer,' 'The Incoming Tide,' or Leader's 'February

Fill-dyke.' Things which no Florentine ever approached, as transcripts

of Nature's mood apart from man....

Yesterday we had a most delicious drive through the heather and pines

to Crookham. Ah, 'tis a bonny country, and I _did_ laugh when I said

to Mr. Walkinshaw, "How glorious the heather is this year!" and he

said, "Yes. If only it was growing on its native heath." For a minute

I couldn't tell what he meant. Then I discovered that he regards

heather as the exclusive property of bonnie Scotland!!!

I think you will be pleased to hear that I did, what I have long

wanted, yesterday. Thoroughly made Mrs. Walkinshaw's acquaintance, and

thanked her for that old invitation we never accepted to go there to

see the Chinnerys' sketches. How Scotch and _kindly_ she is! She

insisted on bringing her husband and daughters to be introduced, and

sent _warmest_ messages to you. She said she feared you must have

quite forgotten her; but I told her she was quite wrong there! She

says she has a little Chinnery she meant to give me long ago, and she

insists on sending it....

Sept. 1, 1882.

* * * * *

I must tell you that I had such a mixture of pain and pleasure at

Britwell in the nearest approach to Trouvé I have ever known. A larger

dog, and not quite so "Möcent," but in character and ways his living

image. The same place on his elbow (which his Aunt was always wanting

to gum a bit of astrachan on to); he "took" to his Aunt at once!

_Nero_ by name. The sweetest temper. I have kissed the nice soft

places on his black lips and shaken hands by the hour!!! Yesterday the

others went to a garden-party, so I went on to the Downs to sketch,

and when the dogs saw me, off they came, Nero delighted, and little

Punch the Pug. They came with me all the way, and lay on the grass

while I was sketching, and Nero kept sitting down to save a corner,

and watch which way I meant to go, just like dear True! [_Sketch._]

They were very good, sitting with me on the downs, but they roamed

away into the woods after game a good deal on the road home!...

_Grenoside._ Oct 5, 1882.

* * * * *

I do so long to hear how you like the end of "Lætus." As F.S.'s tale

turned out seven pages longer than was accounted for, I had to cut out

some of _my_ story, and so have missed the point of its being S.

Martin's Day on which Leonard died. S. Martin was a soldier-saint, and

the Tug-of-War Hymn is only sung on Saints' Days.

I have completed a tale[42] for the November No., and gave a rough

design to André for the illustration, which will be in colours. I hope

you will like _that_. There is not a tear in it this time! "Lætus" was

too tragic!

[Footnote 42: "Sunflowers and a Rushlight," vol. xvi.]

* * * * *

Will we or will we not have a Persian Puss in our new home by the name

of--Marjara?--It is quite perfect! Do Brahmans like cats? I must

have a tale about Marjara!!!--

Karava is grand too!

Oh Karava!

Oh the Crier!

Oh Karava!

Oh the Shouter!

Oh Karava, oh the Caller!

Very glossy are your feathers,

Very thievish are your habits,

Black and green and purple feathers,

Bold and bad your depredations!!!

Doesn't he sound like a fellow in _Hiawatha_?

Oh, it's a fine language, and must have fine _lils_ in it!

* * * * *

TO MRS. JELF.

_Ecclesfield._ Oct. 10, 1882.

MY DEAREST MARNY,

Your dear, kind letter was very pleasant sweetmeat and encouragement.

I am deeply pleased you like the end of "Lætus"--and feel it to the

point--and that my polishings were not in vain! I polished that last

scene to distraction in "the oak room" at Offcote!

I should _very_ much like to hear how it hits the General. I think

"_Pav_ilions" (as my Yorkshire Jane used to call civilians!) may get a

little mixed, and not care so much for the points. Some who have been

rather extra kind about it are--Lady W---- (but yesterday she

amusingly insisted that she _had_ lived in camp ---- at

Wimbledon!!)--the Fursdons and "Stella Austin," author of _Stumps_,

etc.--(literary "civilians" who think it the best thing I have ever

done), and two young barristers who have been reading it aloud to each

other in the Temple--with tears. And yet I fancy many non-military

readers may get mixed. P. vouchsafes no word of it to _me_, but I hear

from D. (under the veil of secrecy!) that he and Mr. Anstruther read

it together in Egypt with much approval. I am more pleased by military

than non-military approval. Old Aldershottians would so easily spot

blunders and bad taste!!! Mrs. Murray wrote to me this morning about

it--and of course wished they were back in dear old Aldershot!

You make me very egotistical, but I DO wish you to tell me

what you, _and_ Aunty, _and_ Madre think of "Sunflowers and a

Rushlight," when you read it. I fear it has rather scandalized my

Aunt, who is staying with us. She is obviously shocked at the

plain-speaking about drains and doctors, and thinks that part ought to

have been in an essay--not in a child's tale. I am a little troubled,

and should _really_ like (what is seldom soothing!) a candid opinion

from _each of you_. You know how I think the riding _some_ hobbies

takes the _fine edge_ off the mind, and if you think I am growing

coarse in the cause of sanitation--I beseech you to tell me! As to

putting _the teaching_ into an essay--the crux there is that the

people one wants to stir up about sanitation are just good family folk

with no special literary bias; and they will read a tale when they

won't read an essay! But do tell me if any one of you feel that the

subject _grates_, or my way of putting it.

Now, my darling, I must tell you that I have got a telegram from my

goodman--the Kapellmeister!--to say he IS to be sent home in

"early spring." This is a great comfort. I would willingly have let

him stay two months longer to escape spring cold; but he has got to

_hate_ the place so fiercely, that I now long for him to get away at

any cost. It must be most depressing! The last _letter_ I got, he had

had a trip by sea, and said he felt perfectly different till he got

back to Colombo, when the oppression seized him again. He has been to

Trincomalee, and is charmed with it, and said he could read small

print when he got there, but his eyes quite fail in the muggyness of

Colombo. However he will cheer up now, I hope! and Nov. and Dec. and

Jan. are good months.

Now good-bye, dear. My best love to Aunty and Madre.

Your loving,

J.H.E.

TO A.E.

_Ecclesfield._ October 24, 1882.

... It was very vexatious that the Megha Duta came just too late for

last mail. It is a beautiful poem. Every now and then the local colour

has a weird charm all its own. It lifts one into another land (without

any jarring of railway or steamship!) to realize the _locale_ in which

rearing masses of grey cumuli suggest elephants rushing into combat!

And the husband's picture of his wife in his absence is as noble, as

sympathetic, and as perceptive as anything of the kind I ever read.

So full of human feeling and so refined. I enjoyed it very much. It

reminded me, oddly enough, more than once of Young's _Night Thoughts_.

I think perhaps (if the charm of another tongue, and the wonder of its

antiquity did not lead one to give both more _attention_ and more

_sympathy_ than one would perhaps bestow on an English poem) that the

poem does not rank much higher than a degree short of the first rank

of our poets. But it is very charming. And oh, what a lovely text! It

is a _most beautiful_ character....

TO MRS. MEDLEY.

_Ecclesfield, Sheffield._

November 17, 1822.

MY VERY DEAR MRS. MEDLEY,

There has been long word silence between us! I made a break in it the

other day by sending you my new "Picture Poem"--"A Week Spent in a

Glass Pond."

It was a sort of repayment of a tender chromolithographic (!) debt.

Do you remember, when Fredericton was our home, and when everything

pretty from Old England did look so very pretty--how on one of those

home visits from which he brought back bits of civilization--the

Bishop brought _me_ a "chromo" of dogs and a fox which has hung in

every station we've had since?

Now--as a friend's privilege is--I will talk without fear or favour of

myself! The last real contact with you was the Bishop's too brief peep

at us in Bowdon--a shadowy time out of which his Amethyst ring flashes

on my mind's eye. No! Not Amethyst--what IS the name? Sapphire!--(I have

a little mental confusion on the subject. I have a weak--a very weak

corner--in my heart for another Bishop, an old friend of your

Bishop's--Bishop Harold Browne; and have had the honour now and again of

wearing his rings on my thumb--a momentary relaxation of discipline and

due respect, which I doubt if your Bishop would admit!!! though I hope

he has a little love for me, frightened as I now and then am of him!!!!

