wm 
 
 >.:'.*i;v'/.<lC'. . , 
 
THE LIBRARY - 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 BEQUEST OF 
 
 Alice R. Hilgard 
 
/>^ 
 
 
 < 
 
 tt 
 
 /.^UM- /a^ 
 
HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
HORTUS INCLUSUS 
 
 MESSAGES FROM THE WOOD TO 
 THE GARDEN, 
 
 SENT IN HAPPY DAYS TO THE 
 
 SISTER LADIES OF THE THWAITE, CONISTON, 
 
 BY Timm THANKFUL FRIEND 
 
 JOHN EUSKIN, LL.D. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 74 FIFTH AVENUE 
 
GIFT 
 

 DEDICATED 
 
 WITH GRATEFUL THANKS TO MY DEAR FRIENDS 
 
 PROFESSOR RUSKIN 
 
 AND 
 
 ALBERT FLEMING. 
 
 S. B. 
 
 iw85Jiy40 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The ladies to whom these letters were written 
 
 have been, throughout their briglitly tranquil lives, at 
 
 once sources and loadstones of all good to the village 
 
 in which they had their home, and to all loving people 
 
 who cared for the village and its vale and secluded 
 
 lake, and whatever remained in them or around of the 
 
 former peace, beauty, and pride of English Shepherd 
 
 Land. 
 
 Sources they have been of good, like one of its 
 
 mountain springs, ever to be found at need. They 
 
 did not travel ; they did not go up to London in its 
 
 season ; they did not receive idle visitors to jar or 
 
 waste their leisure in the waning year. The poor and 
 
 the sick could find them always ; or rather, they 
 
 watched for and prevented all poverty and pain that 
 
 care or tenderness could relieve or heal. Loadstones 
 
 they were, as steadily bringing the b'ght of gentle and 
 
 wise souls about them as the crest of their guardian 
 
yi PREFACE. 
 
 mountain gives pause to the morning clouds : in them- 
 selves they were types of perfect "womanhood in its 
 constant happiness, queens alike of their own hearts 
 and of a Paradise in which they knew the names and 
 sympathized with the spirits of every living creature 
 that God had made to play therein, or to blossom in its 
 sunshine or shade. 
 
 They had lost their dearly-loved younger sister, 
 Margaret, before I knew them. Mary and Susie, alike 
 in benevolence, serenity, and practical judgment, were 
 yet widely different, nay, almost contrary, in tone and 
 impulse of intellect. Both of them capable of under- 
 standing whatever women should know, the elder was 
 yet chiefly interested in the course of immediate Eng- 
 lish business, policy, and progressive science, while 
 Susie lived an aerial and enchanted life, possessing all 
 the highest joys of imagination, while she yielded to 
 none of its deceits, sicknesses, or errors. She saW', an^ 
 felt, and believed all good, as it had ever been, and was 
 to be, in the reality and eternity of its goodness, with 
 the acceptance and the hope of a child ; the least things 
 were treasures to her, and her moments fuller of joy 
 than some people's days. 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 What she has been to rae, in the days and years when 
 otlier friendship lias been failing, and others' " loving, 
 mere folly," the reader will enough sec from these let- 
 ters, written certainly for her only, but from which she 
 has permitted my Master of the Eural Industries at 
 Longhrigg, Albert Fleming, to choose what he thinks, 
 among the tendrils of clinging thought, and mossy cups 
 for dew in the Garden of Herbs where Love is, may be 
 trusted to the memorial sympathy of the readers of 
 " Frondes Agrestes." 
 
 J. K. 
 Brantwood, 
 
 June, 1887. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Often during those visits to the Thwaite wbicli have 
 grown to be the best-spent hours of my Later years, I 
 have urged my dear friend Miss Beever to open to the 
 larger world the pleasant paths of this her Garden En- 
 closed. The inner circle of her friends knew that she 
 had a goodly store of Mr. Ruskin's letters, extending 
 over many years. She for her part had long desired to 
 share with others the pleasure these letters had given 
 her, but she shrank from the fatigue of selecting and ar- 
 ranging them. It was, therefore, with no small feeling 
 of satisfaction that I drove home from the Thwaite one 
 day in February last with a parcel containing nearly two 
 thousand of these treasured letters. I was gladdened 
 also by generous permission, both from Brantwood and 
 the Thwaite, to choose what I liked best for publication. 
 The letters themselves are the fruit of the most beauti- 
 ful friendship I liave ever been permitted to witness, a 
 friendship su unicpie in some aspects of it, so sacred in 
 
 LX 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 all, that I may only give it the praise of silence. I count 
 myself happy to have been allowed to throw open to all 
 wise and quiet souls the portals of this Armida's Garden, 
 where there are no spells save those woven by love, and 
 no magic save that of grace and kindliness. Here my 
 pleasant share in this little book would have ended, but 
 Mr. Kuskin has desired me to add a few words, giving 
 my own description of Susie, and speaking of my rela- 
 tionship to them both. To him I owe the guidance of 
 my life, — all its best impulses, all its worthiest efforts; 
 to her some of its happiest hours, and the blessings alike 
 of incentive and reproof. In reading over Mr. Ruskin's 
 Preface, I note that, either by grace of purpose or happy 
 chance, he has left me one point untouched in our dear 
 fi-iend's character. Her letters inserted here give some 
 evidence of it, but I should like to place on record how 
 her intense delight in sweet and simple things has blos- 
 somed into a kind of mental frolic and dainty wit, so 
 <:hat even now in the calm autumn of her days, her 
 friends are not only lessoned by her ripened wisdom, but 
 cheered and recreated by her quaint and sprightly 
 humour. 
 
 In the Eoyal Order of Gardens, as Bacon puts it, 
 
INTIiODUCTIOiq'. XI 
 
 there was always a quiet resting-place called the Pleas- 
 auiice; there the daisies grew unchecked, and the grass 
 was ever the greenest. Such a Pleasaunce do these Let- 
 ters seem to me. Here and there, indeed, there are 
 shadows on the grass, but no shadow^ ever falls between 
 the two dear friends who walk together hand in hand 
 along its pleasant paths. So may they walk in peace till 
 they stand at the gate of another Garden, where 
 
 *' Co' fiori eterni, eteruo il frutto dura." 
 
 A. F. 
 
 Neaum Crag, 
 loughrigg, 
 Ambleside. 
 
HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 THE sacristan's CELL. 
 
 Assist, Hth Apnl, 1874. 
 
 I got to-day yonr lovely letter of the 6th, but I never 
 knew my Susie could be such a naughty littje girl be- 
 fore ; to burn her pretty story * instead of sending it to 
 me. It would have come to me so exactly in the right 
 place here, where St. Francis made the grasshopper 
 (cicada, at least) sing to him upon his hand, and 
 preached to the birds, and made the wolf go its rounds 
 every day as regularly as any Franciscan friar, to ask 
 for a little contribution to its modest dinner. The Bee 
 and Narcissus would have delighted to talk in this en- 
 chanted air. 
 
 Yes, that 76' really very pretty of Dr. John to inscribe 
 your books so, and it's so like him. How these kind 
 people understand things ! And that bit of his about 
 the child ic wholly lovely ; I am so glad you copied it. 
 * "The Bee and Narcissus." 
 
2 HOKTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 I often think of jou, and of Coniston and Brant- 
 wood. You will see, in the May Fors, reflections upon 
 the temptations to the life of a Franciscan. 
 
 Thei*e are two monks here, one the sacristan who has 
 charge of the entire church, and is responsible for its 
 treasures ; the other exercising what authority is left to 
 the convent among the people of the town. They are 
 both so good and innocent and sweet, one can't pity 
 them enough. For this time in Italy is just like the 
 Reformation in Scotland, with only the difference that 
 the Reform movement is carried on here simply for the 
 sake of what money can be got by Church confiscation. 
 And these two brothers are living by indulgence, as the 
 Abbot in the Monastery of St. Mary's in the Regent 
 Moray's time. 
 
 The people of the village, however, are all true to 
 their faith; it is only the governing body which is 
 modern-infidel and radical. The jiopulation is quite 
 charming, — a word of kindness makes them as bright 
 as if you bronglit them news of a friend. All the same, 
 it does not do to offend them ; Monsieur Cavalcasella, 
 who is expecting the Government order to take the 
 Tabernacle from the Sanctuary of St. Francis, cannot, it 
 
THE SACRISTAX S CELL. 3 
 
 is said, go oat at night with safety. He decamj^ed the 
 day before I came, having some notion, I fancy, that I 
 would make his life a burden to him, if he didn't, by 
 day, as much as it was in peril by night. I promise 
 myself a month of very happy time here (happy for rae^ 
 I mean) when I return in May. 
 
 The sacristan gives me my coffee for lunch, in his 
 own little cell, looking out on the olive woods; then he 
 tells me stories of conversions and miracles, and then 
 perhaps we go into the Sacristy and have a revereiit 
 little poke out of relics. Fancy a great carved cupboard 
 in a vaulted chamber full of most precious things (the 
 box which the Holy Virgin's veil used to be kept in, to* 
 begin with), and leave to rummage in it at will ! 
 Things that are only shown twice in the year or so, 
 with fumigation ! all the congregation on their knees ; 
 and the sacristan and I having a great heap of them 
 on the table at once, like a dinner service! I really 
 looked with great respect at St. Francis's old camel-hair 
 dress. 
 
 I am obliged to go to Home to-mon-ow, however, 
 and to A'aples on Saturday. ]\Iy witch of Sicily * ex- 
 *Mi.s.s Amy Yule. Sec " PricLerila," Vol. HI., Chap. vii. 
 
HORTUS i:n"clusus. 
 
 pects me this clay week, and slie's going to take nie 
 such lovely drives, and talks of " excursions" which I 
 see by the map are thirty miles away. I wonder if she 
 thinks me so horribly old that it's quite proper. It will 
 be very nice if she does, but not flattering. I know her 
 mother can't go with her, I suppose her maid will. If 
 she wants any other chaperone I won't go. 
 
 She's really very beautiful, I believe, to some people's 
 tastes, (I shall be horribly disappointed if she isn't, in 
 her own dark style,) and she writes, next to Susie, the 
 loveliest letters I ever get. 
 
 1^0 w, Susie, minJ, you're to be a very good child 
 while I'm away, and never to burn any more stories ; 
 and above all, you're to write me just what comes into 
 your head, and ever to believe me your loving 
 
 J. K. 
 
 Naples, 2rid May, 1874. 
 I heard of your great sorrow ^ from Joan f six days 
 ago, and have not been able to write since. Nothing 
 silences me so much as sorrow, and for this of yours I 
 
 *The death of Miss Margaret Beever. 
 \ Mrs. Arthur Severn, 
 
POMPEIAX FRESCOES. 5 
 
 have no comfort. I write only that you may know tliat 
 I am thinking of you, and would help you if I conld. 
 And I write to-day because your lovely letters and your 
 lovely old age have been forced into my thoughts. often 
 by dreadful contrast during these days in Italy. You 
 who are so purely and brightly happy in all natural and 
 simple things, seem now to belong to another and a 
 younger world. And your letters liave been to me like 
 the pure air of Yewdale Crags breathed among the Pon- 
 tine Marshes ; but you must not think I am ungrateful 
 for them when I can't answer. You can have no idea 
 how impossible it is for me to do all the work necessary 
 even'for memory of the things I came here to see ; how 
 much escapes me, how much is done in a broken and 
 weary way. I am the only author on ai't who does the 
 work of illustration with his own hand ; the only one 
 therefore — and I am not insolent in savino; tliis — who 
 has learned his business thoroughly; but after a day's 
 drawing I assure you one cannot sit down to write unless 
 it i)e the merest nonsense to please Joanie. Believe it or 
 not, there is no one of my friends whoju I write so scru- 
 pulously to as to you. Vou may l)e vexed at this, but 
 indeed I can't but try to write carefully in answei* to all 
 
6 HORTUS IKCLUSUS. 
 
 your kind words, and so sometimes I can't at all. I 
 vmst tell you, however, to-day, what I saw in the Pom- 
 peian frescoes — the great characteristic of falling Rome, 
 in her furious desire of pleasure, and brutal incapability 
 of it. The walls of Pompeii are covered with paintings 
 meant only to give pleasure, but nothing they represent 
 is beautiful or delightful, and yesterday, among other 
 calumniated and caricatured birds, I saw one of my 
 Susie's pets, a peacock ; and he had only eleven eyes in 
 his tail. Fancy the feverish wretchedness of the human- 
 ity which in mere pursuit of pleasure or power had re- 
 duced itself to see no more than eleven eyes in a pea- 
 cock's tail ! What were the Cyclops to this ? 
 
 I hope to get to Rome this evening, and to be there 
 settled for some time, and to have quieter hours for 
 mv letters. 
 
 Rome, %Zrd May, 1874. 
 
 A number of business letters and the increasing in- 
 stinct for work here as time shortens, have kept me too 
 long from even writing a mere mama-note to you ; 
 though not without thought of you daily. 
 
 I Lave your last most lovely line about your sister — 
 
THE BEGINNIN"G OF '^FROl^DES' 7 
 
 RTid giving me that inost touching fact about poor Dr. 
 John Brown, wliicli I am grieved and yet thankful to 
 know, that I may better still reverence his unfailing 
 kindness and quick sympatliy. I have a quite wonder- 
 ful letter from him about you ; but I will not tell you 
 what he says, only it is so /'<?/'?/, very true, and so very, 
 very pretty, you canH think. 
 
 I have written to my bookseller to find for you, and 
 send a complete edition of " Modern Painters," if find- 
 able. If not, I will make my assistant send you down 
 my own fourth and fifth volumes, which you can keep 
 till I come for them in the autumn. 
 
 There is nothing now in the year but autumn and 
 winter. I really begin to think there is some terrible 
 change of climate coming upon the world for its sin, like 
 another deluge. It will have its rainbow, I suppose, 
 after its manner — promising not to darken the world 
 again, and then not to drown. 
 
