Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books Part 28

Last Sat.u.r.day 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 "Laetus"! 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 n.o.bleness, 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 G.o.d 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-d.y.k.e.' 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 Trouve I have ever known. A larger dog, and not quite so "Mocent," 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 gra.s.s 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 "Laetus." 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 Andre for the ill.u.s.tration, which will be in colours. I hope you will like _that_. There is not a tear in it this time! "Laetus" 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 "Laetus"--and feel it to the point--and that my polis.h.i.+ngs 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 Yorks.h.i.+re 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 coa.r.s.e 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 steams.h.i.+p!) to realize the _locale_ in which rearing ma.s.ses of grey c.u.muli suggest elephants rus.h.i.+ng into combat!

And the husband's picture of his wife in his absence is as n.o.ble, 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 Gla.s.s Pond."