The last time but one I was at Farnham, I was asked to stay on another

two days to catch the Brownes' fortieth wedding-day. Just as we were

going down to dinner I reproached the Bishop for not having on his

"best" ring! Very luckily--for he said he always made a point of it on

his wedding-day--left me like a hot potato in the middle of the stairs

and flew off to his room, and returned with _the_ grand sapphire!)

Well, dear--that's a parenthesis--to go back to Bowdon. I was not to

boast of there, and after the move to York, and I had fitted up my

house and made up for lost time in writing work, I was a very much

broken creature, keeping going to Jenner and getting orders to

rest!--and then came the order to Malta, not six months after we were

sent to York, and I stayed to pack up and sent out all our worldly

goods and chattels, and then started myself, and was taken ill in

Paris and had to come back, and have been "of no account" for three

years.

Well. My news is now far better than once I hoped it ever could be.

I'm not strong, but I can work in moderation, though I can't "rackett"

the least bit. And--Rex is to come home in Spring!--the season of hope

and _nest-building_--and I am trying not to wonder my wits away as to

what part of the British Isles it will be in which I shall lay the

cross-sticks and put in the moss and wool of our next nest!! There is

every reason to suppose we shall be "at home" for five years, I am

thankful to say....

Rex loved Malta, and _hates_ Ceylon. But he has been _very_ good and

patient about it.

Latterly he has consoled himself a good deal with the study of Sanscrit,

which he means me also to acquire, though I have not got far yet! It is

a beautiful character. He says, "Of all the things I have tried Sanscrit

is the most utterly delicious! Of the alphabet alone there are (besides

the ten vowels and thirty-three simple consonants) rather more than two

hundred compound consonants," etc., etc.! He adds, "[Sanskrit: aayi]

are my detached initials, but I could write my whole name in

'Devanagiri,' or 'Writing of the Gods.'"

TO A.E.

_Ecclesfield._ December 8, 1882.

... I got back from Liverpool on Monday. When I called at the Museum

on that morning a Dr. Palmer was there, who said, "I was in Taku Forts

with your husband," and was very friendly. He gave me a prescription

for neuralgia! and sent you his best remembrances.

First and last I have annexed one or two nice "bits of wool for our

nest." For _8s._ (a price for which I could not have bought _the

frame_, a black one with charming old-fashioned gold-beading of this

pattern) [_sketch_] I bought a real fine old soft mezzotint, after Sir

Joshua Reynolds' portrait of Richard Burke. Oh, such a lovely face!

Looking lovelier in powder and lace frill. But a charming thing, with

an old-fashioned stanza in English deploring his early death, and a

motto in Latin. It was a great find, and I carried it home from the

Pawnbroker's in triumph!--

I have got a very nice Irish anecdote for you from Mr. Shee:

Two Irishmen (not much accustomed to fashionable circles) at a big

party, standing near the door. After a long silence:

Paddy I.--"D'ye mix much in society?"

P. II.--"Not more than six tumblers in the evening."

* * * * *

S. John Evangelist, 1882.

* * * * *

C. "dealt" for me for the old Japanese Gentleman (pottery) on whom I

turned my back at £1. He has got him for _15s._ You will be delighted

with him, and I have just packed him (and a green pot lobster!) in a

box with sawdust.

Do you remember how your 'genteel' clerk's wife came (starving) from

Islington, or some such place, to us at Aldershot, and told me she had

_sold_ all her furniture (as a nice preparation to coming to free but

empty quarters) EXCEPT _her parlour pier-glass and fire-irons_?

I sometimes feel as if I bought house plenishing that packed together

about as nicely as that!!! Witness my pottery old gentleman, and my

bronze Crayfish....

December 20, 1882.

* * * * *

I am so glad you like "Sunflowers and a Rushlight." It was very

pleasurable work, though hard work as usual, writing it. It was

written at Grenoside, among the Sunflowers, and generally with dear

old Wentworth, the big dog, walking after me or lying at my feet.

You may, or may not, have observed, that the _Times_ critic says, that

"of one thing there can be no doubt"--and that is--"_Miss_ Ewing's

nationality. No one but a Scotchwoman bred and born _could_ have

written the 'Laird and the Man of Peace.'"

It is "rich in pawky humour." But if I can get a copy I'll send it to

you. It is complimentary if not true!

I am putting a very simple inscription over our dear Brother. Do you

like it?

TROUVÉ

commonly and justly called

TRUE.

FOUND 1869; LOST 1881,

by A.E. and J.H.E.

TO H.K.F.G.

_Eccelsfield._ December, 1882.

... I rather HOPE to have a story for you for March, which

will be laid in France. Will it do if you have it by February 8?...

It is a terribly close subject, and I shall either fail at it, or make

it I hope not inferior to "Jackanapes." I don't _think_ it will be

long. The characters are so few, I have only plotted it. It will be

called--

"THE THINGS THAT ARE SEEN": AN OLD

SOLDIER'S STORY.

_DRAM. PERS._

MADAME.

HER MAID.

THE FATHER OF MADAME.

THE FATHER OF THE SERGEANT.

THE MOTHER OF THE SERGEANT.

THE SERGEANT.

THE PRIEST.

THE MURDERER.

A POODLE.

Soldiers, Peasants, Priests, Gendarmes, a Rabble, Reapers--but you

know I generally overflow my limits. I hope I can do it, but it tears

me to bits! and I've walked myself to bits nearly in plotting it this

morning,--a very little written, but I believe I could be _ready_ by

February 8. I don't think it will be as long as "Daddy Darwin," not

nearly.

Please settle with Mr. B. what you will do about an illustration. The

first scene is that of the death-bed of the sergeant's father. I think

it would be quite as good a scene for illustration as any, and will, I

trust, be ready in a day or two. Is it worth Mr. B.'s while to see if

R.C. would do it in shades of brown or grey? (a very chiaroscuro scene

in a tumble-down cottage, light from above). All _I_ must have is a

good illustration or none at all. (I would send copy of scene to R.C.

and ask him.) I think it might pay, because I am certain to want to

_re_publish it, and whoever I publish it with will pay half-price for

the old illustration. I do myself believe that it might be

_colour-printed_ in (say seven instead of seventeen) shades of colour

(blues, and browns, and black, and yellow, and white) at much less

cost than a full-coloured one, but that I leave to Mr. B.: only I have

some strong theories about it, and when I come to town I mean to make

Edmund Evans's acquaintance.

Strange to say, I believe I _could_ make the tale illustrate the

"Portrait of a Sergeant" if it were possible to get permission to have

a thing photoed and reduced from _that_!!!--Goupil would be the

channel in which to inquire--but the artist would not be a leading

character, as far as I can see, so it might not be all one could wish.

But it is worth investigating....

Or again, I wonder what Herkomer would charge for an _etching_ of the

dying old Woodcutter, and his kneeling son? I believe THAT

would be the thing!--But the plate must be surfaced so that _A.J.M._

mayn't exhaust all the good impressions. If Herkomer would etch that,

and add a vignette of a scene I could give him with a beautiful

peasant girl--or of the old sergeant and the portly and worldly

"Madame," we SHOULD "do lovely!" Will you try for that,

please?

No more today for

"I am exhaust

I can not!"

Your devoted, J.H.E.

Remember _I_ wish for Herkomer. He will be the right man in the right

place. R.C. is for dear old England, and this is French and Roman

Catholic--and Keltic peasant life.

TO A.E.

January 4, 1883,

* * * * *

Caldecott says his difficulty over my writing is that "the force and

finish" of it frightens him. It is painted already and does not need

illustration; and he has lingered over "Jackanapes" from the

conviction that he could "never satisfy me"!! This difficulty is, I

hope, now vanquished. He is hard at work on a full and complete

edition of "Jackanapes," of which he has now begged to take the entire

control, will "submit" paper and type, etc. to me, and hopes to

please. "But you are _so_ particular!"

I need hardly say I have written to place everything in his hands. I

am "not such a fool as" to think I can teach _him_! (though I am

insisting upon certain arrangements of types, etc., etc., to give a

_literary_--not Toy Book--aspect to the volume).