 Rome, 2ith May, 1874. (Whit-Sumlai/.) 
 I have to day, to make the day whiter for me, your 
 
 lovely letter of the 14tli, telling me your age. I am so 
 
 glad it is no more ; you are only thirteen years older 
 
8 HOETUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 than I, and mucli more able to be my sister than 
 mamma, and I hope you will have many years of yonrli 
 yet. I think I must tell you in return for this letter 
 ^vhat Dr. John Brown said, or part of it at least. He 
 said you had the playfulness of a lamb without its sel- 
 fishness. I think that perfect as far as it goes. Of 
 pourse my Susie's wise and grave gifts must be told 
 of afterwards. There is no one I know, or have known, 
 80 well able as you are to be in a degree what my mother 
 was to me. In this chief way (as well as many other 
 ways) (the puzzlement I have had to force that sentence 
 into grammar!), that I hav^e had the same certainty of 
 giving you pleasure by a few words and by any little ac- 
 count of what I am doing. But then you know^ 1 have 
 just got out of the way of doing as I am bid, and unless 
 you can scold me back into that, you can't give me the 
 senso of support. 
 
 Tell me more about yourself first, and how those 
 years came to be "lost." I am not sure that they 
 were ; though I am very far from holding the empty 
 theory of con.pensation ; but much of the slighter pleas- 
 ure you lost th>>n is evidently still open to you, fresh 
 all the more froui having been for a time withdrawn. 
 
THE LOST CRFHCH IX THE CAM PA GX A. 9 
 
 The Roman peasants are very gay to-day, u^itli roses 
 ill tlieir liair; legitimately and honourably decorated, 
 and looking lovely. Oh me, if they had a few Susies 
 to take human care of them what a glorious people they 
 would be! 
 
 THE LOST CHUKCH IX THE CAJMPAGXA. 
 
 Rome, 2nd June, 1874. 
 
 Ah if you were but among the marbles here, 
 tliough there are none finer than that you so strangely 
 discerned in my study; but they are as a white com- 
 pany innumerable, ghost after ghost. And how you 
 would rejoice in them and in a thousand things be- 
 sides, to which I am dead, from having seen too 
 much or worked too painfully — or, worst of all, lost 
 tlie hope which gives all life. 
 
 Last Sundav I was in a lost church found ao-ain, 
 — a church of the second or third century, dug in a 
 green hill oF the Campagna, built underground ; — its 
 secret entrance like a sand-martin's nest. Such the 
 temple of the Lord, as the King Solomon of that time 
 had to build it; not "the mountains of the Lord's 
 house shall be established al)ove the hills," but the 
 
10 nOETUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 cave of the Lord's bouse as the fox's hole, beneath 
 them. 
 
 And here, now lighted by the sun for the first 
 time (for they ai'e still digging the earth from the 
 steps), are the marbles of those early Christian days ; 
 the first efforts of their new hope to show itself in 
 enduring record, the new hope of a Good Shepherd : 
 — there they carved Him, with a spring flowing at 
 His feet, and round Him the cattle of the Campagna 
 in which they had dug their church, the very self 
 same goats which this morning have been trotting 
 past my window through the most j^opulous streets 
 of Kome, innocently following tlieir shepherd, tink- 
 ling their bells, and shaking their long spiral horns 
 and white beards; the very same dew-lapped cattle 
 which were that Sunday morning feeding on the hill- 
 side above, carved on the tomb-marbles sixteen hun- 
 dred years ago. 
 
 How you would have liked to see it, Susie! 
 
 Aud now to-day I am going to work in an eleventh 
 century church of quite proud and victorious Chris- 
 tianity, with its grand bishops and saints lording it 
 over Italy. The bishop's throne all marble and mo- 
 
THE LOST CirURCII IN" TltE CAMPAGNA. 11 
 
 saic of ])recioiis colours and of jj^olfl, In'irli under the 
 vaulted roof at the end behind the altar; nnd line 
 ii})on line of pillars of massive porpliyry and marble, 
 gathered ont of tlie ruins of the tem])les of the great 
 race who liad persecuted them, till they had said to 
 the hills. Cover ns, like the wicked. And then tlieir 
 proud time came, and their enthronement on the seven 
 hills; and now, what is to be their fate once more? 
 — of pope and cardinal and dome, Peter's or PauFs 
 by name only, — " My house, no more a house of 
 prayer, but a den of thieves." 
 
 I can't write any more this morning. Oh me, if 
 one could only write and draw^ all one w^anted, and 
 have our Susies and be young again, oneself and they! 
 (As if there were two Susies, or could be!) 
 
 Ever my one Susie's very loving 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
 I have sent word to my father's old head-clerk, 
 now a great merchant himself, to send you a little 
 case of that champagne. Please like it. 
 
13 HORTUS IKCLUSUS. 
 
 KEGEETS. 
 
 Assisi, June 9th. 
 
 Yes, I am a little oppressed just now with over- 
 work, nor is this avoidable. I am obliged to leave all 
 my drawings unfinished as the last days come, and 
 the point possible of approximate completion fatally 
 contracts, every lioiir, to a more ludicrous and warped 
 mockery of the hope in which one began. It is im- 
 possible not to work against time, and that is killing. 
 It is not labour itself, but competitive, anxious, dis- 
 appointed labour that dries one's soul out. 
 
 But don't be frightened about me, you sweet Susie. 
 I know when I must stop; forgive and pity me only, 
 because sometimes, nay often my letter (or word) to 
 Susie must be sacrificed to the last effort on one's 
 drawing. 
 
 The letter to one's Susie should be a rest, do you 
 thinks It is always more or less comforting, but not 
 rest ; it means further employment of the already ex- 
 tremely strained sensational power. What one really 
 wants ! I believe the only true restorative is the 
 
 /latural one, the actual presence of one's "helpmeet." 
 The far worse than absence of mine reverses rest, and 
 
^^FKOXDES AfJRESTES/* 13 
 
 what is more, destroys one's power of receiving from 
 others or giving. 
 
 How mneh love of mine Lave otJiers lost, because 
 that poor sick child would not have the part of love 
 that belonged to her! 
 
 I am very anxious about your eyes too. For any 
 favour cion't wi'ite more extracts just now. The books 
 are yours for ever and a day — no loan ; enjoy any bits 
 that you find enjoyable, but don't copy just now. 
 
 I left Home yesterday, and am on my way home ; 
 but, alas ! might as well l)e on my way home from 
 Cochin China, for any caance I have of speedily ar- 
 riving. Meantime your letters will reach me here 
 with speed, and will be a great comfort to me, if they 
 don't fatigue you. 
 
 "fkondes agrestes." 
 
 Perugia, 12/// June. 
 I am more and more pleased at the tlionght of this 
 gathering of yours, and soon expect to tell you what 
 the bookseller says. 
 
 Meantime I want you to think of the form the 
 
14 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 collection should take with reference to mj proposed 
 re-piiblication. I mean to take the botany, the geology, 
 the Turner defence, and the general art criticism of 
 " Modern Painters,'' as four separate books, cutting out 
 nearly all the preaching, and a good deal of the senti- 
 ment. Now what you find pleasant and helpful to 
 you of general maxim or reflection, must be of some 
 value ; and I think therefore that your selection will 
 just do for me what no other reader could have done, 
 least of all I myself ; keep together, that is to say, 
 what may be right and true of those youthful thoughts. 
 I should like you to add anything that specially pleases 
 you, of whatever kind ; but to keep the notion of 
 your book being the didactic one as opposed to the 
 other picturesque and scientific volumes, will I think 
 help you in choosing between passages when one or 
 other is to be rejected. 
 
 HOW I FELL AMONG THIEVES. 
 
 Assisi, Ylth June. 
 I have been havino^ a bad time latelv, and have no 
 heart to write to you. Very difficult and melancholy 
 work, deciphering what remains of a great painter 
 
HOW I FELL AMOXG TniEVES. 15 
 
 among stains of ruin and blotclies of repair, of five 
 liundred years' gathering. It makes me sadder than 
 idleness, which is saying much. 
 
 I was greatly flattered and petted by a saying in 
 one of your last letters, about the difficulty I had in 
 unpacking my mind. That is true ; one of my chief 
 troubles at present is with the quantity of things I 
 want to say at once. But you don't know how I find 
 things I laid by carefully in it, all mouldy and moth- 
 eaten when I take them out ; and what a lot of mend- 
 ing and airing they need, and what a wearisome and 
 bothering business it is compared to the early pack- 
 ing, — one used to be so proud to get things into the 
 corners neatly ! 
 
 I have been failing in my drawings, too, and I'm 
 in a horrible inn kept by a Garibaldian bandit; and the 
 various sorts of disgusting dishes sent up to hujk like 
 a dinner, and to be charged fur, are a daily increasing 
 hoi'ror and amazement to me. They succeed in get- 
 ting rrr/'//f///'/i(/ bad ; no exertion, no invention, could 
 produce such badness, I believe, anywhere else. Tlie 
 hills ai'e coveix'd foi- leagues with olive trees, and the 
 oiPs bad ; tlirre are no such l(jvely cattle elsewhere 
 
16 HORTUS IKCLUSUS. 
 
 in the world, and the butter's bad ; half the country 
 people are shepherds, but there's no mutton ; half the 
 old women walk about with a pig tied to their waists, 
 but there's no pork; the vine grows wild anywhere, 
 and the wine would make my teeth drop out of my 
 bead if I took a glass of it; there are no strawberries, 
 no oranges, no melons, the cherries are as hard as 
 their stones, the beans only good for horses, or Jack 
 and the beanstalk, and this is the size of the biggest 
 asparagus — 
 
 
 I live here in a narrow street ten feet wide only, 
 winding up a hill, and it was full this morning of sheep 
 as close as they could pack, at least a thousand, as far 
 as the eye could reach, — tinkle tinkle, bleat bleat, for 
 a quarter of an hour. 
 
 IN PARADISE. 
 
 Assisi, Sacristan's Cell, 
 
 25///- June 
 This letter is all upside down, and this first page 
 written last ; for I didn't like something T had written 
 
IN PARADISE. 17 
 
 about myself last night when I was tired, and have torn 
 it otf. 
 
 That star yun saw beat like a heart must have been a 
 dog star. A planet would not have twinkled. Far 
 mightier, he, than any planet; burning with his own 
 })lanetary host doubtless round him; and, on some 
 speckiest of the specks ot" them, evangelical persons 
 thinking our sun was made for them. 
 
 Ah, Susie, I do not pass, unthought of, tlie many 
 sorrows of which you kindly tell me, to show me 
 — for that is in your heart — how others have suffered 
 also. 
 
 • But, Susie, yo\i expect to see your Margaret again, 
 and you will be happy with her in heaven. I wanted 
 my Rosie here. In heaven I mean to go and talk to 
 Pythagoras and Socrates and Valerius Publicola. I 
 shan't care a bit for Rosie there, she needn't think it. 
 What will grey eyes and red cheeks be good for tJteref 
 
 These })ions sentiments are all written in my sacris- 
 tan's cell. 
 
 Now, Susie, mind, though you're only eight years 
 old. you must try to fancy you're ten or eleven, and 
 attend to what I say. 
 
18 HORTUS IN"CLUSUS. 
 
 This extract book * of yonrs will be most precious 
 iu its help to nie, provided it is kept within some- 
 what narrow limits. As soon as it is done I mean 
 to have it published in a strong and pretty but cKeai) 
 form, and it must not be too bulky. Consider, there- 
 fore, not only what you like, but how far and with 
 whom each bit is likely to find consent and service. 
 You will have to choose perhaps, after a little while, 
 among what you have already chosen. I mean to 
 leave it wholly in your hands ; it is to be Susie's choice 
 of my writings. 
 
 Don't get into a flurry of responsibility, but don't at 
 once write down all you have a mind to ; I know you'll 
 find a good deal ! for you are exactly in sympathy with 
 me in all things. 
 
 Assist, Wi July, 1874. 
 Your lovely letters are always a comfort to me ; and 
 not least when you tell me you are sad. You would, be 
 far less in sympathy with me if you were not, and in 
 the "everything right" humour of some, even of some 
 really good and kind persons, whose own matters are to 
 * " Frondes Agrestes." 
 
PROVIDENCE AXD PRAYER. 19 
 
 their miiid, and who understand by " Providence" tlie 
 power which particularly takes care of them. This 
 favouritism which goes so sweetly and pleasantly down 
 with so many pious people is the chief of all stumbling- 
 blocks io me. I must pray for everybody or nobody, 
 and carrt get into any conceptions of relation between 
 Heaven and me^ if not also between Heaven and earth, 
 (and why Heaven should allow hairs in pens I can't 
 think). 
 
 I take great care of myself, be quite sure of that, 
 Susie ; the worst of it is, here in Assisi everybody else 
 wants me to take care of them. 
 
 Catharine brought rae up as a great treat yesterday 
 at dinner, ham dressed with as much garlic as could 
 be stewed into it, and a plate of raw figs, telling me 
 I was to eat them together ! 
 
 • The sun is changing the entire mountains of Assisi 
 into a hot bottle with no fiamiel round it ; but I can't 
 get a ripe plum, peach, or cherry. All the milk turns 
 sour, and one has to eat one's meat at its toughesl or 
 the thunder gets into it next day. 
 
20 HOKTUS II^CLUSUS. 
 
 FOAM OF TIBER. 
 
 Perugia, \1lth July. 
 
 I am made anxious by your sweet letter of the 6th 
 saying yon have been ill and are " not mnch better." 
 
 The letter is all like yonrs, but I suppose however 
 ill yon were yon would always write prettily, so that's 
 little comfort. 
 
 About the J^arcissus, please. I want them for my 
 fishpond stream rather than for the bee house one. The 
 fishpond stream is very doleful, and wants to dance with 
 daffodils if they would come and teach it. How happy 
 we are in our native streams ! A thunderstorm swelled 
 the Tiber yesterday, and it rolled over its mill weirs in 
 heaps, literally, of tossed water, the size of haycocks, but 
 black brown like coffee with the grounds in it, mixed 
 with a very little yellow milk. In some lights the foam 
 flew like cast handfuls of heavy gravel. The chief flow- 
 ers here are only broom and bindweed, and I begin to 
 weary for my heather and for my Susie ; but oh dear, 
 the ways are long and the days few. 
 
 Ldcca, 29/7i July. 
 I'm not going to be devoured when I come, by any- 
 
FOAM OF TIBER.. 21 
 
 body, unless you like to. T shall come to your window 
 witli the birds, to l)e fed myself. 
 
 And please at present always complain to me when- 
 ever you like. It is the over-boisterous cheerfulness of 
 common people that hurts me ; your sadness is a help 
 to me. 
 
 You shall have whatever name you like for your book 
 provided you continue to like it after thinking over it 
 long enough. You will not like " Gleanings," because 
 you know that one only gleans refuse— dropped ears — 
 that other people don't care for. You go into the gar- 
 den and gather with choice the flowers you like best. 
 That is not gleaning ! 
 
