For a part of June Stevenson had come south, spending most of his
time in lodgings with me at Hampstead (where he got the idea for part
of his essay _Notes on the Movements of Young Children_) and making
his first appearance at the Savile Club. Trouble awaited him after
his return.
_[Swanston, June 1874], Wednesday._
News reaches me that Bob is laid down with diphtheria; and you know what
that means.
_Night._--I am glad to say that I have on the whole a good account of
Bob and I do hope he may pull through in spite of all. I went down and
saw the doctor; but it is not thought right that I should go in to see
him in case of contagion: you know it is a very contagious malady.
_Thursday._--It is curious how calm I am in such a case. I wait with
perfect composure for farther news; I can do nothing; why should I
disturb myself? And yet if things go wrong I shall be in a fine way I
can tell you.
How curiously we are built up into our false positions. The other day,
having toothache and the black dog on my back generally, I was rude to
one of the servants at the dinner-table. And nothing of course can be
more disgusting than for a man to speak harshly to a young woman who
will lose her place if she speak back to him; and of course I determined
to apologise. Well, do you know, it was perhaps four days before I found
courage enough, and I felt as red and ashamed as could be. Why? because
I had been rude? not a bit of it; because I was doing a thing that would
be called ridiculous in thus apologising. I did not know I had so much
respect of middle-class notions before; this is my right hand which I
must cut off. Hold the arm please: once--twice--thrice: the offensive
member is amputated: let us hope I shall never be such a cad any more as
to be ashamed of being a gentleman.
_Night._--I suppose I must have been more affected than I thought; at
least I found I could not work this morning and had to go out. The whole
garden was filled with a high westerly wind, coming straight out of the
hills and richly scented with furze--or whins, as we would say. The
trees were all in a tempest and roared like a heavy surf; the paths all
strewn with fallen apple-blossom and leaves. I got a quiet seat behind a
yew and went away into a meditation. I was very happy after my own
fashion, and whenever there came a blink of sunshine or a bird whistled
higher than usual, or a little powder of white apple-blossom came over
the hedge and settled about me in the grass, I had the gladdest little
flutter at my heart and stretched myself for very voluptuousness. I
wasn't altogether taken up with my private pleasures, however, and had
many a look down ugly vistas in the future, for Bob and others. But we
must all be content and brave, and look eagerly for these little
passages of happiness by the wayside, and go on afterwards, savouring
them under the tongue.
_Friday._--Our garden has grown beautiful at last, beautiful with fresh
foliage and daisied grass. The sky is still cloudy and the day perhaps
even a little gloomy; but under this grey roof, in this shaded
temperate light, how delightful the new summer is.
When I shall come to London must always be problematical like all my
movements, and of course this sickness of Bob's makes it still more
uncertain. If all goes well I may have to go to the country and take
care of him in his convalescence. But I shall come shortly. Do not hurry
to write to me; I had rather _you_ had ten minutes more of good,
friendly sleep, than I a longer letter; and you know I am rather partial
to your letters. Yesterday, by the bye, I received the proof of _Victor
Hugo_; it is not nicely written, but the stuff is capital, I think.
Modesty is my most remarkable quality, I may remark in passing.
1.30.--I was out, behind the yew hedge, reading the _Comtesse de
Rudolstadt_ when I found my eyes grow weary, and looked up from the
book. O the rest of the quiet greens and whites, of the daisied surface!
I was very peaceful, but it began to sprinkle rain and so I fain to come
in for a moment and chat with you. By the way, I must send you
_Consuelo_; you said you had quite forgotten it if I remember aright;
and surely a book that could divert me, when I thought myself on the
very edge of the grave, from the work that I so much desired and was yet
unable to do, and from many painful thoughts, should somewhat support
and amuse you under all the hard things that may be coming upon you. If
you should wonder why I am writing to you so voluminously, know that it
is because I am not suffering myself to work, and in idleness, as in
death, etc.
_Saturday._--I have had a very cruel day. I heard this morning that
yesterday Bob had been very much worse and I went down to Portobello
with all sorts of horrible presentiments. I was glad when I turned the
corner and saw the blinds still up. He was definitely better, if the
word definitely can be used about such a detestably insidious complaint.
I have ordered _Consuelo_ for you, and you should have it soon this
week; I mean next week of course; I am thinking when you will receive
this letter, not of now when I am writing it.
I am so tired; but I am very hopeful. All will be well some time, if it
be only when we are dead. One thing I see so clearly. Death is the end
neither of joy nor sorrow. Let us pass into the clods and come up again
as grass and flowers; we shall still be this wonderful, shrinking,
sentient matter--we shall still thrill to the sun and grow relaxed and
quiet after rain, and have all manner of pains and pleasures that we
know not of now. Consciousness, and ganglia, and suchlike, are after all
but theories. And who knows? This God may not be cruel when all is done;
he may relent and be good to us _a la fin des fins_. Think of how he
tempers our afflictions to us, of how tenderly he mixes in bright joys
with the grey web of trouble and care that we call our life. Think of
how he gives, who takes away. Out of the bottom of the miry clay I write
this; and I look forward confidently; I have faith after all; I believe,
I hope, I _will_ not have it reft from me; there _is_ something good
behind it all, bitter and terrible as it seems. The infinite majesty (as
it will be always in regard to us the bubbles of an hour) the infinite
majesty must have moments, if it were no more, of greatness; must
sometimes be touched with a feeling for our infirmities, must sometimes
relent and be clement to those frail playthings that he has made, and
made so bitterly alive. Must it not be so, my dear friend, out of the
depths I cry? I feel it, now when I am most painfully conscious of his
cruelty. He must relent. He must reward. He must give some indemnity, if
it were but in the quiet of a daisy, tasting of the sun and the soft
rain and the sweet shadow of trees, for all the dire fever that he makes
us bear in this poor existence. We make too much of this human life of
ours. It may be that two clods together, two flowers together, two grown
trees together touching each other deliciously with their spread leaves,
it may be that these dumb things have their own priceless sympathies,
surer and more untroubled than ours.
I don't know quite whether I have wandered. Forgive me, I feel as if I
had relieved myself; so perhaps it may not be unpleasant for you
either.--Believe me, ever your faithful friend,