André I _know I help_. But then only a man of real talent and mind

would accept the help and be willing to be taught. The last batch of

_A Soldier's Children_ that came had three pages that grated on me.

1. "They mayn't have much time for their prayers on active service,

_and we ought to say them instead_." The first part of this line is

splendidly done by a brush with Zulus among mealies, but the second

part (as underlined) was thus. Nice old church (good idea) and the

officer's wife and children at prayer. BUT--the lady was like

a shop-girl, in a hat and feathers, tight-fitting jacket with skimpy

fur edge (inexpressibly vulgar cheap finery style!), kneeling with a

highly-developed figure backwards on to the spectator! and with her

eyes up in a theatrical gaze heavenwards. Little boy _sitting_ on

seat, with his hat on.

2. For "GOD bless the good soldiers like old father and

Captain Powder and the men with good conduct medals, and please let

the naughty ones be forgiven,"--he had got some men being released out

of prison cells.

3. For "There are eight verses and eight Alleluias, and we can't sing

very well, but we did our best.

"Only Mary would cry in the verse about 'Soon, soon to faithful

warriors comes their rest'!"--

--he had got a very poor thing of three children singing.

Now these were all highly-finished drawings. Quite complete, and I

know the man is _driven_ with work (for cheap pay!). So I hesitated,

and worried myself. At last I took courage and sent them back, having

faith in the "thoroughness" which he so eminently works with.

For 1, I sent him a sketch! said the lady must wear a bonnet in

church, and her boys must take off their hats! That she must kneel

_forwards_, be dressed in a deep sealskin with heavy fox edge, and

have her eyes _down_, and the children must kneel _imitating her_, and

I should like an old _brass_ on the wall above them with one of those

queer old kneeling families in ruffs.

For 2, I said I could not introduce child readers to the cells, and I

begged for an old Chelsea Pensioner showing his good conduct medal to

a little boy.

3. I suggested the tomb of a Knight Crusader, above which should fall

a torn banner with the words, "In Coelo Quies."

Now if he had kicked at having three pictures to do utterly over

again, one could hardly have wondered, pressed as he is. But, back

they came! "I am indeed much indebted to you," the worst he had to

say! The lady in No. 1 now _is_ a lady; and as to the other two, they

will be two of the best pages of the book. Old Pensioner first-rate,

and Crusader under torn banner just leaving "Coelo Quies," a tomb

behind "of S. Ambrose of Milan" with a little dog--and a

snowy-moustached old General, with bending shoulders and holding a

little girl by the hand, paying _devoir_ at the Departed Warrior's

tomb in a ray of rosy sunlight!!

This is the sort of way we are fighting through the Ewing-André books.

* * * * *

_Ecclesfield._ January 10, 1883.

* * * * *

Fancy me "learning a part" again! _That_ has a sort of sound like old

times, hasn't it?

I feel half as if I were a fool, and half as if it would be very good

fun! R.A. theatricals at Shoeburyness. The FoxStrangways have asked

me. Major O'Callaghan is Stage Manager I believe. Then there is a

Major Newall, said to be very good. He says he "has a fancy to play 'A

Happy Pair' with me!" It is his _cheval de bataille_ I believe.

I think it is best to try and do what one is _asked_ over parts

(though they were very polite in offering me a choice), so I said I

would try, and am learning it. I think I shall manage it. They now

want me to take "A Rough Diamond" as well, _Margery_. I doubt its

being wise to attempt both. It will be rather a strain, I think.

* * * * *

_Shoeburyness._ January 25, 1883.

* * * * *

I am playing Mrs. Honeyton in "A Happy Pair" with Major Newall. He

knows his work well, is a good coach, and very considerate and kind.

In my soul I wish that were all, but they have persuaded me also to

take Margery in "A Rough Diamond," and getting THAT up in a

week is "rough on" a mediocre amateur like myself!

This is a _curious_ place. Very nice, bar the east winds. I have been

down on the shore this morning. The water sobs at your feet, and the

ships and the gulls go up and down. Above, a compact little military

station clusters together, and everywhere are Guns, Guns, Guns; old

guns lying in the grass, new guns shattering the windows, and only

_not_ bringing down the plaster because the rooms are ceiled with wood

"for the same purpose."...

TO MRS. JELF.

Sunday, April 1883.

MY DEAREST MARNY,

I must write a line to you about your poor friends! It is THE

tragedy of this war! Very terrible. I hope the bitterness of death was

_short_, and to gallant spirits like theirs hope and courage probably

supported them till the very last, when higher hopes helped them to

undo their grasp on this life.

In the dying--they suffered far less than most of us will probably

suffer in our beds--but to be at the fullest stretch of manly powers

in the service of their country among the world's hopes and fears and

turmoils, and to be suddenly called upon to "leave all and follow

Christ"--when the "all" for them had most righteously got every force

of mind and body devoted to it--must be at least one hard struggle.

And death away from home does seem so terrible!

Richard will feel it very much. That Nottingham election seems so

short a time ago.

* * * * *

Back from Church! Great haste. We have had that grand hymn with--

"Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest."

I did not forget the poor souls.

Prayers for the dead is one of those things which always seems to me

the most curiously obvious and simple of duties!

Your most loving, J.H.E.

71, _Warwick Road_. April 9, 1883.

DEAREST MARNY,

I write a line to tell you that D. was at S. Paul's yesterday

afternoon to Evensong, and to hear Liddon preach.

I know you will like to hear how very gracefully he alluded to your

poor friend as "the accomplished Engineer," and to Charrington and

Palmer. Of the last--he spoke very feelingly--as to his great loss

from the learning point of view. He said--or to this effect--"We laid

them here last Friday in the faith of Him who died for their sins and

ours, and this is the first Sunday when above their ashes we

commemorate that Resurrection through which we hope that they and we

shall rise again." The "Drum Band" was duly played after the service,

and D. says that crowds remained to listen.

I know you will like to hear this, though I have given a bad

second-hand account.

I hope my Goodman gets to Malta to-day or to-morrow!

* * * * *

Ever, dearest Marny,

Your loving J.H.E.

TO A.E.

April 24, 1883.

... I sent you a telegram this morning to make you feel quite happy in

your holiday. "Real good times" (a Yankeeism I hate, but it is

difficult to find its brief equivalent!) are not so common in "this

wale" that you should cut yours short. I rather hope this may be in

time to catch you (it is not _my_ fault that you will be without

letters). If you would like to linger longer--Do. You are not likely

to find "the like of" your present surroundings on leave in Scotland,

least of all as to sunshine and flowers. One doesn't go to Malta every

day. I wish I was there! But I can't be, and ten to one should catch

typhoid where you only smell orange-blossoms, and I don't think my

sins run in the Dog-in-the-manger line, and I hope you'll quaff your

cup of content as deeply as you can.

For one thing winter has returned. We had snow yesterday, and the east

wind, the Beast Wind! through which I went this morning to send your

telegram was simply killing; dust like steel filings driving into your

skin, waves of hard dust with dirty paper foam.--Ugh!!--Spend as much

of your leave as you and your friends think well where you are. I've

waited three years. I can wait an odd three weeks and welcome!

Especially as I am up to my eyes in packing and arranging matters for

our new home. What I do hope is you will be happy _there_! But I

believe in laying in happiness like caloric. A good roast keeps one

warm a long time!

How often I have thought that philosophers who argue from the premiss

of the fleeting nature of pleasure, might give pause if they had had

my experience. A body so frail that _nearly_ every pleasure of the

senses has had to be enjoyed chiefly after it had "fleeted"--by the

memory. Pictures (one of my chiefest pleasures), the theatre, any

great sight, sound, or event, being a pleasure after they (and the

_headache_!) have passed away. The "passing pleasures" of life are

just those which this world gives very capriciously, but cannot take

away! They are possessions as real as ... marqueterie chairs! Of

which--more anon,--when you return to the domestic hearth.

* * * * *

I had such a round in Wardour Street the other day! I do wish for a

Dutch marqueterie chest of drawers with toilet glass attached, but he

is £8! Too much. But (I _must_ let it out!) I got two charming Dutch

marqueterie chairs for my drawing-room for 35/- each. You will be

surprised to find what nice things we have!...

TO MRS. JELF.