 Lucca, lO^A August. 
 I have been grieved not to write to you ; but the 
 number of things that vex me are so great just now, that 
 unless by false effort I could write you nothing nice. It 
 is very dreadful to live in Italy, and more dreadful to see 
 one's England and one's English friends, all but a fleld 
 or two, and a stream or two, and a one Susie a»id one 
 Dr. Brown, fast becoming like Italy and the Italians. 
 
22 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 I have too much sympathy with your sorrow to write 
 to you of it. What I have not sympathy with, is your 
 hope; and how cruel it is to say this ! But I ara driven 
 more and more to think there is to be no more good for 
 a time, but a reign of terror of men and the elements 
 alike ; and yet it is so like what is foretold before the 
 coming of the Son of man that perhaps in the extremest 
 evil of it I may some day read the sign that our redemp- 
 tion draws nigh. 
 
 ]^ow, Susie, invent a nice cluster of titles for the book 
 and send them to me to choose from, to Hotel de I'Arno, 
 Florence. I must get that out before the day of judg- 
 ment, if I can. I'm so glad of your sweet flatteries in 
 this note received to-day. 
 
 Florence, 2ht7i August. 
 I have not been able to write to you, or anyone lately, 
 whom I don't want to tease, except Dr. Brown, whom I 
 write to for counsel. My time is passed in a fierce 
 steady struggle to save all I can every day, as a fireman 
 from a smouldering ruin, of history or aspect. To-day, 
 for instance, I've been just in time to ascertain the form 
 
DIES IR^. 23 
 
 of the cross of the Emperor, representing^ the power of 
 the State in the greatest political fresco of okl times — 
 fourteenth century. By next year, it may be next 
 month, it will have dropped from the wall with the vi- 
 bration of the railway outside, and be touched up with 
 new o-ildino^ for the mob. 
 
 I am keeping well, but am in a terrible spell (literally, 
 " spell," enchanted maze, that I can't get out of) of work. 
 
 I was a little scandalized at the idea of your calling 
 the book " word painting." My dearest Susie, it is the 
 chief provocation of my life to be called a " word 
 painter" instead of a thinker. I hope you haven't hlled 
 your book with descriptions. I thought it was the 
 thoughts you were looking for? 
 
 '' Posie" would be pretty. If you ask Joanie she will 
 tell you ])erliaps tt>o pretty for rae^ and I can't think a 
 ])it to-night, for instead of robins singing I hear only 
 blaspheming gamesters on the other side of the narrow 
 street. 
 
 Florence, \st September. 
 Don't be in despair about your book. I am sure it 
 will bjD lovely. I'll see t<» it the moment I get home, 
 
24 HORTUS IIs^CLUSUS. 
 
 but Tve got into an entirely unexpected piece of busi- 
 ness here, the interpretation of a large chapel full of 
 misunderstood, or not at all understood, frescoes ; and 
 I'm terribly afraid of breaking down, so nmch drawing 
 iias to be done at the same time. It has stranded botany 
 and everything. 
 
 I was kept awake half of last night by drunken 
 blackguards howling on the bridge of the Holy Trinity 
 in the pure half-moonlight. This is the kind of dis- 
 cord I have to bear, corresponding to your uncongenial 
 company. But, alas! Susie, you ought at ten years 
 old to have more firmness, and to resolve that you 
 won't be bored. I think I shall try to enforce it on 
 you as a very solemn duty not to lie to people as the 
 vulgar public do. If they bore you, say so, and they'll 
 go away. That is the right state of things. 
 
 How am I to know that / don't bore you, when 
 / come, when you're so civil to people you hate? 
 
 Pass of Bocchetta, \st Ocitber. 
 4{. * ^ 4f * * 
 
 All that is lovely and wonderful in the Alps may 
 
F0A;\I of TIBER. 25 
 
 be seen without the slightest danger, in general, and 
 it is especially good for little girls of eleven who ciin't 
 climl), to know tliis — all the best viev/s of hills are at 
 the bottom of tlieni. I know one or two places in- 
 deed where there is a grand peej)ing over precipices, 
 one or two where the mountain vseclusion and strengtli 
 are woi'tli clind)ing to see. Bnt all the entirely beau- 
 tiful things 1 could show you, Susie; only for the very 
 hiirhest subhme of them sometimes askinsr you to en- 
 dure half an hour of chaise a jportew\ but mostly 
 from a post-chaise or smoothest of turnpike roads. 
 
 But, Susie, do you know, Tni greatly horrified at 
 the penwipers of peacocks' feathers! / always use 
 my left-hand coat tail, indeed, and if only I were a 
 peacock and a pet of yours, how yoird scold nie! 
 
 Sun just coming out over sea (at Sestri), wliich is 
 siirhinfr in towards tlie ,windov»% within vonr drive, 
 round before the doors breadth of it,* seen between 
 two masses of acacia copse and two orange trees at 
 the side of the inn courtyard. 
 
 * That is, withiu that distauce of the window. 
 
26 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 Geneva, 19t7i October. 
 
 How I have been neglecting you ! Perhaps Joanie 
 may have told you that just at my last gasp of hand- 
 work, I had to write quite an unexpected number of 
 letters. But poor Joanie will think herself neglected 
 now, for I have been stopped among the Alps by a 
 state of their glaciers entirely unexampled, and shall 
 be a week after my "latest possible" day, in getting 
 home. It is eleven years since I was here, and very 
 sad to me to return, yet delightful with a moonlight 
 paleness of tlie past, precious of its kind. 
 
 I shall be at home with Joan in ten days now, 
 God willing. I have much to tell you, which will 
 give you pleasure and pain ; but I don't know how 
 much it will be — to tell you — for a little while yet, so 
 I don't begin. 
 
 Oxford, 2Qt7i October, 
 Home at last with your lovely, most lovely, letter 
 
 in my breast pocket, from Joan's all tlie way here. 
 I am so very grateful to you for not writing on 
 
 black paper. 
 
AVHARFE I>^ FLOOD. 
 
 Oh, dear Susie, why should we ever wear black for 
 
 the guests of God? 
 
 WHAKFE IN FLOOD. 
 
 Bolton Abbey, 
 
 24:i?i January, 1875. 
 
 The black rain, much as I growled at it, has let me 
 see Wharfe in flood ; and I would have borne many 
 days in prison to see that. 
 
 Ko one need go to the Alps to see wild water. 
 Seldom unless in the Rhine or Rhone themselves at 
 tlieir rapids, have I seen anything much grander. An 
 Alpine stream, besides, nearly always has its bed full 
 of loose stones, and becomes a series of humps and 
 dumps of water wherever it is shallow ; while the 
 Wharfe swe})t round its curves of shore like a black 
 Damascus sabre, coiled into eddies of steel. At the 
 Strid, it had risen eiglit feet vertical since yesterday, 
 sheeting the flat rocks with foam from side to side, 
 while the treacherous mid-channel was fllled with a 
 succession of boiling domes of water, charged through 
 and thruugh with churning white, and ruUing out into 
 
28 HORTUS IKCLUSUS. 
 
 the broader stream, each like a vast sea wave bursting 
 on a beach. 
 
 There is something in the soft and comparatively 
 unbroken slopes of these Yorkshire shales which must 
 give the water a peculiar sweeping power, for I have 
 seen Taj and Tummel and Ness, and many a big 
 stream besides, savage enough, but I don't remember 
 anything so grim as this. 
 
 I came home to quiet tea and a black kitten called 
 Sweep, who kipped half my cream jugful (and yet 
 I had plenty) sitting on my shoulder, — and Life of 
 Sir Walter Scott. I was reading his great Scottish 
 history tour, when he was twenty-three, and got his 
 materials for everything nearly, but especially for 
 Waverley, though not used till long afterwards. 
 
 Do you recollect Gibbie Gellatly ? I was thinking 
 over that question of yours, "What did I think?"- 
 But, my dear Susie, you might as well ask Gibbie 
 Gellatly what he thought. What does it matter what 
 any of us think? We are but simpletons, the best 
 of us, and I am a very inconsistent and wayward 
 simpleton. I know how to roast eggs, in the ashes, 
 * Of the things thnt shnll be, liereafter. 
 
perhaps — but for tlie next world ? Wlij don't yon ask 
 your squiri'ol wluit lit', tln'riks too? The c^-reat point — 
 the one for all of us — is, not to take false words in 
 our mouths, and to ei'ack our nuts innocently through 
 winter and rough weather. 
 
 I shall post this to niori-ow as 1 pass through Skip- 
 ton or any post-worthy })lac'e on my way to AVakefield. 
 Write to Warwick. Oh me, what places England had, 
 when she was herself! Now. rail stations mostly. But 
 I never can make out how Warwick Castle got built 
 by that dull bit of river. 
 
 FRONDES." 
 
 Wakefikld. 2o/7i January, 1875. 
 
 Here's our book in form at last, and it seems to me 
 just a nice size, and on the whole xQvy taking. Tve 
 put a touch or two more to the preface, and I'm sadly 
 afraid there's a naughty note somewhere. I hope yoii 
 wcjn't find it, and that you will like the order the things 
 are i)ut in. 
 
 Such ill roads as we came over to-day, I never thought 
 to see in England. 
 
30 SORTUS IKCLUSUS. 
 
 Castleton, 2Qth January, 1875. 
 
 Here I have your long dear letter. I am very thank- 
 ful I can be so much to jou. Of all the people I have 
 yet known, you are the only one I can find complete 
 sympathy in ; you are so nice and young without the 
 hardness of youth, and may be the best of sisters to me. 
 I am not so sure about letting you be an elder one ; I 
 am not going to be lectured when I'm naughty. 
 
 I've been so busy at wasps all day coming along, 
 having got a nice book about them. It tells me, too, 
 of a delightful German doctor who kept tame hornets, — 
 a whole nest in his study ! They knew him perfectly, 
 and would let him do anything with them, even pull bits 
 off their nest to look in at it. 
 
 Wasps, too, my author says, are really much more 
 amiable than bees, and never get angry without cause. 
 All the same, they have a tiresome way of inspecting 
 one. too closely, sometimes, I think. 
 
 I'm immensely struck with the Peak Cavern, but it 
 was in twilight. 
 
 I'm going to stay here all to-morrow, the place is so 
 entirely unspoiled. I've not seen such a primitive 
 
WAS? STIjSCtS. 
 
 village, rock, or stream, tin's twenty years; Langdale is 
 as sophisticated as Pall Mall in comparison. 
 
 Alas, I've other letters to write! 
 
 WASP STINGS. 
 
 Bolton Bridge, Saturday. 
 
 I never was more thankful than for yonr sweet note, 
 being stopped here by bad weather again ; the worst of 
 posting is that one has to think of one's servant outside, 
 and so lose a day. 
 
 It was bitter w^ind and snow this morning, too bad to 
 send any human creature to sit idle in. Black enough 
 still, and I more than usual, because it is just that point 
 of distinction from brutes which I truly say is our only 
 one,"^ of which I have now so little hold. 
 
 The bee Fors f will be got quickly into proof, but I 
 must add a good deal to it. I can't get into good 
 humour for natural history in this weather. 
 
 I've got a good l)0()k on wasps which says they are 
 
 our chief protectors against Hies. In Cumberland the 
 
 * I've forgotten wliat it was, and don't feel now as if I had 'got 
 bold ' of any one. 
 
 f See " Fors Clavigera," Letter LL 
 
32 HORTUS II^CLUSUS. 
 
 wet cold spring is so bad for tlie wasps tliat I partly 
 think tliis may be so, and the terrible plague of ilies in 
 August might perhaps be checked by our teaching our 
 little Agneses to keep wasps' nests instead of bees. 
 
 Yes, that is a pretty bit of mine about Handet, and 
 I think I must surely be a little pathetic sometimes, 
 in a doggish way. 
 
 "You're so dreadfully faithful !" said Arthur Severn 
 to me, fretting over the way I was being ill treated the 
 other day by R. 
 
 Oh dear, I wish I were at Brantwood again, now, 
 and could send you my wasp book ! It is pathetic, 
 and yet so dreadful, — the wasp bringing in the cater- 
 pillar for its young wasp, stinging each enough to 
 paralyse but not to kill, and so laying them up in the 
 cupboard. 
 
 I wonder how the clergymen's wives will feel after 
 the next Fors or two ! I've done a bit to-day which 1 
 think will go in with a shiver. Do you recollect the 
 curious tlmll there is — the cold tingle of the pang of 
 a nice deep wasp sting? 
 
 Well, I'm not in a fit temper to write to Susie to- 
 day, clearly. 
 
BOLTOX STRID. 33 
 
 BOLTON STRID. 
 
 I stopped here to see tlie Strid again — not seen 
 these many years. It is curious tliat life is em])ittered 
 to rae, now, by its former pleasantness ; while you have 
 of these same places painful recollections, but you 
 could enjoy them now with yonr wliole heart. 
 
 Instead of the drive with the poor overlaboured one 
 horse through the long wet day, here, when I was a 
 youth, my father and mother brought mo, and let me 
 sketch in the Abbey and ramble in tlie woods as I 
 chose, only demanding promise that I should not go 
 near the Strid. Pleasant drives, with, on the whole, 
 well paid and pleased drivers, never with overburdened 
 cattle ; cheerful dinner or tea waiting for me always, 
 on my return froui solitary rambles. Everything right 
 and good for me, except only that they never put me 
 through any trials Xo harden me, or give me decision 
 of character, or make me feel how much they did for 
 me. 
 
 But that error was a fearful one, and cost them and 
 iiic, Heaven only knows how much. And now, I walk 
 to Strid, and Abbey, and everywhere, with the ghosts 
 of the past days haunting me, and other darker spirits; 
 
34 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 of sorrow and remorse and wonder. Black spirits 
 among the gi'ej, all like a mist between me and the 
 green woods. And I feel like a caterpillar, — stimgy^^^ 
 enough. Foul weather and mist enough, of quite a real 
 kind besides. An hour's sunshine to-daj, broken up 
 speedily, and now veiled utterly. 
 
 Herne Hill, London, 
 
 Will February, 1875. 
 
 I have your sweet letter with news of Dr. John and 
 his brother. 1 have been working on the book to-day 
 very hard, after much interruption ; it is two-thirds 
 done now. So glad people are on tiptoe. 
 
