Hortus Inclusus Part 11

HERNE HILL, _8th June_ (1882).

You write as well as ever, and the eyes must surely be better, and it was a joyful amazement to me to hear that Mary was able to read and could enjoy my child's botany. You always have things before other people; will you please send me some rosemary and lavender as soon as any are out? I am busy on the l.a.b.i.atae, and a good deal bothered. Also St. Benedict, whom I shall get done with long before I've made out the nettles he rolled in.

I'm sure I ought to roll myself in nettles, burdocks, and blackthorn, for here in London I can't really think now of anything but flirting, and I'm only much the worse for it afterwards.

And I'm generally wicked and weary, like the people who ought to be put to rest. But you'd miss me, and so would Joanie; so I suppose I shall be let stay a little while longer.

SALLANCHES, SAVOY, _13th September_ (1882).

I saw Mont Blanc again to-day, unseen since 1877; and was very thankful. It is a sight that always redeems me to what I am capable of at my poor little best, and to what loves and memories are most precious to me. So I write to _you_, one of the few true loves left.

The snow has fallen fresh on the hills, and it makes me feel that I must soon be seeking shelter at Brantwood and the Thwaite.

GENOA, _Sunday, 24th September_ (1882).

I got your delightful note yesterday at Turin, and it made me wish to run back through the tunnel directly instead of coming on here. But I had a wonderful day, the Alps clear all the morning all round Italy--two hundred miles of them; and then in the afternoon blue waves of the Gulf of Genoa breaking like blue clouds, thunderclouds, under groves of olive and palm. But I wished they were my sparkling waves of Coniston instead, when I read your letter again.

What a gay Susie, receiving all the world, like a Queen Susan (how odd one has never heard of a Queen Susan!), only you _are_ so naughty, and you never do tell me of any of those nice girls when they're _coming_, but only when they're gone, and I never shall get glimpse of them as long as I live.

But you know you really represent the entire Ruskin school of the Lake Country, and I think these _levees_ of yours must be very amusing and enchanting; but it's very dear and good of you to let the people come and enjoy themselves, and how really well and strong you must be to be able for it.

I am very glad to hear of those sweet, shy girls, poor things.[36] I suppose the sister they are now anxious about is the one that would live by herself on the other side of the Lake, and study Emerson and aspire to Buddhism.

I'm trying to put my own poor little fragmentary Ism into a rather more connected form of imagery. I've never quite set myself up enough to impress _some_ people; and I've written so much that I can't quite make out what I am myself, nor what it all comes to.

[Footnote 36: Florence, Alice, and May Bennett. Florence is gone. Alice and May still sometimes at Coniston, D.G. (March 1887).--J. R.

"One Companion, ours no more, sends you I doubt not Christmas greeting from her Home,--Florence Bennett. Of her help to us during her pure brief life, and afterwards, by her father's fulfillment of her last wishes, you shall hear at another time."--_Fors Clavigera_, vol.

viii.]

TO MISS BEEVER.

_10th January, 1883._

I cannot tell you how grateful and glad I am, to have your lovely note and to know that the Bewick gave you pleasure, and that you are so entirely well now, as to enjoy anything requiring so much energy and attention to this degree. For indeed I can scarcely now take pleasure myself in things that give me the least trouble to look at, but I know that the pretty book and its chosen wood-cuts ought to be sent to you, first of all my friends (I have not yet thought of sending it to any one else), and I am quite put in heart after a very despondent yesterday, pa.s.sed inanely, in thinking of what I _couldn't_ do, by feeling what you _can_, and hoping to share the happy Christmas time with you and Susie in future years. Will you please tell my dear Susie I'm going to bring over a drawing to show! (so thankful that I am still able to draw after these strange and terrible illnesses) this afternoon. I am in hopes it may clear, but dark or bright I'm coming, about half past three, and am ever your and her most affectionate and faithful servant.

_24th September, 1884._

I wandered literally "up and down" your mountain garden--(how beautifully the native rocks slope to its paths in the sweet evening light, Susiesque light!)--with great happiness and admiration, as I went home, and I came indeed upon what I conceived to be--discovered in the course of recent excavations--two deeply interesting thrones of the ancient Abbots of Furness, typifying their humility in that the seats thereof were only level with the ground between two cl.u.s.ters of the earth; contemplating cyclamen, and their severity of penance, in the points of stone prepared for the mortification of their backs; but truly, Susie's seat of repose and meditation I was unable as yet to discern, but propose to myself further investigation of that apple-perfumed paradise, and am ever your devoted and enchanted

[Transcriber's Note: no ending to the sentence here.]

OXFORD, _1st December_ (1884).

I gave my fourteenth, and last for this year, lecture this afternoon with vigor and effect, and am safe and well (D.G.), after such a spell of work as I never did before. I have been thrown a week out in all my plans, by having to write two new Lectures, instead of those the University was frightened at. The scientists slink out of my way now, as if I was a mad dog, for I let them have it hot and heavy whenever I've a chance at them.

But as I said, I'm a week late, and though I start for the North this day week, I can't get home till this day fortnight at soonest, but I hope not later than to-morrow fortnight. Very thankful I shall be to find myself again at the little room door.

Fancy Mary Gladstone forgiving me even that second _naughtiness_![37]

She's going to let me come to see her this week, and to play to me, which is a great comfort.

[Footnote 37: The first attack on Mr. Gladstone is in "Fors", September, 1875, the apology and withdrawal in "Fors", February, 1878.

The second "naughtiness" will be found in "Arrows of the Chace", Vol.

II., and a final attack is made in an interview in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, 21st April, 1884. The subject is summarized in an article in the _Daily News_ of 4th July, 1898.]

ST. SUSIE, _27th November, 1885_.

Behold Athena and Apollo both come to bless you on your birthday, and all the buds of the year to come, rejoice with you, and your poor cat[38] is able to purr again, and is extremely comfortable and even cheerful "to-day." And we will make more and more of all the days, won't we, and we will burn our candle at both beginnings instead of both ends, every day beginning two worlds--the old one to be lived over again, the new to learn our golden letters in. Not that I mean to write books in that world. I hope to be set to do something, there; and what lovely "receptions" you will have in your little heavenly Thwaite, and celestial teas! And you won't spoil the cream with hot water, will you, any more?

The whole village is enjoying itself, I hear, and the widows and orphans to be much the better for it, and altogether, you and I have a jolly time of it, haven't we?

[Footnote 38: J. R.]

_20th February, 1886._

I haven't had anything nice to send you this ever so long, but here's a little bird's nest of native silver which you could almost live in as comfortably as a t.i.t. It will stand nicely on your table without upsetting, and is so comfortable to hold, and altogether I'm pleased to have got it for you.

BRANTWOOD, _1st March, 1886_.

Yes, I knew you would like that silver shrine! and it _is_ an extremely rare and perfect specimen. But you need not be afraid in handling it; if the little bit of spar does come off it, or out of it, no matter.