Hortus Inclusus Part 12

But of course n.o.body else should touch it, till you give them leave, and show them how.

I am sorry for poor Miss Brown, and for your not having known the Doctor. He should have come here when I told him. I believe he would have been alive yet, and I never should have been ill.

I believe you know more Latin than I do, and can certainly make more delightful use of it.

Your mornings' ministry to the birds must be remembered for you by the angels who paint their feathers. They will all, one day, be birds of Paradise, and say, when the adverse angel accuses you of being naughty to _some_ people, "But we were hungry and she gave us corn, and took care that n.o.body else ate it."

I am indeed thankful you are better. But you must please tell me what the thing was I said which gave you so much pain. Do you recollect also what the little bit in "Proserpina" was that said so much to you?

Were you not thinking of "Fors"?

I am very thankful for all your dear letters always--greatly delighted above all with the squirrel one, and Chaucer. Didn't he love squirrels![39] and don't I wish I was a squirrel in Susie's pear trees, instead of a hobbling disconsolate old man, with no teeth to bite, much less crack, anything, and particularly forbidden to eat nuts!

[Footnote 39:

"And many squireles, that sett Ful high upon the trees and ete And in his maner made festys."

"The Dethe of Blaunche," 430.]

Your precious letter, showing me you are a little better, came this morning, with the exquisite feathers, one, darker and lovelier than any I have seen, but please, I still want one not in the least flattened; all these have lost just the least bit of their sh.e.l.l-like bending. You can so easily devise a little padding to keep two strong cards or bits of wood separate for one or two to lie happily in. I don't mind giving you this tease, for the throat will be better the less you remember it. But for all of us, a dark sky is a.s.suredly a poisonous and depressing power, which neither surgery nor medicine can resist. The difference to me between nature as she is now, and as she was ten years ago, is as great as between Lapland and Italy, and the total loss of comfort in morning and evening sky, the most difficult to resist of all spiritual hostility.

_22d May, 1886._

Of course the little pyramid in crystal is a present. With that enjoyment of Pinkerton,[40] you will have quite a new indoors interest, whatever the rain may say.

How very lucky you asked me what basalt was! How much has come out of it (written in falling asleep)! I've been out all the morning and am _so_ sleepy.

But I've written a nice little bit of "Praeterita" before I went out, trying to describe the Rhone at Geneva. I think Susie will like it, if n.o.body else.

That "not enjoying the beauty of things" goes ever so much deeper than mere blindness. It is a form of antagonism, and is essentially Satanic. A most strange form of demonology in otherwise good people, or shall we say in "good people"? You know _we_ are not good at all, are we now?

I don't think you've got any green in your mica. I've sent you a bit inclosed with some jealous spots in.

[Footnote 40: Pinkerton on "Petralogy."]

_26th November, 1886._

_Do_ you know how to make sugar candy? In my present abject state the only way of amusing myself I can hit on is setting the girls of the school to garden and cook! By way of beginning in cooking I offered to pay for any quant.i.ty of wasted sugar if they could produce me a crystal or two of sugar candy. (On the way to Twelfth cakes, you know, and sugar animals. One of Francesca's friends made her a life-size Easter lamb in sugar.) The first try this morning was brought me in a state of sticky jelly.

And after sending me a recipe for candy, would you please ask Harry to look at the school garden? I'm going to get the _boys_ to keep that in order; but if Harry would look at it and order some mine gravel down for the walks, and, with Mr. Brocklebank's authority (to whom I have spoken already), direct any of the boys who are willing to form a corps of little gardeners, and under Harry's orders make the best that can be made of that neglected bit of earth, I think you and I should enjoy hearing of it.

I told a Cambridge man yesterday that he had been clever enough to put into a s.h.i.+lling pamphlet all the mistakes of his generation.

_27th November, 1886._

For once, I have a birthday stone for you, a little worth your having, and a little gladsome to me in the giving. It is blue like the air that you were born into, and always live in. It is as deep as gentians, and has their gleams of green in it, and it is precious all through within and without, as Susie herself is. Many and many returns of all the birthdays that have gone away, and crowds yet of those that never were here before.

MISCELLANEOUS.

CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD, _24th December, 1877_.

This is just for Christmas love, and I'm quite well and up to work this morning, and the first thing I opened here was St. Ursula from Mr. Gould--and I hope the darling will be with me and you and him, and all good lovers and laborers everywhere. Love to Mary. Also to the servants. Also to the birds. If any mice are about--also to them,--and in a hush-a-bye to the Squirrels--wherever they are.

BRANTWOOD.

This reminiscence of birds--entirely delightful--puts me on a thought of better work that you can do for me than even the Shakespeare notes.

Each day, when you are in spirits,--never as an effort, sit down and tell me--as in this morning's note--whatever you remember about birds--going back to very childhood--and just chatting on, about all you have seen of them and done for them.

You will make a little book as delightful--nay, much more delightful than White of Selborne--and you will feel a satisfaction in the experience of your real knowledge--power of observation--and loving sentiment, in a way to make them even more exemplary and helpful.

Now don't say you can't--but begin directly to-morrow morning.

BRANTWOOD, 1880.

What am I about all this while?

Well--I wake every morning at four--can't help it--to see the morning light--Perhaps I go to sleep again--but never for long--then I do really very good work in the mornings--but by the afternoon I'm quite beaten and can do nothing but lie about in the wood.