_7, Mount Street, Taunton._

June 3, 1883.

DEAREST MARNY,

I know you forgive a long silence--especially as I have "packed in

spite of you "!

* * * * *

I took lots of time over it all. All my "remains" are piled in cases

in the attics, and I have arranged "terms" with the Great Western, and

hope to do my moving very cheaply.

We had need economize somewhere, for, my dear! we have been

VERY extravagant over our house!!! I should like to hear if

you and your dear ladies (I know Auntie would be candid!) think we

have been wisely so!--Our predecessor had a cottage and garden for

£35--the Col. Commanding only paid £55--and we are paying £70!!!

It is a question of _three things_: 1st, higher and healthier

situation--2nd, modern appliances and drains unconnected with the old

town sewers--3rd, my Goodman took a wild fancy to the house--and

picked his own den--and said he could "live and be at peace" there:

and this means life and death to _me_!

So we have boldly taken this other house! A mile _above_ the town--on

high ground, built by one of the sanitary commission (!), brand

new--and with a glorious view. Not a stick in the garden! but things

grow fast here. I shall have a charming drawing room 24 feet long (so

it will hold me!!!), with two quaint little fire-places with blue

tiles. Rex has a very nice den with French doors into the garden,

where he seems to hope to "attain Nirwana"--and live apart from the

world. Small as I am, I have an odd liking for large rooms (the oxygen

partly--and partly that I "quarterdeck" so when I am working--and

suffer so in my spine and head from close heat). Now it is _very_ hot

here. There's no doubt about it! So, on the whole, I hope we've done

well to house ourselves as we have. And we _can_ give a comfortable

bedroom to a friend! My dear Marny--you _must_ come and see me! It's

really a quaint old town--with a rather foreign-looking cloistered

"Place"--and a curious Saturday Market--with such nice red pottery on

sale!!

Now to go back--and tell you about my Goodman. He had three weeks of

"real high time" in Malta. Then he came home--to Warwick Road. At

first I thought him much _hot-climatized_, and was worried. But he is

now looking as well as can be. We had a few very happy days at

Ecclesfield. It is a most tender spot with me that he is so fond of my

old home! They know his ways--he says he is at peace--and he rambles

about among the old books--and the people in the village are so glad

to see him--and it is very nice.

He took up his duties here on our 16th wedding day!

The place suits him admirably. I felt sure it would. But I did not

hope _I_ should feel as well in it as I do. It IS hot--and

not VERY dry--but it is _much_ less relaxing than I thought,

and where we have got our house it is high and breezy--and very, very

nice. I am most thankful, and only long to get settled and be able to

work!

We are in lodgings close to--next door to--the very fine barracks. Our

room looks into the barrack-yard, and the dear bugles wake and send us

to sleep!

Your loving

J.H.E.

Caldecott has done _seventeen_ illustrations to "Jackanapes."

TO MRS. A.P. GRAVES.

June 15, 1883.

MY DEAR MRS. GRAVES,

Once more I thank you for lovely flowers! including one of my chief

favourites--a white Iris. It is very good of you. You do not know what

pleasure they give me! If you continue to bless me with an occasional

nosegay when I move into my house, I shall not so bitterly suffer from

the barrenness of the garden.

This is suggestive of the nasty definition of gratitude that it is a

keen sense of favours to come!

I have been meaning to write to you to express something of our

delight with the "Songs of Old Ireland."

Major Ewing is charmed by the melodies, on which his opinion is worth

something and mine is not! and _I_ can't "read them out of a printed

book" without an instrument. But--we are equally charmed by the

words!!

It is a very rare pleasure to be able to give way to unmitigated

enjoyment of modern verse by one's friends. Don't you know? But we

have fairly raved over one after the other of these charming songs!

I do hope Mr. Graves does not consider that friendly criticisms come

under the head of "personal remarks" and are offensive!

I cannot say how truly I appreciate them. Anything absolutely

first-rately done of its kind is always very refreshing, and I do not

see how such national songs could be done much better. They are Irish

to the core!

Irish in local colour--in wealth of word variety--in poetry of the

earliest and freshest type--in shallow passion like a pebbly

brook!--and in a certain comicality and shrewdness. Irish--I was going

to say in refinement, but that is not the word--modern literature is

full of refinements--but Irish in the surpassingly Irish grace of

purity, so rare a quality in modern verse!

How we have laughed over Father O'Flynn! Kitty Bawn is perfect of its

kind--and No. 1 and No. 2.

It is a most graceful collection. Will it be published soon? My

husband says this copy is only a proof.

I am unjustifiably curious to know if Mr. Graves has given much labour

and polishing to these fresh impetuous things. It is against all my

experiences if he has _not_!--but then it would be an addition to my

experiences to find they were "tossed off"!

They have been a pleasant interlude amid the sordid cares of driving

the workmen along! I am getting terribly tired of it!

Yours very sincerely,

JULIANA HORATIA EWING.

TO MRS. GOING.

_Villa Ponente, Taunton._ July 11, 1883.

DEAR MADAM,

Your letter was forwarded to me last month, when I was (and to some

extent am still) very very busy in the details of setting up a new

home--of the temporary nature of military homes!--as Major Ewing has

been posted to Taunton.

As yet there are many things on which I cannot "lay my hand," and a

copy of the Tug of War Hymn is among them!

When I can find it--I will lend it to you. Should I omit to do

so--please be good enough to jog my memory!

It is a rather "ranting" tune-but has tender associations for my

ears.

The soldiers of the Iron Church, South Camp, Aldershot, used to "bolt"

with it in the manner described, and some dear little sons of an R.E.

officer always called it the "Tug of War Hymn."

With many thanks for your kind sayings, I am, dear Madam,

Yours very truly,

JULIANA HORATIA EWING.

TO THE REV. J. GOING.

October 11, 1883.

DEAR MR. GOING,

I append a rough plan of my small garden. We do not stand dead E. and

W., but perhaps a little more so than the arrows show. We are very

high and the winds are often high too! The walls are brick--and that

south bed is very warm. I mean to put bush roses down what is marked

the Potato Patch--it is the original soil with one year's potato crop

where I am mixing vegetables and flowers. The borders are given up to

flowers--mixed herbaceous ones. And on my south wall I have already

planted a Wistaria, a blue Passion-flower--and a Rose of Sharon! I am

keeping a warm corner for "Fortune's Yellow"--and now looking forward

with more delight and gratitude than I can express to "Cloth of Gold"!

I have sent to order the "well-rotted"--and the Gardener for Saturday

morning!

Now will you present my grateful acknowledgments to Mrs. Going, and

say that with some decent qualms at my own greediness--I "too-too"

gratefully accept her further kind offers. I deeply desire some

"Ladders to Heaven"--(does she know that old name for Lilies of the

Valley?)--and I am devoted to pansies and have only a scrap or two. A

neighbour _has_ given me a few Myosotis--but I am a daughter of the

horse-leech I fear where flowers are concerned, and if you really have

one or two TO SPARE I thankfully accept. The truly Irish

liberality of Mrs. Going's suggestions--emboldens me to ask if you

happen to have in your garden any of the Hellebores? I have one good

clump of Xmas Rose--but I have none of those green-faced varieties for

which I have a peculiar predilection.

(I do not expect much sympathy from you! In fact I fear you will think

that any one whose taste is so grotesque as to have a devotion for

Polyanthuses--Oxlips--Green Hellebores--every variety of Arum (including

the "stinking" one!)--Dog's-tooth violets--Irises--Auriculas--coloured

primroses--and such dingy and undeveloped denizens of the flower

garden--is hardly worthy to possess the glowing colours and last results

of development in the Queen of flowers!)

But I DO appreciate roses I assure you.

And I am most deeply grateful to you for letting me benefit by--what

is in itself such a treat! your--enthusiasm.

Mrs. Going seems to think that my soil and situation are better than

yours.

Could it be possible that you might have any rose under development

that you would care to deposit here for the winter and fetch away in

the spring? I don't know if change of air and soil is ever good for

them?

I fear you'll think mine a barren little patch on which to expend your

kindness! But you are a true _Ama_--teur--and will look at my Villa

Garden through _rose_-coloured spectacles!