 Paddocks are frogs, not toads in that grace."^ And 
 why should not people smile ? Do you think that God 
 does not like smiling graces ? He only dislikes frowns. 
 But you know when once habitual, the child would De 
 told on a cold day to say '' Cold as paddocks ;" and 
 everybody would know what was coming. Finally the 
 deep under-meaning, that as the cold hand is lifted, so 
 also tLe cold heart, and yet accepted, makes it one of 
 the prettiest little hymns I know. 
 
 * Heirick's. See " Fors Clavigera," Letter XLIII. 
 
BOLTOX STRID. 35 
 
 I cannot tell you how very apposite to my work these 
 two feathers are. 1 am just going to dwell on the ex- 
 quisite result of the division into successive leaves, by 
 which nature obtains the glittering look to set off her 
 colour ; and you just send me two feathers which have 
 it more in perfection than any I ever saw, and I think 
 are more vivid in colour. 
 
 How these boys must tease you! but you will be re- 
 warded in the world that good Susies go to. 
 
 You must show me the drawing of the grebe. The 
 moss is getting on. 
 
 Venice, 12t7i September, 1876. 
 
 I must just say how thankful it makes me to hear 
 of this true gentleness of English gentlewomen in the 
 midst of the vice and cruelty in which I am forced to 
 live here, where oppression on one side and license on 
 the other rage as two war-wolves in continual havoc. 
 
 It is very characteristic of fallen Venice, as of modern 
 Europe, that here in the ])rincipal rooms of one of the 
 chief palaces in the very headmost sweep of thi'Ciiand 
 Canal there is not a room for a servant fit to keep a cat 
 or a dog in (as Susie would keep cat or dog, at least). 
 
36 HOETUS II^CLUSUS. 
 
 Venice, ISth September. 
 I never knew such a fight as the good and wicked 
 fairies are liaving over my poor body and spirit just now. 
 The good fairies have got down the St. Ursula for me 
 and given her to me all to myself, and sent me tine 
 weather and nice gondoliers, and a good cook, and a 
 pleasant waiter ; and the bad fairies keep putting every- 
 thing upside down, and putting black in my box when I 
 want white, and making me forget all I want, and find 
 all I don't, and making the hinges come off my boards, 
 and the leaves out of my books, and driving me as wild 
 as wild can be ; but I'm gottlng something done in spite 
 of them, only I never can get my letters written. 
 
 Venice, September 29th. 
 
 I have woful letters telling me you also were woful in 
 saying good-bye. My darling Susie, what is the use of 
 your being so good and dear if you can't enjoy thinking 
 of lieaven, and what fine goings on we shall all have 
 there ? 
 
 All the same, even when I'm at my very piousest, it 
 puts me out if my drawings go wrong. I'm going to 
 
ST. URSULA. 37 
 
 draw St. Ursiila^s blue slippers to-day, and if I ean't do 
 them nicely shall be in great despair. I've just found a 
 little cunning inscription on her bedpost, ' IN FANN- 
 TIA.' The double N puzzled me at first, but Carpaccio 
 spells anyhow. My head is not good enough for a bed- 
 post. . . . Oh me, the sweet Grange! — Thwaite, I 
 mean (bedpost again) ; to think of it in this mass of 
 weeds and ruin ! 
 
 ST. URSULA. 
 
 Venice, 13^^ N'ovemher. 
 I have to-day yonr dear little note, and have desired 
 Joan to send you one just written to her, in which I 
 have given some account of myself, that may partly in- 
 terest, partly win your pardon for apparent neglect. 
 Coming here, after practically an interval of twenty- four 
 years, — for I have not seriously looked at anything dur- 
 ing the two hurried visits with Joan, — my old unfinished 
 work, and the pofys^bilities of its bette-r oom])letion, i-ise 
 grievously and beguilingly before nie, and I have been 
 stretching my hands to the shadow of old designs and 
 striving to fulfil shortcomings, always painful to me, but 
 now, for the moment, intolerable. 
 
38 HORTUS II^CLUSUS. 
 
 I am also approaching the close of the sixth year of 
 Fors, and Imve plans for the Sabbatical year of it, which 
 make my thoughts active and troubled. I am drawing 
 much, and have got a study of St. Ursula which will give 
 you pleasure ; but the pain of being separate from my 
 friends and of knowing they miss me ! I wonder if you 
 will think you are making me too vain, Susie. Such 
 vanity is a very painful one, for I know that you look 
 out of the window on Sundays now, wistfully, for Joan's 
 handkerchief. This pain seems always at my heart, 
 with the other which is its own. 
 
 I am thankful, always, you like St. Ursula. One 
 quite fixed plan for the last year of Fors, is that there 
 shall be absolutely no abuse or controversy in it, but 
 things which will either give pleasure or help ; and some 
 clear statements of principle, in language as temperate as 
 hitherto violent ; to show, for one thing, that the vio- 
 lence was not for want of self-command. 
 
 I'm going to have a good fling at the Bishops in next 
 Fors to finish with, and then for January ! — only I 
 mustn't be too good, Susie, or something would happen 
 to me. So I shall say naughty things still, but in the 
 mildest way. 
 
ST. mark's doyes. 39 
 
 I am very grateful to you for that comparison about 
 my mind being as crisp as a lettuce. I am so thankful 
 you can feel that still. I was beginning to doubt^ my- 
 self. 
 
 ST. MAEk's DOYESc 
 
 Venice, 2nd December. 
 I have been very dismal lately. I hope the next cap- 
 tain of St. George's Company will be a merrier one and 
 happier, in being of use. I am inherently selfish, and 
 don't enjoy being of use. I enjoy painting and picking 
 up stones and flirting with Susies and Kathleens; it's 
 very odd that I never much care to flirt with any but lit- 
 tle girls ! And here I've no Susies nor Kathleens nor 
 Diddles, and I'm only doing lots of good, and I'm very 
 miserable. I've been going late to bed too. I picked 
 myself up last night and went to bed at nine, and feel 
 cheerful enough to ask Susie how she does, and send her 
 love from St. Mark's doves. They're really tiresome 
 now, amonir one's feet in St. Mark's Place, and I don't 
 know what it will come to. In old times, wlicn there 
 were not so many idlers about, the doves were used to 
 
'i IISCi->. 5^- 2fc 
 
 itbuSk eke Gi>v^r&]Bi£QiC and "^kut do-res ^ ' ^'~ sdr dE one 
 jjoEfr feoac&i^ t&enft ; and I wko wslk ik^ ^ ^ 1^5 ex- 
 
 |ieel^i^ tD litsad cm t&eiBy aad itf $ a Btr - 
 
 If I onlipkad tne Iw«fidd Mb cznVf :: .1 
 
 5Pag»lfe» wfe vcmM be qpsle Eke : _t^ _ - 
 
 il-i <m1t oep fiB oH^s bolecwiT. I- -_tt —t-t 
 Ib^ <if trvA JB DDwiiBsn^ Tc:„.c 
 
 *ie ft csicieai Ihde cMn^. 
 
 Mj mo-nl': "i"! ■'"'-_' " ' '111 Th^if^e enmuit 
 
 jefitj. J :>G esLn'r . - z li^ iiie kaisc taiie of 
 
 aanjTLiL^ •:-! - These wieldies 
 
 «€ Ve!ieT~An.-^ ^i' . - "r ri»o taste 
 
 See • Fcr* Clarrirera, L^,:jrr LXXXEI. 
 
ST. mark's rest. 41 
 
 The little drawing (returned) is nice in colour nnd 
 feeling, but, which surprises me, not at all iiitclligoiit 
 ill line. It is not weakness of hand but fault of per- 
 spective instinct, which spoils so many othei'wise good 
 botanical drawings. 
 
 Bright morning. Sickle moon just hiding in a red 
 cloud, and the morning stars just vanished in light. 
 But we've had nearly three weeks of dark weather, so 
 we mustn't think it poor Coniston's fault — though Con- 
 iston has faults. Poor little Susie, it shan't have any 
 more nasty messages to carry. 
 
 ST. mark's rest. 
 
 23 r^ January, 1877. 
 
 I've caught cold and can think of nothing to do me 
 good hilt making you miserable by telling you so. 
 
 It's not a very bad one. And it's a wonder I've got 
 so far through the winter without any. 
 
 Things have gone very well tor me, hitherto, but I 
 have been depressed by hearing of my poor Kate's "^ 
 
 * Then, my Lead servant; now I\;ite KMven, of CouistOD. 
 
42 HORTUS IN-CLUSUS. 
 
 illness; and can't think of Brantwood with any com- 
 fort, so I come across the lake to the Thwaite. 
 
 A great many lovely things happened to me this 
 Christmas, but if I were to tell Susie of them I am 
 sure she would be frightened out of her bright little 
 wits, and think I was going to be a Roman Catholic. 
 I'm writing such a Catholic history of Venice, and 
 chiselling all the Protestantism off the old " Stones" as 
 they do here the grass off steps. 
 
 All the pigeons of St. Mark's Place send you their 
 love. St. Ursula adds hers to the eleven thousand 
 birds' love. And the darlingest old Pope who went 
 a pilgrimage with her, hopes you won't be too much 
 shocked if he sends his too ! (If you're not shocked, / 
 am !) 
 
 My new Catholic history of Venice is to be called 
 " St. Mark's Rest." 
 
 27^A January. 
 
 Joanie tells me you are writing her such sad little 
 
 letters. How can it be that anyone so good and true 
 
 as my Susie should be sad ? I am sad, bitterly enough 
 
 and often, but only with sense of fault and folly and 
 
SAINTS AND FLOWEllS. 43 
 
 lost opportunity such as you have never fallen into or 
 lost. It is very cruel of Fate, I think, to make us sad, 
 who would fain see everybody cheerful, and (cruel of 
 Fate too) to make so many cheerful who make others 
 wretched. The little history of Venice is well on, and 
 will be clear and interesting, I think, — more than most 
 histories of anything. And the stories of saints and 
 nice people w411 be plenty. Oh me, I wonder, Susie 
 dear, whether you and I are saints, or what we are. 
 You know you're really a little wicked sometimes as 
 well as me, aren't you. 
 
 Such moonlight as there is to-night, but nothing to 
 what it is at Coniston ! It makes the lagoon water 
 look brown instead of green, which I never noticed 
 before. 
 
 SAINTS AND FLOWERS. 
 
 Venice, IKth February. 
 
 It is very grievous to me to hear of your being in 
 
 that wofnl weather while I have two days' sunshine 
 
 out of three, and stai-light or moonlight always ; to day 
 
 the w^hole chain of the A1])S from Vicenza to Trieste 
 
44 SORTTTS Il^CLtJSUS. 
 
 shining cloudless all day long, and the seagulls floati^ng 
 high in the blue, like little dazzling boys' kites. 
 
 Yes, St. Francis would have been greatly pleased with 
 you watching pussy drink your milk; so would St. 
 Theodore, as you will see by next Fors, which I have 
 ordered to be sent you in first proof, for I am eager that 
 you should have it. What w^onderful flowers these 
 pinks of St. Ursula's are, for life ! They seem to bloom 
 like everlastings. 
 
 I get my first rosebud and violets of this year from 
 St. Helena's Island to-day. How I begin to pity people 
 who have no saints to be good to them ! Who is yours 
 at ConistoB ? There must have been some in the 
 country once upon a time. 
 
 With their help I am really getting well on with my 
 history and drawing, and hope for a sweet time at home 
 in the heathery days, and many a nice afternoon tea at 
 the Thwaite. 
 
 Venice, 8th March. 
 That is entirely new and wonderful to me about the 
 singing mouse.* Douglas (was it the Douglas ?) saying 
 
 * A pleasant story that a friend sent me from France. The mouse 
 
PROFESSORSHIP*. 46 
 
 "lie had rather hear the lark sing than the mouse 
 squeak" needs revision. It is a marvellous fact in nat- 
 ui'al history. 
 
 The wind is singing a wild tune to-night — cannot be 
 colder on our own heaths — and the waves dash like our 
 Waterhead. Oh me, when I'm walking round it again 
 how like a sad dream all this Venice will be ! 
 
 Oxford, 2nd December. 
 1 write first to jou this morning to tell you that I 
 gave yesterday the twelfth and last of my course of 
 lectures this term, to a room crowded by six hundred 
 people, two-thirds members of the University, aud with 
 its door wedged open by those who could not get in ; 
 this interest of theirs being granted to me, I doubt not, 
 because for the first time in Oxford, I have been able to 
 speak to them boldly of immortal life. I intended when 
 I began the course only to have read '' Modern Painters" 
 to them ; but when I began, some of your favourite bits 
 
 often came into their sitting-room' and actually sang to them, the 
 notes being a little like a canary's. — S. B. 
 
46 HORTUS IKCLUSUS, 
 
 interested the men so much, and brought so much 
 larger a proportion of undergraduates than usual, that 
 I took pains to re-inforce and press them home ; and 
 people saj I have never given so useful a course jet. 
 But it has taken all my time and strength, and I have 
 not been able even to tell Susie a word about it until 
 now. In one of my lectures I made my text your 
 pretty peacock and the design"^ of him. But did not 
 venture to say, what really must be true, that his voice 
 is an example of "the Devil sowed tares," and of the 
 angels letting both grow together. Joanie was " wae" to 
 leave Brantwood and you (and between you and me her 
 letters have been so dull ever since, that I think slie has 
 left her wits as well as her heart with you). I am going 
 to see her on Monday week, the 10th, and shall start 
 from home about the 20th, undertaking (D.Y.), at all 
 events, to come on Christmas morning to your ever kind- 
 ly opening door. 
 
 Love to Mary, and cousin Mary ; how happy it is for 
 me you are all so nice ! 
 
 My grateful compliments to the peacock. And little 
 * Decorative art of his plumage. 
 
DE PROFUXDIS. 47 
 
 (but warm) loves to all your little birds. And best of 
 little loves to the squirrels, only you must send them in 
 dream- words, I suppose, up to tbeir nests. 
 
