_[Swanston, May 1874], Tuesday._
Another cold day; yet I have been along the hillside, wondering much at
idiotic sheep, and raising partridges at every second step. One little
plover is the object of my firm adherence. I pass his nest every day,
and if you saw how he flies by me, and almost into my face, crying and
flapping his wings, to direct my attention from his little treasure, you
would have as kind a heart to him as I. To-day I saw him not, although I
took my usual way; and I am afraid that some person has abused his
simple wiliness and harried (as we say in Scotland) the nest. I feel
much righteous indignation against such imaginary aggressor. However,
one must not be too chary of the lower forms. To-day I sat down on a
tree-stump at the skirt of a little strip of planting, and thoughtlessly
began to dig out the touchwood with an end of twig. I found I had
carried ruin, death, and universal consternation into a little community
of ants; and this set me a-thinking of how close we are environed with
frail lives, so that we can do nothing without spreading havoc over all
manner of perishable homes and interests and affections; and so on to my
favourite mood of an holy terror for all action and all inaction
equally--a sort of shuddering revulsion from the necessary
responsibilities of life. We must not be too scrupulous of others, or we
shall die. Conscientiousness is a sort of moral opium; an excitant in
small doses, perhaps, but at bottom a strong narcotic.
_Saturday._--I have been two days in Edinburgh, and so had not the
occasion to write to you. Morley has accepted the _Fables_, and I have
seen it in proof, and think less of it than ever. However, of course, I
shall send you a copy of the magazine without fail, and you can be as
disappointed as you like, or the reverse if you can. I would willingly
recall it if I could.
Try, by way of change, Byron's _Mazeppa_; you will be astonished. It is
grand and no mistake, and one sees through it a fire, and a passion, and
a rapid intuition of genius, that makes one rather sorry for one's own
generation of better writers, and--I don't know what to say; I was going
to say "smaller men"; but that's not right; read it, and you will feel
what I cannot express. Don't be put out by the beginning; persevere, and
you will find yourself thrilled before you are at an end with it.
_Sunday._--The white mist has obliterated the hills and lies heavily
round the cottage, as though it were laying siege to it; the trees wave
their branches in the wind, with a solemn melancholy manner, like
people swaying themselves to and fro in pain. I am alone in the house,
all the world being gone to church; and even in here at the side of the
fire, the air clings about one like a wet blanket. Yet this morning,
when I was just awake, I had thought it was going to be a fine day.
First, a cock crew, loudly and beautifully and often; then followed a
long interval of silence and darkness, the grey morning began to get
into my room; and then from the other side of the garden, a blackbird
executed one long flourish, and in a moment as if a spring had been
touched or a sluice-gate opened, the whole garden just brimmed and ran
over with bird-songs.--Ever your faithful friend,