Yours gratefully, J.H.E.

TO MRS. JELF,

October 19, 1883.

DEAREST MARNY,

* * * * *

One bit more of egotism before I stop!

You know how I love my bit of garden!--An admirer--specially of

"Laetus"--whom I had never seen--an Irishman--and a Dorsetshire

Parson. (But who had worked for over twenty years in the slums of

London--which it is supposed only the Salvation Army venture to

touch!)--

--arrived here last Saturday with nineteen magnificent climbing roses,

and has covered two sides of my house and the south wall of my

garden!--but one sunny corner has been kept sacred to Aunty's

Passion-flower, which is doing well--and one for a rose Mrs. Walkinshaw

has promised me. He is a very silent Irishman--a little

alarming--possibly from the rather brief, authoritative ways which men

who have worked big parishes in big towns often get. When Rex said to

him, at luncheon--"How did you who are a Rose Fancier and such a flower

maniac--LIVE all those years in such a part of London?" in rather a

muttered sort of way he explained,

"Well, I had a friend a little out of town who had a garden, and his

wife wanted flowers, and they knew nothing about it: so I made a

compact. I provided the roses--I made the soil--I planted them--and I

used to go and prune them and look after them. They were

_magnificent_".

"Oh, then you _had_ flowers?"

"Well, I made a compact. They never picked a rose on Saturday. On

Saturday night I used to go and clear the place. I had roses over my

church on Sundays--and all Festivals. The rest of the year his wife

had them."

It struck me as a most touching story--for the man is Rose Maniac.

What a sight those roses must have been to the eyes of such a

congregation! The Church should have been dedicated to S. Dorothea! He

is of the most modest order of Paddies--and as I say a little

alarming. I was _appalled_ when I saw the _hedge_ of the

"finest-named" roses he brought, and it was very difficult to "give

thanks" adequately!--I said once--"I really simply cannot tell you

the pleasure you have given me." He said rather grumpily--"You've

given me pleasure enough--and to lots of others." Then he suddenly

_chirped_ up and said--"Laetus cost me _2s. 6d._ though. My wife bet

me _2s. 6d._ I couldn't read it aloud without crying. I thought I

could. But after a page or two--I put my hand in my pocket--I

said--There! take your half-crown, and let me cry comfortably when I

want to!!!"

My dear, what a screed I have written to you!!

But your letter this morning _was_ a pleasure. There is something so

nice in your getting the very hut where--as I think--"Old Father"

first began to recover after Cyprus-fever. I wish you had had F. to

stride about the old lines also--and knock his head against your

door-tops!--Best love to R., F., and the Queers--

Your loving, J.H.E.

Dec. 3, 1883.

MY DEAREST MARNY,

You are always so forbearing!--and I have been driven to a degree by

work which I had promised, and have just despatched! Some day it may

appeal to "the Queers." For it is a collated (and Bowdlerized!)

version of the old Peace Egg Mumming Play for Christmas. I have been

often asked about it: and the other day a Canon Portal wrote to me,

and he urged me to try and do it, and it is done!

But it was a much larger matter than I had thought. The version I have

made up is made up from five different versions, and I hope I have got

the cream of them. It will be in the January number, which will be out

before Xmas.

I have also been trying to see my way--I SHOULD so like to go

to you--and if I can't yet awhile I hope you'll give me another

chance.

This week I certainly cannot--thank you, dear! And I _don't_ see my

way in December at all. I will _post-card_ you in a day or two again.

I am yours always lovingly,

J.H.E.

My garden is great joy to me. Even you, I think, would allow me a

moderate amount of "grubbing" in between brain work.

TO MRS. GOING.

Thursday (December 1883).

MY DEAR MRS. GOING,

You are too profusely good to me. Have you really _given me_ Quarles?

I have never even seen his _School of the Heart_, and am charmed with

it. The Hieroglyphics of the life of Man were in the very old copy of

_Emblems_ belonging to my Mother which I have known all my life.

Thank you a thousand times.

I write for a seemingly ungracious purpose, but I know you will

comprehend my infirmities! I am not at all well. I had hoped to be

better by the time your young ladies came--but luck (and I fear a

little chill in the garden!) have been against me. I tried to get

_Macbeth_ deferred but it could not be--and I think my only hope of

enduring a long drive, and appearing as Lady Macbeth on Saturday

evening with any approach to "undaunted mettle"--is to shut myself up

in absolute silence and rest for several hours before we start. This,

alas! means that it would be better for your young ladies (what is

left of them, after brain fag and fish dinners!) to return to you by

an earlier train, as I could be "no account" to them on Saturday

afternoon.

* * * * *

_I'll take care_ of _the poor students_ though I _am_ not at my best!

Their fish is ordered. We will spend a soothing evening on sofas and

easy chairs--and go early to bed! They shall have breakfast in bed if

they like. This does not sound amusing but I think it will be

wholesome for their relics!

Again thanking you for the dear little book--which comes in so nicely

for Advent!

TO MRS. R.H. JELF.

DEAREST MARNY,

The Queers' letters are VERY nice. Thank them with my love.

* * * * *

Forgive pencil, dear--I'm in bed. Got rid of my throat--and now all my

"body and bones" seem to have given way, I thought it was lumbago or

sciatica--but Rex said--"Simply nerve exhaustion from over-writing"--so

I took to bed (for I couldn't walk!), high living and quinine! I hope

I'll soon be round again. The vile body is a nuisance. I've got a story

in my head--and that seems to take the vital force out of my legs!!!

Apropos to Richard's _Churchwarden's_ conscience, does he remember the

(possibly churchwarden!) "soul long hovering in fear and doubt"--in À

Kempis, who prostrated himself in prayer and groaned--"Oh if I only

_knew that I should persevere_!" To whom came the answer of God--"If

thou _didst_ know it, what wouldst thou do then? Continue to _do that_

and thou shalt be safe."

His letter and yours were _very_ comforting. I was just feeling very

low about my writing. I always do when I have to re-read for new

editions! It does seem such twaddle--and so unlike what I want to say!

Thank you greatly for believing in me!

* * * * *

Your loving, J.H.E.

TO MRS. HOWARD.

_Villa Ponente, Taunton._

Jan. 18, 1884.

MY DEAR MRS. HOWARD,

In this Green Winter (and _you_ know how I love a Green Winter!) you

and all your kindness comes back so often to my mind. "Grenoside" is a

closed leaf in my life as well as in yours, but it is one that I shall

never forget so long as I can remember any of the things that have

mitigated the pains of life for me, or added to its pleasures!--The

bits of Green Winter I enjoyed with you did both--I hardly know which

the most! For the pleasure was very great, and the benefit

immeasurable--though now a fair amount of strength and "all my

faculties" have come back to me, I feel what a very tedious companion

I must have been when _vegetating_ was all I was fit for, and I did

such delightful vegetating between your sofa--and Greno Wood.

I want to tell you that I have some bits of you in what does the work

of Greno Wood for me here--namely, my little patch of garden, looking

out upon, what I call _my_ big fields. For some time I feared the said

bits were not going to live, but they have now, I really think, got

grip of the ground. They are those offshoots of your American Bramble

which you gave to me. And, ere long, I hope to sow a little paper of

your poppy seed, and--if two years' keeping has not destroyed its

vitality--I may, perchance, send you some of your own poppies to deck

your London rooms. You cannot think--or rather I have no doubt that

you can!--the refreshment my bit of garden is to me. It has become so

dear, that (like an ugly face one loves and ceases to see plain!)--I

find it so charming that it is _with a start_ that I recognize that

new friends see no beauty in--

[_Sketch._]

This four-square patch!!

But A and B are "beds," and there are borders under the brick walls,

and a rose-growing admirer of "Laetus" made a pilgrimage to see

me!--and brought me nineteen grand climbing roses--and wall S faces

_nearly quite_ south, and on it grow Maréchal Niel, and Cloth of Gold,

and Charles Lefebvre, and Triomphe de Rennes, and a Banksia and

Souvenir de la Malmaison, and Cheshunt Hybrid, and a bit of the old

Ecclesfield summer white rose--sent by Undine--and some Passion

Flowers from dear old Miss Child in Derbyshire--and a _Wistaria_ which

the old lady of _the lodgings_ we were in when we first came, tore up,

and gave to me, with various other _oddments_ from her garden!

and--the American Bramble! And also, by the bye, a very lovely rose,

"Fortune's Yellow,"--given to me by a friend in Hampshire.