 Herne Hill, 
 
 Sunday, \Wi December. 
 It is a long while since I've felt so good for nothing as 
 I do this morning. My very wristbands curl up in a 
 dog's-eared and disconsolate manner ; my little room is 
 all a heap of disorder. I've got a hoarseness and 
 wheezing and sneezing and coughing and choking. I 
 can't speak and I can't think. I'm miserable in bed and 
 useless out of it ; and it seems to me as if I could never 
 venture to open a window or go ont of a door any more. 
 I have the dimmest sort of diabolical pleasure in think- 
 ing how miserable I shall make Susie by telling her all 
 this; but in other respects I seem entirely devoid of all 
 moral sentiments. I have arrived at this state of things, 
 first by catching cold, and since by trying to ''amuse 
 myself" for three days. I tried to read "Pickwick," 
 but found that vulgar, and, besides, I know it all by 
 
48 % HORTUS IJTCLUSUS. 
 
 heart. I sent from town for some cliivalric romances, 
 but found them immeasurably stupid. I made Baxter 
 read me the Daily Telegraph,, and found that the Home 
 Secretary had been making an absurd speech about art, 
 without any consciousness that snch a person as I had 
 ever existed. 1 read a lot of games of chess out of Mr. 
 Staunton's handbook, and couldn't understand any of 
 them. I analysed the Dock Company's bill of charges 
 on a box from Venice, and sent them an examination 
 paper on it. I think that did amuse me a little, but 
 the account doesn't. £1 8^. Qd. for bringing a box two 
 feet square from the Tower Wharf to here! But the 
 worst of all is, that the doctor keeps me shut up here, 
 and I can't get my business done ; and now there isn't 
 the least chance of my getting down to Brantwood for 
 Christmas, nor, as far as i can see, for a fortnight after 
 it. There's perhaps a little of the diabolical enjoyment 
 again in that estimate ; but really the days do go, more 
 like dew shaken off branches than real sun risings and 
 settings. But I'll send you word every day now for a 
 little while how things are going on. 
 
''^IX QUIRES AXD PLACES WHERE TTIHY SIXG/' 49 
 
 Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 
 
 26th December. 
 
 I don't know really whether I ought to be at Brant- 
 wood or here on Christmas. Yesterday I had two 
 lovely services in my own cathedral. Yon know the 
 cathedral of Oxford is the chapel of Christ Church 
 College, and I have my own high seat in the chancel, 
 as an honorary student, besides being bred there, and 
 so one is ever so proud and ever so pious all at once, 
 which is ever so nice, yon know ; and my own dean, 
 that's the Dean of Christ's Church, who is as big as 
 any bishop, read the services, and the psalms and an- 
 thems were lovely ; and then I dined with Henrv 
 Acland and his family, where I am an adopted son, — 
 all the more wanted yesterday because the favourite 
 son Herbert died this 3'ear in Ceylon, — the first death 
 out of seven sons. So they were glad to have me. 
 Then I've all my Turners here, and shall really enjoy 
 myself a little to-day, 1 think; but I do wish 1 could 
 be at Brnntwood too. 
 
 Oil dear, I've scril>bled tliis dreadfully. Can you 
 really read my scribble, Susie? Love, you may always 
 read, however scribbled. 
 
50 HOKTUS I]S^CLUSUS. 
 
 Oxford, 21ih December. 
 
 Yes, I really think that must be the way of it. I am 
 wholly cattish in that love of teasing. How dehghted 
 I used to be if Rosie would ever condescend to be the 
 least bit jealous! 
 
 By the way, what a shame it is that we keep that 
 word in the second commandment, as if it meant that 
 God was jealous of images. It means burning, zealous 
 or full of life, visiting, etc., i.e.^ necessarily when leaving 
 the father leaving the child ; necessarily, when giving 
 the father life, giving life to the child, and to thousands 
 of the race of them that love me. 
 
 It is very comic the way people have of being so 
 particular about the second and fourth commandments, 
 and breaking all the rest with the greatest comfort. 
 For me, I try to keep all the rest rather carefully, and 
 let the second and fourth take care of themselves. 
 
 Cold quite gone; now it's your tnrn, Susie. I've got 
 a love letter in Chinese, and can't read it ! 
 
 WmDSOR Castle, 
 
 '^nd January, 1878. 
 I'm horribly sulky this morning, for I expected to 
 
UNWRITTEN BOOKS. 51 
 
 have a room with a view, if the room was ever so little, 
 and I've got a great big one looking into the Castle 
 yard, and I feel exactly as if I was in a big modern 
 county gaol with beautiful turrets of modern Gothic. 
 
 1 came to see Prince Leopold, who has been a pris- 
 oner to his sofa lately, but I trust he is better ; he is 
 very bright and gentle, under severe and almost con- 
 tinual pain. My dear little Susie, about that rhenma- 
 tism of yours '^ If it wasn't for that, how happy we 
 both onght to be, living in Thwaites and woods, instead 
 of nasty castles ! Well, about that Shakespeare guide '^ 
 I cannot, cannot, at all fancy what it is. In and ont 
 among the stars ; it sounds hke a plan for stringing the 
 stars. I am so very glad yon told me of it. 
 
 " Unwritten books in my brain ?" , Yes, but also in 
 how many other brains of quiet people, books unthought 
 of, " In the Book and Volume" which will be read 
 some day in Heaven, alond, " AVhen saw we thee?" 
 Yes, and "When read we ourselves?" 
 
 My dear Susie, if I were to think really lost^ what 
 you for instance have new foun;! in your own j)i)wcrs 
 of receiving an^l iriving pleasure, the beautiful facul- 
 ties you have, scarcely venturing even to show the con-^ 
 
52 HOKXrS INCLUSUS. 
 
 sciousness of them, when it awates in you, what a 
 wofiil conception I should have of God's not caring 
 for us. He will gather all the wheat into His garner. 
 
 Ingleton, 
 
 11th January. 
 
 It's a charming post here, and brings me my letters 
 the first thing in the morning; and I took care to tell 
 nobody where I was going, except people I wanted to 
 hear from. What a little busy bee of a Susie you've 
 been to get all those extracts ready by this time. I've 
 got nothing done all the while I've been away, but a 
 few mathematical figures, and the less I do the less I 
 find I can do it ; and yesterday, for the first time these 
 twenty years at least, I hadn't so much as a "plan" in 
 my head all day. But I had a lot to look at in the 
 moorland flowers and quiet little ancient Yorkshire 
 farmhouses, not to speak of Ingleborough, who was, I 
 think, a little depressed because he knew you were 
 only going to send your remembrances and not your 
 love to him. Tlie clouds gathered on his l)rovv occa- 
 sionally in a fretful manner, but towards evening he 
 
IXGLEBOROron. 53 
 
 resumed his peace of mind imd sends you Lis " remem- 
 brances" and his '' blessing." I believe he saves both 
 yon and me from a great deal of east wind. 
 
 Well, I've got a plan in my hea.d this morning for 
 the new extracts. Shall we call thera '' Lapides (or 
 " Marmora") Portici" ; and put a little preface to them 
 about the pavement of St. Mark's porch and its symbol- 
 ism of what the education of a good man's early days 
 must be to him? I think I can write something a little 
 true and trustworthy about it. Love to Mary and sing- 
 inir little Joan. You are very rio^lit about it's not 
 beinir srood for me to be alone, but I had some nice lit- 
 tie times in London with Mary Gladstone, or I shouldn't 
 have known what to do. And now I'm coming home 
 as fast as I can. 
 
 26^A November. 
 I have entirely resigned all hope of ever thanking 
 you rightly for bread, sweet odours, roses and pearls, 
 and must just allow myself to be fed, scented, roiie- 
 garlanded and bepearled as if I were a poor little pet 
 dog ur pet pig. Lut my cold is better, and I am get- 
 
54 IIORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 ting on witli this botany ; but it is really too important 
 a work to be pusbed for a week or a foitnigbt. And 
 Mary and you will be pleased at last, I am sure. 
 
 I Lave only to-day got my four families, Clarissa, 
 Lychnis, Scintilla, and Mica, perfectly and simply de- 
 fined. See how nicely tliey come. 
 
 A. Clarissa changed from Dianlhus, which is bad Greek (and 
 
 all my pretty flowers have names of girls). Fi^ia] jagged 
 at the outside. 
 
 B. Lyclmis. Petal divided in two at the outside, and the fringe 
 
 retired to the top of the limb. 
 
 C. Scintilla. (Changed from Stellaria, because I w'aut Stella 
 
 for the house leeks.) Petal formed by the two lobes of 
 Lychnis without the retired fringe. 
 
 D. Mica. Single lobed petal. 
 
 Wben once tbese four families are well understood 
 in typical examples, how easy it will be to attach either 
 subordinate groups or specialities of habitat, as in 
 America, to some kinds of them ! The entire order, 
 for tlieir purity and wildness, are to be named, from 
 Artemis, " Artemides," instead of Caryophyllaceae ; and 
 next them come tlie Yestals (mints, lavendei's, etc.) ; 
 
NOMENCLATURE. 55 
 
 and tlien the Cytlieride Yiola, Veronica, Giulietta, the 
 last changed from Polygala. 
 
 That third lierb Robert one is just the drawing that 
 nobody but nie (never mind grammar) could have made. 
 Nobody! because it means ever so much careful watch- 
 ing of the ways of the leaf, and a lot of work in cramp 
 perspective besides. It is not quite right yet, but it is 
 nice. 
 
 It is so nice to be able to find anything that is in the 
 least new^ to you, and interesting ; my rocks are quite 
 proud of rooting that little saxifrage. 
 
 I'm scarcely able to look at one flower because of the 
 two on each side, in my garden just now. I want to 
 have bees' eyes, there are so many lovely things. 
 
 I must tell you, interrupting my botanical work this 
 morning, something that has just chanced to me. 
 
 I am arranging the caryophylls which 1 mass broadly 
 into '* (Jlarissa," the true jagged-leaved and clove-scented 
 ones; "Lychnis," those whose leaves are essentially in 
 twolol)es; "Arenaria,'' wliicli I leave unt<uiche(l ; and 
 " Mica," a new name of my own for the pearlworts of 
 
56 SORTUS INCLUStlS. 
 
 wliich tlie Freiicli name is to be Miette, and the repre- 
 sentative type (now Sagina procumbent) is to be in — 
 
 Latin — Mica arnica. , 
 
 French — Miette I'amie. 
 
 English — Pet pearlwort. 
 Then the next to this is to be — 
 
 Latin — Mica millegrana. 
 
 French — Miette aux mille perles. 
 
 English — Thousand pearls. 
 Now this on the whole I consider the prettiest of the 
 group, and so look for a plate of it wliich I can copy. 
 Huiitiiig all through my botanical books, I find the best 
 of all is Baxter's Oxford one, and determine at once to 
 engrave that. When turning tlie page of his text I 
 find : " The specimen of this curious and interesting 
 little plant from which the accompanying drawing 
 was made was communicated to me by Miss Snsan 
 Beever. To the kindness of this young lady, and tliat 
 of her sister. Miss Mary Beever, I am indebted for the 
 four phmts figured in this number." 
 
 I have copied lest you should have trouble in look- 
 ing for the book, but now, you darling Susie, please 
 tell me whether I may not separate these lovely pearl- 
 
BOTANICAL. 57 
 
 worts wholly from the spergulas, — by the pearlworts 
 having only two leaves like real pinks at the joints, and 
 the spergnlas, a cluster i and tell me how the spergulas 
 scatter their seeds, I can't find any account of it. 
 
 I would fain have come to see that St. Bruno lily ; 
 but if I don't come to see Susie and you, be sure I am 
 able to come to see nothing. At present I am very 
 deeply involved in the classification of the minerals in 
 the Sheffield Museum, impoi'taut as the first practical 
 arrangement ever yet attempted for popular teaching, 
 and this with uiv other work makes me fit for nothinjr 
 in tiie afternoon but wood chopping. But I will call 
 to-day on Dr. Brown's friends. 
 
 I hope you will not be too much shocked with the 
 audacities of the new number of "Proserpina,"' or with 
 its ignorances. I am going during my wood chopping 
 really to ascertain in my own way what simple })ersons 
 ought to know about tree growth, and give it clearly 
 ill the next nuniber. I iiiraiit lo <lo the whole book 
 ver\ (bii'ci'ciif]"'. but cjiii onlv iKtw i^ive \\\v IVairnicn- 
 
58 HOETUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 tary pieces as they chance to come, or it would never 
 be done at all. 
 
 You must know before anybody else how the exo- 
 gens are to be completely divided. I keep the four 
 great useful groups, mallow, geranium, mint, and wall- 
 flower, under the head of domestic orders, that their 
 sweet service and companionship with us may be under- 
 stood ; then the water-lily and the heath, both four foils, 
 are to be studied in their solitudes (I shall throw all 
 that are not four foils out of the Ericaceae) ; then finally 
 there are to be seven orders of the dark proserpine, 
 headed by the draconids (snapdragons), and including 
 the anemones, hellebores, ivies, and forget-me-nots. 
 
 What plants I cannot get arranged under these 12 
 -{-4:-\-2-{-7 = 26 in all, orders, I shall give broken 
 notices of, as I have time, leaving my pupils to arrange 
 them as they like. I can't do it all. 
 
 The whole household was out after breakfast to-day 
 to the top of the moor to plant cranberries; and we 
 squeezed and splashed and spluttered in the boggiest 
 places the lovely sunshine had left, till we found places 
 squashy and squeezy enough to please the most particu- 
 lar and coolest of cranberry minds; and then each of 
 
PLAKTIXG CRANBERRIES. 69 
 
 US choosing a little special bed of bog, the tufts were 
 deeply put iu with every manner of tacit benediction, 
 such as might befit a bog and a berry, and many an 
 expressed thanksgiving to Susie and to the kind sender 
 of the luxuriant plants. I have never had gift from 
 you, dear Susie, more truly interesting and gladdening 
 to me, and many a day I shall climb the moor to see 
 the fate of the plants and look across to the Thwaite. 
 I've been out most of the forenoon and am too sleepy 
 to shape letters, but will try and get a word of thanks 
 to the far finder of the dainty things to-morrow. 
 
 What loveliness everywhere in a duckling sort of 
 state just now. 
 
 21th November. 
 We've all been counting and considering how old 
 you can possibly be to-day, and have made Tip oui" minds 
 that you are really thirteen, and must begin to be seri- 
 ous. There have been some hints about the necessity 
 of sending you to school, which I have taken no notice 
 of, hoping that you will jvally at last make u[> your 
 mind to do your lessons at home like a dear good little 
 
60 HOETUS IITCLUSUS. 
 
 girl as you are. And because to-day you enter into your 
 " teens" I have sent you a crystal, and a little bit of 
 native gold, and a little bit of native silver, for symbols 
 of this lovely " nativity" of previous years ; and I do 
 wish you all love and joy and peace in them. 
 