Major Ewing declares my borders are "so full _there is no room for

more_" which is very nasty of him!--but I have been very lucky in

preserving, and even multiplying, the various contributions my bare

patch has been blessed with! D. sent me a _barrel_ of bits last autumn

from the Vicarage, and Reginald sent me an excellent hamper from

Bradfield, and Col. Yeatman sent me a hamper from Wiltshire, and

several friends here have given me odds and ends, and our old friend

Miss Sulivan, before she went abroad, sent me a farewell memorial of

sweet things--Lavender, Rosemary, Cabbage Rose, Moss Rose, and

Jessamine!!!--Oh! talking of sweet things, I must tell you--I went

into the market here one day this last autumn, and of a man standing

there--I bought a dug-up clump of BAY _tree_--for 2/6.

You know how you indulged my senses with bay leaves when I was far

from them? Well, I put my clump and myself into a cab and went

home--where I pulled my clump to pieces and made eight nice plants of

him--and set me a bay hedge, which has thriven so far very well!!! But

then--'tis a Green Winter!

Now I want to know if there is a chance of tempting you down here for

a little visit? I have thought that perhaps some time in the Spring

the School might be taking holiday, and Harry might be striding off on

a week or 10 days' country "breathe,"--and perhaps you would come to

me? Or if he were inclined for fresh fields and pastures new, that you

would come together, and he might make his head-quarters here, and go

over to Glastonbury, etc., etc., etc., whilst we took matters more

quietly at home?

I feel it is a long way to come, but it would be so very pleasant to

me to welcome you under my own roof!

If you cannot get away in Spring, I _must_ persuade you when London

gets hotter and less pleasant!

You _must_ miss your country home--and yet I envy you a few things!

London has cords of charm to attract in many ways! I wish I could _fly

over_, and see the Sir Joshuas and one or two things.

(I am stubbornly indifferent to the _Spectator's_ dictum that we like

"Sir Joshuas" because we are a nation of snobs!!!)

Ever affectionately yours,

JULIANA HORATIA EWING.

Do tell me what hope there is of seeing you--and showing you your own

bramble on my own wall!

TO MRS. GOING.

March 11, 1884.

MY DEAR MRS. GOING,

I do not think you will ever let me have my Head Gardener here again!

I CAN'T take care of him!

I really could have sat down on the door-step and cried--when our old

cabby--"the family coachman" as we call him, arrived and had missed

Mr. Going. How _he_ did not miss his train, I cannot conceive! He must

have run--he must have flown--he _must_ be a bit uncanny--and the

flap-ends of the comforter must have spread into wings--or our clocks

must have been beforehand--or the trains were behindhand--

Obviously luck favours him!!

But where was his great-coat?--

He got very damp--and there was no time to hang him out to dry!

Tell him with my love--I have been nailing up the children in the way

they should go--and have made a real hedge of cuttings!

I wish the Weeding Woman could see my old Yorkshire "rack." It and its

china always lend themselves to flowers, I think. The old English

coffee-cups are full of primroses. In a madder-crimson Valery pot are

Lent lilies--and the same in a peacock-blue fellow of a pinched and

selfish shape. The white violets are in a pale grey-green jar (a

miniature household jar) of Marseilles pottery. The polyanthuses

singularly become a pet _Jap_ pot of mine of pale yellow with white

and black design on it--and a gold dragon--and a turquoise-coloured

lower rim.

I am VERY flowery. I must catch the post. I do hope my Head

Gardener is not in bed with rheumatic fever!!!! I trust your poor back

is rather easier?

Please most gratefully thank the girls for me.

Yours gratefully and affectionately,

J.H.E.

TO THE REV. J. GOING.

All Fools, 1884.

MY DEAR HEAD GARDENER,

You are too good, and--as to the confusion of one's principles is

sometimes the case--your virtues encourage my vices. You make me

greedy when I ought only to be grateful.

I've been too busy to write at once, and also somewhat of set purpose

abstained--for those bitter winds and hard-caked soil were not suited

for transplantation, and still less fit for you to be playing the part

of Honest Root-gatherer without your Cardigan Waistcoat!!!!

To-day

"a balmy south wind blows."

I feel convinced some poet says so. If not I do, and it's a fact.

Moreover by a superhuman--or anyhow a super-frail-feminine--effort

last Saturday as ever was I took up all that remained of the cabbage

garden--spread the heap of ashes, marked out another path by rule of

line (not of thumb, as I planted those things you took up and _set

straight_!), made my new walk, and edged it with the broken tiles that

came off our roof when "the stormy winds did blow"--an economy which

pleased me much. Thus I am now entirely flower-garden--and with room

for more flowers!!

Now to your kind offer. I think it will take rather more than 50

bunches of primroses to complete the bank according to your

plan--though not 100. Say 70: but if there are a few bunches to spare

I shall put them down that border where the laurels are, against the

wall under the ivy. They flower there, and other things don't.

Now about the wild daffodils--indeed I _would_ like some!!! I fear I

should like enough to do this: [_Sketch._]

These be the Poets' narcissus along the edge of the grass above the

strawberry bank, and I don't deny I think it would be nice to have a

row of wild Daffys (where the red marks are) to precede the same

narcissus next spring if we're spared! The Daffys to be planted _in

the grass_ of the grass-plat.

I doubt if less than two dozen clumps would 'do it handsome'!!!!!!!!

Now I want your good counsel. This is my back garden: [_Sketch._]

Next to Slugs and Snails (to which I have recently added a specimen

of)

Puppy Dog's Tails--

my worst enemy is--WIND!

The laurels are growing--for that matter, Xmas is coming!--but still

we are very shelterless. I think I would like to plant in Bed A,

_inter alia_--some shrubby things. Now I know your views about moving

shrubs are somewhat wider than those of the every-day gardener's--but

do you think I dare plant a bush of lauristinus now? It would have to

travel a little way, I fancy. There is no man actually in Taunton, I

fear, with good shrubs. I mean also to get some Japanese maples. I

think I would like a copper-coloured-leaved _nut tree_. Are nuts

hardy? I fear Gum Cistus is coming into flower--and unfit to move! How

about rhododendrons? The soil here is said to suit them wonderfully. I

could not pretend to buy peat for them--but I know hardy sorts will do

in a firm fair soil, and I should like to plant a lilac one--a

crimson--a blush--and a white. I think they would do fairly and

shelter small fry.

_Can I risk it now?_ and how about hardy azaleas--things I love! If

you say--we are too near summer sun for them to get established--I

must wait till Autumn.

How has Mrs. Going stood the biting winds? Very unfavourable for one's

aches and pains?

Tell her I have got one of those rather queer yellow flowers you

condescended to notice!--to bring to her after Easter.

Is it not terrible about Prince Leopold? That poor young wife--and the

Queen! What bitter sorrow she has known; also I do regard the loss as

a great one for the country, he was so enlightened and so desirous of

use in his generation.

Yours, J.H.E.

TO MRS. JELF.

MY DEAREST MARNY,

Thank you, dear, with much love for your Easter card. It is

LOVELY (and Easter cards are not very beautiful as a rule).

It is on a little stand on my knick-knack table--and looks so well!

I send you a few bits from my garden as an Easter Greeting. They are

not much--but we are in a "nip" of bitter N.E. winds--and nothing will

"come out."

Also I rather denuded my patch to send a large box to Undine to make

the Easter wreaths for my Mother's grave. I was really rather proud of

what I managed to scrape together--every bit out of my very own

patch--and consequently of my very own planting!

I've got neuralgia to-day with the wind and a fourteen-miles drive for

luncheon and two sets of callers since I got back!--so I can't write a

letter--but I want you to tell me when you think there's a chance of

your taking a run to see me! I seem to have such lots to say! I have

found another charm (besides red pots) of our market. If one goes

_very early_ on Saturday--one gets such nice old-fashioned flowers,

"roots," and big ones too--very cheap! It's a most fascinating

_ruination by penny-worths_!