 TO :\nSS BEEVER. 
 
 20th January, 1879. 
 You will not doubt the extreme sorrow with which 
 I have heard of all that was ordered to be, of terrible, 
 in your peaceful and happy household. Without for 
 an instant supposing, but, on the contrary, utterly re- 
 facing to admit, that such calamities * may be used to 
 point a moral (all useful morality having every point 
 that God meant it to have, perfectly sharp and bright 
 without any burnishing of ours), still less to adorn \a 
 tale (the tales of modern days depending far too much 
 upon Scythian decoration with Death's heads), I, yet, 
 if I had been Mr. Chapman, would have pointed ou'; 
 
 * One of our younger servants had gone ou to tliQ frozen lake; the 
 ice gave w:iy, ami she was drowned. — S. B. 
 
TO MISS BE EVER. 61 
 
 that all concealments, even of trivial matters, on the 
 part of young servants from kind mistresses, are 
 danorerons no less than unkind and ungenerous, and 
 tliat a great deal of preaching respecting the evil 
 nature of man and tlie anger of God might be S])ared, 
 if children and servants were only taught, as a religious 
 principle, to tell their mothers and mistresses, wJien 
 thej go out, exactly where they are going and what 
 they are going to do. I think both you and Miss Susan 
 ought to use every ^possible means of changing, or at 
 least checkinfy, the current of such thouo^hts in vour 
 minds; and I am h\ hopes that you may have a little 
 pleasure in examining the plates in the volume of Sib- 
 thorpe's '* F. Grseca" which I send to day, in compari- 
 son with those of " F. Danica." The vulgarity and 
 lifelessness of Sibthorpe's plates are the more striking 
 because in mere execution they are the more elaborate 
 of the two; the chief point in the " F. Danica" being 
 the lovely artistic skill. The drawings for Sibthorj^e, 
 by a young German, were as ex(juisite as the Danes, 
 hut the Engli>h engraver and colourist spoiled all. 
 
 I will send you, if you like them, the other volumes 
 in succession. T timl immense interest in conij^niMng the 
 
62 SORTUS iIS"CLUSUg. 
 
 Greek and Danish forms or conditions of the same Eng- 
 lish flower. 
 
 I send the second volume, in which the Rnfias are 
 lovely, and scarcely come under my above condemnation. 
 The first is nearlj' all of grass. 
 
 UTi February. 
 
 You know I'm getting my Oxford minerals gradually 
 to Brantwood, and whenever a box comes, I think 
 whether there are any that I don't want myself, which 
 might yet have leave to live on Susie's table. And to- 
 day I've found a very soft purple agate, that looks as if 
 it were nearly melted away with pity for birds and flies, 
 which is like Susie ; and another piece of hard wooden 
 agate with only a little ragged sky of blue here and 
 there, which is like me; and a group of crystals with 
 grass of Epidote inside, which is like w4iat mj^ own little 
 cascade has been all the winter by the garden side ; and 
 so I've had them all packed up, and I hope you will let 
 them live at the Thwaite. 
 
 Then here are some more bits, if you will be a child. 
 Here's a green piece, long, of the stone they cut those 
 
AGATES. 63 
 
 green weedy hrooclies out of, and a nice inouse-coloured 
 natural agate, and a great black and white one, stained 
 with sulphuric acid, black, but very tine alw^ajs, and in- 
 teresting in its lines. 
 
 Oh dear, the cold ; but it's worth any cold to have 
 that delicious Robin dialogue. Please write some more 
 of it ; jou hear all they sav, I'm sure. 
 
 I cannot tell vou how delighted I am with your lovely 
 gift to Joanie. The perfection of the stone, its exquisite 
 colour, and superb weight, and flawless clearness, and the 
 delicate cutting, which makes the light flash from it like 
 a wave of the Lake, make it altogether the most perfect 
 mineralogical and heraldic jewel that Joanie could be be- 
 decked with, and it is as if Susie had given her a piece 
 of Conistou Water itself. 
 
 And the setting is delicious, and positively must uot 
 be altered. I shall come on Sunday to thank you my- 
 self for it. Meantime I'm working hard at the Psalter, 
 which I am almost sure Susie will like. 
 
 25/A May. 
 This is a most wonderful stone that Dr. Kendall has 
 found — at least to me. I have never seen anything (piite 
 
64 HORTUS. INCLUSU.S. 
 
 like it, tlie arborescent forms of tlie central thread of 
 iion being hardly ever assumed by an ore of so much 
 metallic lustre. I think it would be very desirable to 
 cut it, so as to get a perfectly smooth surface to show the 
 arborescent forms ; if Dr. Kendall would like to have it 
 done, I can easily send it up to London with my own 
 next parcel. 
 
 I want very much to know exactly where it was found ; 
 mioht 1 come and ask about it on Dr. Kendall's next 
 visit to you ? I could be there waiting for him any day. 
 
 I am thinking greatly of our George Herbert, but 
 me's so wicked I don't know where to begin. 
 
 But I never have had nicer letters " since first I saw 
 your face" and tried to honour and reverence you. 
 
 Violet's better, and I'm pretty well, but have a little 
 too much thinking of old days. 
 
 Have you any word of the Collies lately? I keep 
 sending: stones and books ; thev answer not. It is de- 
 lightful of you to be interested in that stone book. I 
 send you one of my pictures of stones. They're not very 
 like, but they're pretty. I wish they did such pictures 
 now. 
 
 What lovely pies (pictures ?) you would have made in 
 
WnAT MKillT HAVE BEEN". 65 
 
 the old butterfly times, of opal and felspar ! AVhat lost 
 creatures we all are, we nice ones ! The Alps and clouds 
 that /could have done, if I had been shown how. 
 
 27th Jnne. 
 
 Everybody's gone ! and I have all the new potatoes, 
 and all the asparagus, and all the oranges and everything, 
 and my Susie too, all to myself. 
 
 I wrote in my diary this morning that really on the 
 whole I never felt better in my life. Mouth, eyes, head, 
 feet, and fingers all fairly in trim ; older than they were, 
 yes, but if the head and heart grow wiser, they won't 
 want feet or fingers some day. 
 
 Indeed that is too sad about Florence. I've written a 
 line to her by this post, and will do all the little I can to 
 cheer her. 
 
 And I'll come to be cheered and scolded nivself tlie 
 moment I've got things a little to rights here. I think 
 imps get into the shelves and drawers, if they^nj kept 
 long locked, and must be caught like mice. The boys 
 have been very goocl, and left everything untouched but 
 the imps ; and to hear people say there ai'en't any ! IJow 
 
G6 nORTUS- INCLUSUS. 
 
 happy you and I should always be if it weren't for 
 them ! But w^e're both so naughty we can't expect them 
 to let us alone. Can we ? 
 
 How gay you were and how you cheered me up after 
 the dark lake. 
 
 Please say " John Inglesant" is harder than real his- 
 tory and of no mortal use. I couldn't read four pages 
 of it. Clever, of course. 
 
 Herne Hill, 14:th August, 1880. 
 Wejust finished ray Scott paper: but it has retouch- 
 ings and notings yet to do. I couldn't write a word 
 before; haven't so much as a syllable to Diddie, and only 
 a move at chess to Macdonald, for you know to keep 
 a chess player waiting for a move is like keeping St. 
 Lawrence unturned. 
 
 2\st August, 1880. 
 I'm leaving to-day for Dover, and a line from you 
 to-morrow or Monday would find me certainly at Poste 
 Restante, Abbeville, and please, please tell me the funny 
 thing Miss said. 
 
ZOOLOGICAL. 67 
 
 I have not been working at all, but enjoying myself 
 (only that takes up time all the same) at Crystal Palace 
 concerts, and jngglings, and at Zoological Gardens, 
 where 1 liad a snake seven feet long to play with, only 
 I hadn't much time to make friends, and it rather 
 wanted to get away all the time. And I gave the 
 hippopotamus whole buns, and he was delighted, and 
 saw the cormorant catch iish throwu to him six yards 
 off; never missed one; you would have thought the iish 
 ran along a wire up to him and down his throat. And 
 I saw the penguin swim under water, and the sea lions 
 sit up, four of them on four wooden chairs, and catch 
 fish also ; but they missed sometimes and had to Hop off 
 their chairs into the water and then flop out again and 
 flo]) up again. 
 
 And I lunched with Cardinal Manning, and he gave 
 me such a plum pie. I never tasted a Protestant pie to 
 touch it. 
 
 Kow you're just wrong about my darling Cardinal. 
 See what it is to be jealous ! lie gave me lovely soup, 
 roast beef, hare and currant jelly, pull" pastry liUe Papal 
 
68 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 pretensioDS — jou bad but to breatbe on it and it was 
 uowbere — raisins and almonds, and tbose lovely pre- 
 served clierries like kisses kept in amber. And told me 
 delicious stories all tbrougb lancb. There ! 
 
 And we really do see the sun here ! And last night 
 the sky was all a spangle and delicate glitter of stan-^, the 
 glare of them and spikiness softened off by a young 
 darling of a moon. 
 
 And I'm having rather a time of it in boudoirs, 
 turned into smiling instead of pouting service. But 
 I'm not going to stay over my three weeks. How nice 
 that you can and will walk round the dining-room for 
 exercise ! 
 
 Calais, 24fA August. 
 
 I'm not very far away yet. you see. I stayed here for 
 auld lang syne, but with endless sorrow, of which I need 
 not give you any part of the burden. 
 
 The sea has been beautiful, and I am better for the 
 great rest and change. 
 
FROM ABROAD. G9 
 
 Amiens, 2df?i August. 
 
 Yon have been made hnppy doubtless with ns by 
 tlie news fruin Ileriie Hill. I've only a telegram yet 
 thoiigb, but write at once to congratulate you on your 
 little goddaughter. 
 
 Also to say that I am very well, and sadly longing for 
 Brantwood ; but tliat I am glad to see some vestige of 
 beloved things here, once more. 
 
 We have glorious weather, and I am getting perfect 
 rest most of the day — mere saunter in the sunny air, 
 taking all the good I can of it. To-morrow we get 
 (D.Y.) to Beauvais, where perhaps I may find a letter 
 from Susie; in any case you may write to Hotel 
 Meurice, Paris. 
 
 The oleanders are coming out and geraniums in all 
 cottage windows, and golden corn like Etruscan jewellery 
 over all the fields. 
 
 Beauvais, '6rd September. 
 We are having the most perfect weather I ever saw 
 in France, much less anywhere else, and I'm tal<ini^ a 
 thuruugh rest, writing scarcely anything and sauntering 
 about old town streets all day. 
 
70 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 I made a little sketch of the lake from above tlie 
 Waterhead wliich goes everywhere with me, and it is so 
 curious when the wind blows the leaf open when I am 
 sketching here at Beauvais, where all is so differently 
 delightful, as if we were on tlie other side of the world. 
 
 I think I shall be able to write some passages about 
 architecture jet, which Susie will like. I hear of count- 
 less qualities being discovered in the new little Susie! 
 And all things will be happy for me if you send me a 
 line to Hotel Meurice saying you are happy too. 
 
 Paris, Wh Septemher. 
 I have all your letters, and rejoice in them; though 
 it is a little sadder for you looking at empty Brant- 
 wood, than for me to fancy the bright full Thwaite, 
 and then it's a great shame that I've everything to 
 amuse me, and lovely Louvres and shops and cathedrals 
 and coquettes and pictures and plays and prettinesses 
 of every colour and quality, and you've only your old, 
 old hills and quiet lake. Yery thankful I shall be to 
 get back to them, though. 
 
SIGnT-SEEIiq"G. 71 
 
 We liavG finislied our Paris this afternoon, and hope 
 to leave for Chartres on Monday. 
 
 Hotel de Meurice, Paris, Ath September. 
 
 Is it such pain to you when people say what they 
 ought not to say about me f But when do they say 
 what they ought to say about anything ? Xearly every- 
 thing I have ever done or said is as much above the 
 present level of public understanding as the Old Man 
 is above the Waterhead. 
 
 We have had the most marvellous weather thus far, 
 and have seen Paris better than ever I've seen it yet, — 
 and to-day at the Louvre we saw the Casette of St. 
 Louis, the Coffre of Anne of Austria, the porphyry 
 vase, made into an eagle, of an old Abbe Segur, or 
 some such name. All these you can see also, you know, 
 in those lovely photographs of Miss Rigbye's, if you 
 can only make out in this vile writing of mine what I 
 mean. 
 
 But it is so hot. I can scarcely sit up or liold the 
 pen, l)iit tumble back into the chair every half minute 
 and unbutton another button of waistcoat, and gasp a 
 
72 HORTUS Il^CLUSUS. 
 
 little, and nod a little, and wink a little, and sprinkle 
 some eaii de Cologne a little, and try a little to 
 write a little, and forget what I bad to say, and 
 where I was, and whether it's Susie or Joan I'm writ- 
 ing to ; and then I see some letters I've never opened 
 that came by this morning's post, and think I'd better 
 open them perhaps ; and here I lind in one of them 
 a delightful account of the quarrel that goes on in 
 this weather between the nicest elephant in the Zoo' 
 and his keeper, because he won't come out of his bath. 
 I saw them at it myself, when I was in London, and 
 saw the elephant take up a stone and throw it hard 
 against a door which the keeper was behind, — but my 
 friend writes, " I must believe from what I saw that 
 the elephant knew he would injure the man with the 
 stones, for he threw them hard to the side of him, and 
 then stood his ground ; when, however, he threw water 
 and wetted the man, he plunged into the bath to avoid 
 the whip ; not fearing punishment when he merely 
 showed what he could do and did not." 
 
 The throwing the stone hard at the door when the 
 keeper was on the other side of it, must have been 
 great fun for him ! 
 
i:n- the bois de boclogxe. 73 
 
 I am so sorrj to have crushed this enclosed scrawl. 
 R has been carried about in my pocket to be liiiished, 
 and I see there's no room for the least bit of love at tlie 
 bottom. So here's a leaf full from the Bois de 
 Boulogne, which is very lovely ; and we drive about by 
 nigbt or day, as if all the sky were only the roof of a 
 sapphire palace set with warm stars. 
 
 Chartres, 8th September. 
 