Good luck to you, dear, in your fresh settling down in the Heimath

Land.

Mrs. M---- (where we were _lunching_) asked tenderly after my large

young family--as strangers usually do. Then she said, "But you write

so sympathetically of children, and 'A Soldier's Children' is so

real--I thought they MUST be yours." On which I explained the

Dear Queers to her. To whom be love! and to Richard.

Ever, dear, yours lovingly,

J.H.E.

TO MRS. GOING.

Midsummer Day, 1884.

MY DEAR MRS. GOING,

Not a moment till now have I found--to tell you I got home safe and

sound, and that your delicious cream was duly and truly appreciated!

The last of it was merged in an admirable Gooseberry Fool!

The roses suffered by the hot journey--but even the least flourishing

of them received great admiration--from their size--as the skeletons

of saurians make a smaller world stand aghast!!!

This last sentence smacks of Jules Verne! I don't care much for

him--after all. It is rather _bookmaking_.

But I have had a lot of hearty laughs over "the Heroine"! It is very

funny--if not _very_ refined. Some of the situations admirable. There

is something in the girl's calling her father "Wilkinson" all the way

through--quite as comic as anything in _Vice Versâ_--a book which I

never managed to get to the end of.

I hope your wedding went well to-day. My sister's--is postponed till

the 28th--for the convenience of the best man. If _by Thursday_ (you

must be a full two days' post from a Yorkshire country place) the

Master had _one or two_ Bouquet D'Or or other white or yellow roses

not very fully blown--and your handy Meta would wind wet rags about

their stalks and put them in an empty coffee-tin and despatch them by

parcels post to Miss Gatty, Ecclesfield Vicarage, Sheffield, Yorks,

they would be greatly welcomed to eke out the white decorations of my

Mother's grave for the wedding-day. I am wildly watering my Paris

Daisies--and hope to get some wild Ox-eye daisies also--as her name

was Margaret (and her pet name Meta!). I am applying prayers and

slopwater in equal proportions--like any Kelt!--to my Bouquet D'Or and

other white and yellow roses! I shall have some double white

Canterbury Bells, etc.--but there is coming a _lull_ in the flowers,

and they won't re-bloom much till we have rain.

Please give my love to all your party, not forgetting the house dove

and the dog--

I reproach my Rufus with his tricks and talents!

I have had great benefit in a fit of neuralgia from your chili paste.

Yours, dear Mrs. Going,

Sincerely and affectionately,

JULIANA HORATIA EWING.

TO MRS. JELF.

November 3, 1884.

DEAREST MARNY,

Enclosed is "Daddy Darwin"--for Richard!--and two of the Verse Books

for the two dear Queers I had so many luncheons with!

You know I risked printing 20,000 D.D.D. on my own book to cheapen

printing--so you'll be glad to hear that after ordering 10,000 at the

beginning of last week--S.P.C.K. have ordered another 10,000 at the

end of it!! But I've been having _such_ "times" with the printers' and

publishers' dæmons!!

I must not write, however, for I have been ill also!! A throat attack.

We were afraid of diphtheria--but if it were that I should not be

writing to you as you'll guess. There has been another outbreak of it

just round us, and a good many throats of sorts in its train, but Dr.

L---- does not seem to think mine due to much more than

exhaustion--and he seemed to think nursing the dog had not been very

good for me. He says distemper is typhoid fever!

We had a very jolly little visit from Colonel C----. He was at his

_very_ funniest. Mimicked us both to our faces till we yelled again!

As Rex said--"Not a bit altered! The old man! _Would any other play

the bones about his bedroom in his night-shirt?_"

He went off waving farewells and shouting--"We'll _both_ come next

time--and rouse ye well."

Your loving, J.H.E.

Saturday.

DEAREST MARNY,

You have indeed the sympathy of my whole heart!

God bless and prosper "Old Father" on the war-path and bring him home

to his Queers and to you full of honour and glory and interesting

experiences!

I know Mr. Anstruther--he is charming. I cannot say how I think it

softens one's fears if Richard's strength were still a bit unequal to

the strain--to know that he has such a subaltern--adjutant--and C.R.E.

He could not have gone arm-in-arm with better comrades--unless the

Giant had been ready as sick-nurse in case of need!

But I do feel for you, dear--you are very gallant.

I am not fit to write yet--my head _goes_ so--but I will write you

next week about Gordon Browne (a thousand thanks!) and see if _I_

possibly could. Thank you so much.

The drummer's letter is charming. I must copy the bit about tip-toe

for Sir Evelyn Wood! I got the enclosed from him--also from Wady

Halfa--and I wanted you and R---- to hear the weird drum-band drunkard

tale! and see how he likes "Soldier's Children."

Can you kindly return it, dear?

Your most loving, J.H.E.

[_In pencil._]

Where does R---- sail from?

I see by to-day's _Times_ the others have sailed from Dartmouth. My

dear Marny--can't you and R---- come here _en route_ if only for a

night? It _would_ be so nice! It would be such a pleasure to Rex and

me to Godspeed him--and he would feel _quite like Gladstone_ if he had

an ovation at every stopping point on the Flying Dutchman!

TO COLONEL JELF.

November 18, 1884.

DEAR RICHARD,

I wish you _could_ have paused here--I wish that you were even likely

to run through Taunton station in the Flying Dutchman, and that we

could have run down to head a cheer for you!--But Gravesend is handier

for Marny.

She's a real Briton--and it is that "undaunted mettle" that does

"compose" the sinews of "peace with honour" for a country as well as

war!

Indeed I'm glad you have your chance--or make a very respectable

assumption of that _virtus_! and I take leave to be doubly glad that

it is in a fine climate and with good shoulder to shoulder comrades.

Tell Marny, Colonel Y. B---- in a letter about "Daddy Darwin" is very

sympathetic. Another "old standard"--Jelf, he says--is going, and

"Mrs. J---- puts a good face on it."

What will the theatricals and the Institute do?--

"Do without," I suppose! I am a lot better the last two days--and

struggled off to the town to-day to a missionary meeting! It was a

most unusually interesting one about the South American Missions. I

must tell Marny about it.--However--at some tea afterwards, I was

"interviewed" by one or two people--and one lady asked to introduce a

"Major"--whose name I did not catch--as being so devoted to "Soldier's

Children." I created quite a sensation by saying that "Old Father" was

ordered to Bechuanaland--"Oh, how old are the Queers? Are they really

losing Old Father again so soon?"

I feel, by the bye, that it is part of that fatality which besets you

and me, that I should have stereotyped you in printers' ink as _Old_

Father!!!

Good-bye.--Godspeed and Good luck to you.

Your affectionate old friend,

J.H.E.

TO THE REV. J. GOING.

December 3, 1884.

DEAR "HEAD GARDENER,"

I think there is a blessing on all your benevolences to me which

defies ill luck!

After I wrote to Mrs. Going we'd a frost of ten degrees--and I got

neuralgia back--and made a dismal picture in my own mind of your good

things coming to an iron-bound border--and an Under Gardener deeply

_died down_ under eider down and blankets--(even my old labourer being

laid up with sore throat and scroomaticks!--but lo and behold, on

Monday the air became like new milk--I became like a new Under

Gardener--and leave was given to go out. (I am bound to confess that I

don't think rose-planting was medically contemplated!) Fortunately the

border was ready and well-manured--I only had to dig holes in very

soft stuff--but I am very weak, and my stamping powers are never on at

all a Nasmyth Hammer sort of scale--but--good luck again!--Major

Ewing's orderly arrived with papers to sign--a magnificent individual

over six foot--with larger boots than mine and a coal-black

melodramatic moustache! Had the Major been present--I should not have

dared to ask an orderly in full dress and on duty to defile his boots

among Zomerset red-earth, but as I caught him alone I begged his

assistance. He looked down very superbly upon me (swathed in fur and

woollen shawls, and staggering under a full-sized garden fork) with a

twinkle in his eye that prepared me for the least taste of brogue

which kept breaking through his studied fine language--and consented

most affably. I wish you'd seen him--balancing his figure with a

consciousness of maids at the kitchen window, his cane held out,

_toeing_ and _heeling_ your roses into their places!! He assured me he

understood all about it, and he trode them in very nicely!