 (Hotel du Grand Monarque.) 
 I suppose Pm the grand Monarque ! I don't know 
 of any other going just now, but I don't feel quite the 
 right thing without a wig. Any how, I'm having 
 everything my own way just now, — weather, dinner, 
 ne\?s from Joanie and news from Susie, only I don't 
 like her to be so veiy, very sad, though it is nice to be 
 missed so tenderly. But I do hope you will like to 
 think of my getting some joy in old ways again, and 
 
 once more exploring old streets and finding forgotten 
 churches. 
 
 The sunshine is life and health to me, and I am gain- 
 ing knowledge faster than ever I could when I was 
 young. 
 
74 noRTus li^cLusus. 
 
 This is just to say where I am, and that you might 
 know w^liere to write. 
 
 The cathedral here is the grandest in France, and I 
 stay a week at least. 
 
 Chaetres, 13^^ September. 
 
 I must be back in England by the 1st October, and 
 by the 10th shall be myself ready to start for Brant- 
 wood, but may perhaps stay, if Joanie is not ready, till 
 she can come too. Anyway, I trust very earnestly to 
 be safe in the shelter of my own woodside by the end of 
 October. I wonder what you will say of my account 
 of the Five Lovers of Nature * and seclusion in the last 
 Nineteenth Century. 
 
 I am a little ashamed to find that in spite of my 
 sublimely savage temperament, I take a good deal more 
 pleasure in Paris than of old, and am even going back 
 there on Friday for three more days. 
 
 We find the people here very amiable, and the French 
 old character unchanged. The perfect cleanliness and 
 unruffledness of white cap, is always a marvel, and 
 * Rousseau, Shelley, Byron, Turner, and John Ruskin. 
 
IN THE MARKET PLACE OF CHARTRES. 75 
 
 the market groups exquisite, but our enjoyment of the 
 fair is subdued by })ity for a dutiful dog, who turns 
 a large wheel (by walking up it inside) the whole after- 
 noon, producing awful sounds out of a huge grinding 
 organ, of which his wheel and he are the unfortunate 
 instruments. Him we love, his wheel we hate ! and in 
 general all French musical instruments. I have become 
 quite sure of one thing on this journey, that the French 
 of to-day have no sense of harmony, but only of more 
 or less lively tune, and even, for a time, will be content 
 with any kind of clash or din produced in time. 
 The Cathedral service is, however, still impressive. 
 
 16^^ February, 1881. 
 I've much to tell you " to-day" * of answer to those 
 prayers you prayed for me. But you must be told it 
 by our good angels, for your eyes must not be worn. 
 God willing, you shall see men as trees walking in the 
 garden of God, on this pretty Coniston earth of ours. 
 Don't be afraid, and please be happy, for I can't be, 
 
 * The motto on Mr. lluskin's seal. See "Piaeterita," Vol. II., p. 
 286. 
 
76 HORTUS iN'CLUStJS. 
 
 if you are not. Love to Mary, to Miss Rigbje, and 
 my own St. Ursnla,"^ and mind you give the messages 
 to all three^ heartily. 
 
 22wrf April. 
 I'm not able to scratch or fight to-day, or I wouldn't 
 let you cover me up with this heap of gold ; but I've 
 got a rheumatic creak in my neck, which makes me 
 physically stiff and morally supple and unprincipled, 
 so I've put two pounds sixteen in my own " till," where 
 it just fills up some lowering of the tide lately by Ger- 
 man bands and the like, and I've put ten pounds aside 
 for Sheffield Museum, now in instant mendicity, and 
 I've put ten pounds aside till you and I can have a talk 
 and you be made reasonable, after being scolded and 
 scratched, after which, on your promise to keep to our 
 old bargain and enjoy spending your little " Frondes" 
 income, I'll be your lovingest again. And for the two 
 pounds ten, and the ten, I am really most heartily 
 grateful, meaning as they do so much that is delightful 
 for both of us in the good done by this work of yours. 
 * Pliotograph of Caipaccio's. 
 
THE IIYMX TO BEAUTY. 77 
 
 I send you Spenser ; perliaps joii had better begin 
 with the Ilynin to Beauty, page 39, aiid then go on to 
 the Tears ; but you'll see how you like it. It's better * 
 than Longfellow; see line 52 — 
 
 " The house of blessed gods which men call skye." 
 
 Now I'm going to look out Dr. Kendall's crystal. It 
 must be crystal,* for having brought back the light to 
 your eyes. 
 
 \2ih July. 
 
 How delightful that you have that nice Mrs. Howard 
 to hear you say "The Ode to Beauty," and how nice 
 that you can learn it and enjoy saying it! f I do not 
 know itsnyself. I only know that it should be known 
 and said and heard and loved. 
 
 I am often near you in thought, but can't get over 
 the lake somehow. There's always somebody to be 
 looked after here, now. I've to rout the gardeners out 
 
 * For a present to Dr. Kendall. 
 
 f I learnt the whole of it by heart, and could then say it williout 
 a break. I have always loved it, and in return it has helped me 
 through many a long and sleepless night. — S. B. 
 
78 HORTUS Il^CLUSUS. 
 
 of the greenhouse, or I should never have a strawberry 
 or a pink, but only nasty gloxinias and glaring fuchsias, 
 and I've been giving lessons to dozens of people and 
 writing charming sermons in the " Bible of Amiens" ; 
 but I get so sleepy in the afternoon, 1 can't pull myself 
 over it. 
 
 I was looking at your notes on birds yesterday. How 
 sweet tliey are ! But I can't forgive that young black- 
 bird for getting wild again. 
 
 Last day of 1881. And tne last letter 
 I write on it, with new pen. 
 
 I've lunched on your oysters, and am feasting eyes 
 and mind on your birds. 
 
 What birds? 
 
 Woodcock ? Yes, I suppose, and never before 
 noticed the sheath of his bill going over the front of 
 the lower mandible that he may dig comfortably ! But 
 the others ! the glory of velvet and silk and cloud and 
 light, and black and tan and ^old, and golden sand, and 
 dark tresses, and purple shadows and moors and mists 
 and night and starlight, and woods and wilds and dells 
 
EASTERTIDE. 79 
 
 and deeps, and every mystery of lieaven and its finger 
 woi-k, is ill tliuse little birds' backs and wings. I am so 
 grateful. All loye and joy to you, and wings to flj 
 with and birds' hearts to comfort, and mine, be to jou 
 in the coming year. 
 
 Easter Day, 1882. 
 I have had a liappy Easter morning, entirely bright 
 in its sun and clear in sky ; and with rene\yed strength 
 enough to begin again the piece of St. Benedict's lite 
 where I broke off^to lose these four weeks in London, — 
 weeks not wholly lost neither, for I have learned more 
 and more of what I should have known without lesson- 
 ing ; but I have learnt it, from these repeated dreams 
 and fantasies, that we walk in a vain shadow and dis- 
 quiet ourselves in vain. So I am for the present, every- 
 body says, quite good, and give as little trouble as possi- 
 ble ; but pe()[)le lolll take it, you know, sometimes, 
 even when I don't give it, and there's a great fuss about 
 me yet. But i/oit must not be anxious any more, Susie, 
 for really there is no more occasion at one time than 
 another. All the doctors say I needn't be ill unless I 
 
80 HORTUS IKCLUSUS. 
 
 like, and I don't mean to like any more ; and as far as 
 chances of ordinary danger, I think one runs more risks 
 in a single railway journey, than in the sicknesses of a 
 whole year. 
 
 Sth June. 
 
 You write as well as ever, and the eyes must surely 
 be better, and it w^as 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 Labiatae, 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 loally 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 litil^ 
 while longer. 
 
LEVAVI OCULOS. 81 
 
 Sallenches, Savoy, IdtJi Sejitemher. 
 I saw Mont Blanc again to-daj, unseen since 1S7T ; 
 and was very tliankful. It is a siglit that always re- 
 deems me to what I am capable of at my poor little 
 best, and to what loves and memories are most precious 
 to uie. So I write to y(n(, 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, 2ith Septemher. 
 
 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 chtuds, 
 thunderclouds, under groves of olive and palm. But I 
 wished they were my sparkling waves of Coniston in- 
 stead, when 1 I'cad your letter again. 
 
 What a gay Susie, receiving all the world, like a 
 'x^ui'en Susan (^how odd one has never heard of a Queen 
 
S2 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 Susan !), only jou are so naughty, and you never do tell 
 me of any of those nice girls when they're coining^ 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 Riiskin 
 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.^ 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 S07ne peo- 
 ])le ; and I've written so much that I can't quite make 
 out what I am myself, nor what it all comes to. 
 
 * Florence, Alice, and May Bennett. Florence is gone. Alice 
 and May still sometimes at Coniston, D.G. (March 1887). 
 
TO MISS BEAVER. 83 
 
 10^/i January, 1883. 
 I cannot tell joii Low 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 en- 
 joy anything requiring so much energy and attention to 
 this degree. For indeed 1 can scarcely now take pleas- 
 ure myself in things that give nie the least trouble to 
 look at, but I know that the pretty book and its chosen 
 woodcuts ought to be sent to you, first of all my friends 
 (I have not yet thought of sending it to anyone else), 
 and I am quite put in heart after a very despondent yes- 
 terday, past inanely, in thinking of what / couldnH do, 
 by feeling what you caii, and hoping to share the 
 happy Christmas time with you and Susie in future 
 years. Will you please tell my dear Susie I'm £:oing 
 to bring over a drawing to show ! (so thankful that I 
 am still able to draw after these scrange and terrible 
 illnesses) this afternoon. I am in hopes it may clear, 
 but dark or bright Vm coming, about half past three, 
 and am ever your and her most affectionate and faith- 
 ful servant. 
 
84 HORTUS i:n'clusus. 
 
 24:th September, 1884. 
 I wandered literally " up and down" yonr mountain 
 garden — (how beautifully the native rocks slope to its 
 patlis in the sweet evening hght, Susiesque light !) — with 
 great happiness and admiration, as I went home, and I 
 came indeed upon w^hat I conceived to be — discovered 
 in the course of recent excavations — two deeply interest- 
 ing thrones of the ancient Abbots of Furness, typifying 
 their humility in that the seats thereof were only level 
 with the ground between two clusters of the earth ; con- 
 templating cyclamen, and their severity of penance, in 
 the points of stone prepared for the m.ortification of their 
 backs ; but truly, Susie's seat of repose and meditation I 
 was unable as yet to discern, but propose to myself fur- 
 ther investigation of that apple-perfumed paradise, and 
 am ever your devoted and enchanted. 
 
 1st December. 
 
 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 1 never did 
 
 before, I have been thrown a week out in all my plans, 
 
AT OXFORD. 85 
 
 bv liaviiig to write two new Lectures, instead of tlicsc 
 the University was frightened at. The scientists sh'nk 
 ont 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 
 tlie North tliis day week, I can't get home till this day 
 fortnight at soonest, but I hope not later than to-morrow^ 
 fortnight. Yery thankful I shall be to tind myself again 
 at the little room door. 
 
 Fancy Mary Gladstone forgiving me even that second 
 naughtiness! She's going to let me come to see her this 
 week, and to play to me, wdiich is a great comfort. 
 
 St. Susie, 2nth Notemher, 1885. 
 Behold Athena and Apollo both come to bless you on 
 your birtliduy, and all the buds of the year to come, I'o- 
 joice with you, and your poor cat "" is able to jiurr again, 
 and is extremely (comfortable and even cheerful '^ to-day." 
 And we will make more and more of the days, won't we, 
 and we will burn our candle at both beginnings instead 
 
 *J. K. 
 
86 noKTus iin^clusus. 
 
 of botli 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. 1 hope to be set to do something, there ; and 
 vvdiat lovely " receptions" you will have in your iirtle 
 Jieavenly Thwaite, and celestial teas. And you w^on'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 
 w^e ? 
 
 20th February, 1886. 
 I haven't had anything nice to send you this ever so 
 long, but here's a little l)ird's nest of native silver which 
 you could almost live in as comfortably as a tit. 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. 
 
 \st March. 
 Yes, I knew you would like that silver shrine ! and it 
 is an extremely rare and perfect specimen. But you 
 
THE SILVER SHRINE. 87 
 
 need not be afraid in handling it ; if the little bit of spar 
 does come off it, or out of it, no matter. 
 
 But of course nobody 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 nse of it. 
 
 Your mornings' ministry to tlie birds must be remem- 
 bered for you by the angels wlio paint their feathers. 
 They will all, one day, be birds of Paradise, and say, 
 when the adverse angel accuses you of being naught}' to 
 some peo])le, " But we were hungry and she gave us 
 curn, and took care that nobody else ate it." 
 
 T am indeed thankful you are better. But you must 
 please tell me what the thing was I said which gave you 
 so much })ain. Do you recollect also what the little hit 
 in •' Proserpina" was that said so much to you ^ Were 
 you not thinking of '' Fors" % 
 
88 HOKTUS IN'CLUSUS. 
 
 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 ! 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 ! 
 
 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 shell-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 assuredly a poisonous and 
 depressing powder, 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. 
 
THE DARKENING OF THE SKIES. 89 
 
 1st May, 1886. 
 
 What lovely letters you are writing 7ne just now, but 
 as for my not having said any pretty things of ?/ou for a 
 long while, yon know perfectly that I am saying them 
 in my heart every day and all day long! I can't find a 
 shell marble, but I send you (to look at, it's too ugly for 
 a present) a shell agate made of shells, iii a shell, as if in 
 a pot ! 
 
 And I send you for a May-day gift, with all loving 
 May, June, and December, and January wishes, such a 
 pretty green and white stone gone maying, as one doesn't 
 often see with the rest of the Jacks-in the-greeu. 
 
 And I'm ever (or at least for a while yet) your curled 
 up old cat. I shall come out of curl and get frisky when 
 the hvacinths come out. Telesrram iust come from 
 Ireland: "Rose queen elected; sweetly pretty, and all 
 most happy." 
 
 22nd May, 1886. 
 Of course the little pyramid in crystal is a present. 
 With that enjoyment of Pinkerton,'-'" you will have quite 
 a new indoors interest, whatever the rain may say. 
 * Pinkcrton on " Potralogy." 
 
90 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 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 "Frseterita" before 
 I went out, trying to describe the Rhone at Geneva. I 
 think Susie will like it, if nobody 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 loe 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 enclosed with some jealous spots in. 
 