How good of you to have sent me such a stock,--and the pansies I

wanted. The flower of that lovely mauve and purple one is on the table

by me now. _One_ (only one) of your other roses died--the second

Gloire near the front door--so when I saw it was hopeless I had that

border "picked" up--a very rockery of rubbish came out--good stuff was

put in, and one of the Souvenirs de Malmaison is now comfortably

established there I hope. This wet weather keeps me a prisoner

now--but it is good luck for the roses to settle in. I have had some

nice scraps and remains of flowers to cheer me indoors--there are one

or two late rosebuds yet!

They are such a pleasure to me--and I am indeed grateful to you for

all you have done for my garden! Some of those roses I bought have

thrown up hugely long shoots. They were all small plants as you

know--so I cut none of them in the autumn. I suppose in the spring I

had better cut off these long shoots from the bushes in the open

border away from the hedge?

I must not write more--only my thanks afresh. With our best regards.

I am very gratefully yours,

J.H.E.

[_Written with a typewriter._]

TO MRS. JELF.

_Taunton._ December 23, 1884.

DEAREST MARNY,

My right arm is disabled with neuralgia, and Rex is working one of his

most delightful toys for me. He says I brought my afflictions on

myself by writing too prolix letters several hours a day. I've got

very much behindhand, or you'd have heard from me before. I must try

and be highly condensed. Gordon Browne has done some wonderful

drawings for "Lætus." Rex was wild over a "Death or Glory" Lancer, and

I think he (the Lancer) and a Highlander would touch even Aunty's

heart. They will rank among her largest exceptions. I can't do _any_

Xmas cards this year; I can neither go out nor write. I hoped to have

sent you a little Xmas box, of a pair of old brass candlesticks such

as your soul desireth. D. and I made an expedition to the very

broker's ten days ago, but when I saw the dingy shop choke-full of

newly-arrived dirty furniture, and remembered that these streets are

reeking with small-pox--as it refuses to "leave us at present"--I

thought I should be foolish to go in. D. knows of a pair in

Ecclesfield, and I have commissioned her to annex them if possible;

but they can't quite arrive in time. In case I don't manage to write

Xmas greetings to Aunty and Madre, give them my dear love; and the

same to yourself and the Queers. I am proud to tell you that I have

persuaded my Admiral to put the Soldiers' Institute on his collecting

book of Army and Navy Charities; and when I started it with a small

subscription he immediately added the same.

Dear Xmas wishes to you all, and a Happy New Year to Richard also from

us both.

Your loving, J.H.E.

[_In typewriting._]

TO MISS K. FARRANT.

_Taunton._ January 4, 1885.

DEAREST KITTY,

I should indeed not have been silent at this season if I had not been

ill, and I should have got Rex to print me a note before now, but I

kept hoping to be able to write myself, and I rather thought that you

would hear that I was laid up, either from D. or M. I have not been

very well for some time more than yourself, and I am afraid the root

of this breakdown has been overwork. But the weather has been very

sunless and wretched, and I have had a fortnight in bed with bad,

periodic neuralgia, which has particularly disabled my right arm and

head--two important matters in letter-writing. It put an entire stop

to my Christmas greetings. I made a little effort for the nephews one

day, and had a terrible night afterwards. The lovely blue (china) Dog,

who reminds me of an old but incomprehensible Yorkshire saying, "to

blush like a blue dog in a dark entry,"--which is what _I_ do when I

think that I have not yet said "thank you" for him--is most

delightful. You know how I love a bit of colour, and a quaint shape.

He arrived with one foot off, but I can easily stick it on. Thank you

so much. I must not say more to-day, except to hope you'll feel a

little stronger when we see more of the sun; and, thanking you and

Francie for your cards--(I was greatly delighted to see my friends the

queer fungi again)--and with love to your Mother--who I hope is

getting fairly through the winter.

Yours gratefully and affectionately,

J.H. EWING.

TO MRS. JELF.

January 22, 1885.

DEAREST M.,

I am _so_ pleased you like the brazen candlesticks.

I have long wanted to tell you how _lovely_ I thought all your Xmas

cards. Auntie's snow scene was exquisite--and your Angels have adorned

my sick-room for nearly a month! Most beautiful.

I know you'll be glad I had my first "decent" night last night--since

December 18!--No very lengthy vigils and no pain to _speak_ of. No

pain to growl about to-day. A great advance.

Indeed, dear--I should not only be glad but _grateful_ to go to you by

and by for a short _fillip_. Dr. L---- would have sent me away now if

weather, etc. were fit--or I could move.

After desperate struggles--made very hard by illness--I hope to see

"Lætus" in May at _one shilling_. Gordon Browne doing well. Do you

object to the ending of "Lætus"--to Lady Jane having another son,

etc.? Do the Farrants? My dear love to them. This bitter--sunless,

lifeless weather must have tried Kitty very much.

* * * * *

Your loving,

J.H.E.

[_In typewriting._]

_Taunton._ February 16, 1885.

MY DEAREST MARNY,

Rex is "typing" for me, but my own mouth must thank you for your

goodness, for being so ready to take me in. By and by I shall indeed

be grateful to go to you. But this is not likely to be for some weeks

to come. You can't imagine what a Greenwich pensioner I am. I told my

doctor this morning that he'd better send me up a wood square with

four wheels, like those beggars in London who have no limbs; for both

my legs and my right arm were _hors de combat_, and to-day he has

found an inflamed vein in my left, so _that_ has gone into

fomentations too.

But in spite of all this I feel better, and do hope I shall soon be up

and about. But he says the risk of these veins would be likely to come

if I over-exerted myself, so--anxious as I am to get to purer air, I

don't think it would do to move until my legs are more fit. May I

write again and tell you when I am fit for Aldershot? Dr. L---- highly

approves of the air of it, but at present he thinks lying in bed the

only safe course. Do thank dear Aunty next time you write to her for

her goodness, and tell her that in my present state I should make her

seem quite spry and active. A thousand thanks for the _Pall Mall_. I

do _not_ neglect one word of what you say; but I need hardly say that

I can't work at present.

The illustrations for "Lætus" are going on very well. I hope to send

Richard a copy for perusal on the homeward voyage.

I daren't write about Gordon. Certainly not the least strange part of

his wondrous career is this mystery which persists in clouding his

close. I feel as if he would be like Enoch or Moses--that we shall never

be permitted to know more than that--having walked with GOD--he "was

not--for GOD took him," and that his sepulchre no man shall know.

Your loving,

J.H.E.

_The present Series of Mrs. Ewing's Works is the only authorized,

complete, and uniform Edition published._

_It will consist of 18 volumes, Small Crown 8vo, at 2s. 6d. per vol.,

issued, as far as possible, in chronological order, and these will

appear at the rate of two volumes every two months, so that the Series

will be completed within 18 months. The device of the cover was

specially designed by a Friend of Mrs. Ewing._

_The following is a list of the books included in the Series_--

1. MELCHIOR'S DREAM, AND OTHER TALES,

2. MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES.

3. OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY TALES.

4. A FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING.

5. THE BROWNIES, AND OTHER TALES.

6. SIX TO SIXTEEN.

7. LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE, AND OTHER TALES.

8. JAN OF THE WINDMILL.

9. VERSES FOR CHILDREN, AND SONGS.

10. THE PEACE EGG--A CHRISTMAS MUMMING PLAY--HINTS FOR PRIVATE

THEATRICALS, &c.

11. A GREAT EMERGENCY, AND OTHER TALES.

12. BROTHERS OF PITY, AND OTHER TALES OF BEASTS AND MEN.

13. WE AND THE WORLD, Part I.

14. WE AND THE WORLD, Part II.

15. JACKANAPES--DADDY DARWIN'S DOVE-COTE--THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE.

16. MARY'S MEADOW, AND OTHER TALES OF FIELDS AND FLOWERS.

17. MISCELLANEA, including The Mystery of the Bloody Hand--Wonder

Stones--Tales of the Khoja, and other translations.

18. JULIANA HORATIA EWING AND HER BOOKS, with a selection from Mrs.

Ewing's Letters.

S.P.C.K., NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, LONDON, W.C.