 Last day of May. 
 I'm bringing to-day with the strawroots, twelve more 
 sketches in folio, . and the plan is that out of those, 
 making with the rest twenty-four, you choose twelve 
 to keep next week, with the new folio of twelve to 
 be then brought, and you then put aside twelve to be 
 given back in exchange for it, then next to next week 
 
EYES THAT SEE NOT. 91 
 
 yon choose twelve out of that twenty-four, and then 
 next week twelve out of its twenty-four, and then when 
 I can't send any more you choose the one to -keep out 
 of the hist lot, which you see will then be the creamiest 
 cream, not to say cheesiest cheese of the rest ! Kow 
 isn't that a nice amusing categorical, cataloquizical, cate- 
 chismic, catcataceous plan ? 
 
 7^/i June. 
 
 You have been what Joanie calls a " Doosie Dandy" 
 about those dozens of sketches ! You're always to 
 have twenty-four on liand, then those I send to-day 
 are to stay with the twelve you have, till next Monday, 
 and you'll have time then to know which vou like best 
 to keep. JSText Monday I send another twelve and 
 take back the twelve you've done v;it]i. 
 
 It was very beautiful yesterday looking from here. 
 
 I'm pretty well, and writing saucy things to every- 
 body. 
 
 I told a Canjbridge man yesterday tliat he hud l)een 
 clever enough to })ut into a bhilling pamphlet all the 
 mistakes of his generation. 
 
93 HORTUS IKCLUSUS. 
 
 Qth November. 
 
 Do you know how to make sugar candy ? In my 
 present aibject state tlie 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 T offered to 
 pay for any quantity of wasted sugar if they could pro- 
 duce 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.) Tlie 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 hoys 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. 
 
 Mr. Kendall is a Delphic oracle. Do you think you 
 could take sherry instead of port ^ My sherry is, — well 
 
A BIRTHDAY STOXE. 93 
 
 I only wit^li Falstaff were alive to tell yon what it is, or 
 Will himself; but shall I send yon a bottle? And 
 mind yon don't mind the smarting if Dr. K. gives you 
 things to make yon cry. And I'll be so good, and not 
 make you cry for a week at least. 
 
 27lh 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 fleams of irreen 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. 
 
MISCELLAIS'EOUS. 
 
 I never heard the like, my writing good ! and just 
 now ! ! If yon only saw^ the wretched notes on the back 
 of lectnre leaves. 
 
 But I am so very glad you think it endurable, and 
 it is so nice to be able to give you a moment's pleasure 
 by such a thing. I'm better to-day, but still extremely 
 languid. I believe that there is often something in 
 the spring which weakens one by its very tenderness ; 
 the violets in the wood send one home sorrovv4"ul that 
 one isn't w^orthy to see them, or else, that one isn't 
 one of them. 
 
 It is mere Midsummer dream in the wood to-day. 
 
 You could not possibly have sent me a more delight- 
 ful present than this Lychnis; it is the kind of flower 
 
 that gives me pleasure and health and memory and 
 
 94 
 
MISCELLAXEOUS. 95 
 
 liope and everything that Alpine meadows and air ci;n. 
 I'm getting better generally, too. The sun did take 
 one by surprise at first. 
 
 How blessedly happy Joanie and the children were 
 yesterday at the Thwaite ! I'm coming to be happy my- 
 self there to-morrow (D.Y.). 
 
 Here are the two bits of study I did in Malham Cove ; 
 the small couples of leaves are different poj'traits of the 
 first shoots of the two geraniums. I don't find in any 
 botany an account of their little round side leaves, or 
 of the definite central one above the branching of them. 
 
 Here's your lovely note just come. I am very thank- 
 ful that the " Venice" gives you so much pleasure. 
 
 I have, at least, one certainty, which few authors 
 could hold so surely, that no one was ever harmed by 
 a book of mine ; they may have been offended, but 
 have never been discouraged or discomforted, still less 
 corrupted. 
 
 There's a saucy speech for Susie's friend. You won't 
 like me any more if I begin to talk like that. 
 
 The nice bread is come. May I come to tea again to- 
 morrow ? 
 
96 noiiTus iNCLusus. 
 
 I never send my love to Miss Beever, but I do 
 love her for all that. 
 
 A sapphire is the same stone as a ruby ; both are 
 the pure earth of clay crystallised. No one knows 
 why one is red and the other blue. 
 
 A diamond is pure coal crystallised. 
 
 An opal, pure flint — in a state of fixed jelly, 
 
 I'll And a Susie-book on them. 
 
 I'll send II. Carlyle. I am so very glad you en- 
 joy it. 
 
 I'm in a great passion with the horrid people who 
 write letters to tease my good little Susie. I wonH 
 have it. She shall have some more stones to-moiTo>v. 
 * I must have a walk to-day, and can't give account 
 of them, but I've looked them out. It's so very nice 
 that you like stones. If my father, when I was a little 
 boy, would only have given me stones for bread, how 
 I should have thanked him, but one doesn't expect 
 such a taste in little girls. 
 
 What infinite power and treasure 3^ou have in being 
 able thus to enjoy the least things, yet having at the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 97 
 
 same time all the fastidiousness of taste and inuiii;!- 
 natioii which lays hold of what is greatest in the least, 
 and best in all things! 
 
 Kever hurt your eyes by writing; keep them wholly 
 for admiration and wonder. I hope to write little 
 more myself of books, and to join with you in joy 
 over crystals and flowers in tiie way we used to do 
 when we were both more children than we are. 
 
 I have been rather depressed hy that tragic story 
 of the codling. 1 hope the thief of that apple has 
 suffered more than Eve, and fallen farther than either 
 she or Adam. 
 
 Joan had to be out early this morning, and I won't 
 let her write more, for it's getting dark; but she thinks 
 of you and loves you, and so do I, every day more 
 and more. 
 
 TO MISS BEEVER. 
 
 I am ashamed not to have sent yon a word of ex- 
 pression of my real and vci-y dee[) feelings of rog:n-(l 
 :iii(l respect for yon, and of my, m)i fervent (in tl;<' 
 usual phrase, which means only hasty and ebullient), 
 
98 HORTUS IKCLUSUS. 
 
 but serenely ibarm^ lio]3e tliat joii may keep your 
 present power of benevolent happiness to length of 
 many days to come. But I hope you will sometimes 
 take the simpler view of the little agate box than that 
 of birthday token, and that you will wonder sometimes 
 at its labyrintli of mineral vegetable ! 1 assure you 
 there is nothing in all my collection of agates in its 
 way quite so perfect as the little fiery forests of dotty 
 trees in the corner of the piece which forms the bot- 
 tom. I ought to have set it in silver, but was always 
 afraid to trust it to a lapidary. 
 
 What you say of the Greek w^ant of violets is also 
 very interesting to me, for it is one of my little pet 
 discoveries that Homer means the blue iris by the 
 word translated " violet." 
 
 I am utterly sorry not to come to see you and 
 Susie before leaving for town, but can't face this bitter 
 day. I hope and solemnly propose to be back in a w^eek. 
 
 Thursday morning. 
 I'm ever so much better, and the jackdaw has come. 
 But why wasn't I there to meet his pathetic desire 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 90 
 
 for art knowledge? To think of that poor bird's genius 
 and love of scarlet ribbons, shut np in a cage ! What 
 it might have come to ! 
 
 If ever my St George's schools come to any perfec- 
 tion, they shall have every one a jackdaw to give the 
 children their tirst lessons in arithmetic. Tm sure he 
 could do it perfectly. "Now, Jack, take two from 
 four, and show them liow many are left." " Now. Jlick, 
 if you take the teaspoon out of tliis saucer, and put it 
 into iliat^ and then if you take two teaspoons out of 
 two saucers, and put them into this, and then if you 
 take one teaspoon out of this, and put it into that, how 
 many spoons are there in this, and how many in that ?" 
 — and so on. 
 
 Oh, Susie, when we do get old. you and I, won't we 
 have nice schools for the birds first, and then for the 
 children ?. 
 
 That photograph is indeed like a visit ; how thankful 
 I am that it is still my hope to get the real visit some 
 day I 
 
 I was yesterday, and am alwnys, certainly at present, 
 very unwell, and a mere trouble to my Joanies and 
 Susies and all who care for me. Jhit Fm painting an- 
 
100 HOKTUS Iiq"CLUSUS. 
 
 other bit of moss which I think Susie will enjoy, and 
 hope for better times. 
 
 Did yon see the white clond that stayed qniet for 
 three liours this morning over the Old Man's summit ? 
 It was one of the few remains of the heaven one used to 
 see. The heaven one had a Fatlier in, not a raging 
 enemy. 
 
 I send you Rogers' '^ Italy," that is no more. I do 
 think you'll have pleasure in it. 
 
 I've been made so miserable by a paper of Sir J. Lub- 
 bock's on flowers and insects, that I must come and 
 whine to you. He says, and really as if he knew it, that 
 insects, chiefly bees, entirely originate • flowers ; that all 
 scent, color, pretty form, is owing to bees ; that flowers 
 which insects don't take care of, have no scent, colour, nor 
 honey. 
 
 It seems to me, that it is likelier that the flowers 
 which have no scent, colour, nor honey, don't get any at- 
 tention from the bees. 
 
 But the man really knows so much about it, and has 
 
MISCELLA:N"EOrS. 101 
 
 tried so many pretty exi^jerimeiits, tliat he makes nie 
 miserable. 
 
 So I'm afraid you're miserable too. Write to tell me 
 about it all. 
 
 It is very lovely of you to send me so sweet a note 
 when I have not been near you since the tenth century. 
 But it is all I can do to get my men and my moor looked 
 after; they have both the instinct of doing what I don't 
 want, the moment my back's turned ; and then theie has 
 not been lifj-lit enouofh to know a hawk from a hand saw, 
 or a crow^ from a ptarmigan, or a moor from a meadow. 
 But how much better your eyes must be when you can 
 WTite such lovely notes ! 
 
 I don't understand how the strange cat came to love 
 you so quickly, after one dinner and a rest by the fire ! 
 I should hav^e thought an ill treated and outcast animal 
 would have regarded everything as a trap, for a month 
 at least, — dined in tremors, warmed itself with its back 
 to the fire, watciiing the door, and jumped up the chim- 
 ney if you step[)ed on the rug. 
 
 The pheasant had come from Lachin-y-gair, with two 
 others, which I've been eating hot, cold, broiled, and 
 devilled, and with your oysters for lunch, flattie. Did- 
 
102 HORTUS IKCLUSUS. 
 
 die, and Joanie have line times of it togetlier, they say, 
 and that I ouglit to be there instead of here. Do you 
 think so ? 
 
 If you only knew the good your peacock's feathers 
 have done me, and if you could only see the clever draw- 
 ing I'm making, of one from the blue breast! You 
 know what lovely little fern or equisetum stalks of sap- 
 phire the fikiments are ; they beat me so, but they're 
 
 coming nice. 
 
 Joanie says she thinks you are not well ; and I'm eas- 
 ily frightened about yon, because you never take any 
 care of yourself, and will not do what Mary or Joan or I 
 bid you, you naughty little thing. 
 
 Yon won't even submit quietly to my publishing ar- 
 rangements, but I'm resolved to have the book {'' Fron- 
 des") remain yours altogether ; you had all the trouble 
 with it, and it will help me ever so much more than I 
 could myself. 
 
 That is so intensely true what you say about Turner's 
 work being like nature's in its slowness and tenderness. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 103 
 
 I always think of him as a great natural force in a hu- 
 man frame. 
 
 So nice all you say of the " Ethics" ! And I'm a 
 monster of ingratitude, as bad as the Drao:on of AYant- 
 ley. Don't like Dr. Brown's friend's book at all. It's 
 neither Scotch nor English, nor fish nor flesh, and it's 
 tiresome. 
 
 I'm in the worst humour I've been in this month, 
 which is saying much ; and have been writing the 
 wickedest '' Fors" I ever wrote, which is saying more ; 
 you will be so angry. 
 
 I'm so very glad you will mark the bits you like, but 
 are there not a good many here and there that you do7i''t 
 like? — I mean that sound hard or ironical. Please don't 
 mind them. They're partly because I never count on 
 readers who will I'eally care for the prettiest things, and 
 it gets me into a bad habit of expressing contempt which 
 is not indeed any natural part of my mind. 
 
 It pleases me especially that you have read '' The 
 Queen of the Air." As far as I know, myself, of my 
 books, it is the most useful and careful piece I have 
 
X04 HORTUS INCLtJSUS. 
 
 done. But that again — did it not shock you to have 
 a lieathen goddess so much believed in ? (I've believed 
 in English ones long ago). If you can really forgive 
 nie for " The Queen of the Air," there are all sorts of 
 things I shall come begging you to read some day. 
 
 21st July. 
 I'm always looking at the Thwaite, and thinking 
 how nice it is that you are there. I think it's a little 
 nice, too, that Tm within sight of yon, for if I hadn't 
 broken, I don't know how msmj not exactly promises, 
 but nearly, to be back at Oxford by this time, I might 
 have been dragged from Oxford to London, from Lon- 
 don to France, from France who knows where ? But 
 I'm here, and settled to produce, as soon as possible, 
 the following works — 
 
 1. IS^ew number of " Love's Meinie," on the Stormy 
 Petrel. 
 
 2. New ditto of " Proserpina," on sap, pith, and 
 bark. 
 
 3. l^ew ditto of '' Deucalion," on clouds. 
 
 4. New " Fors," on new varieties of young ladies. 
 
 5. Two new numbers of " Our Fathers," on Brune 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 105 
 
 haut. and Bertha licr niece, and St. Augustine and St. 
 Benedict. 
 
 6. Index and epilogue to four Oxford lectures. 
 
 7. Report and account of St. George's Guild. 
 
 And I've had to turn everything out of every shelf 
 in the house, for mildew and moths. 
 
 And 1 want to paint a little bank of strawberry 
 leaves. 
 
 And I've to get a year's dead sticks out of the wood, 
 and see to the new oat field on the moor, and prepare 
 lectures for October ! 
 
 I'm so idle. I look at the hills out of bed, and at 
 the pictures off the sofa. Let us both be useless beings ; 
 let us be butterflies, grasshoppers, lambs, larks, any- 
 thing for an easy life. I'm quite horrified to see, now 
 that these two have come back, what a lot of books I've 
 written, and how cruel Fve been to myself and every- 
 body else who ever has to read them. I'm too sleei)y 
 to finish this note. 
 
 Idth June. 
 I do not know when I have received, or how I coi/Id 
 receive so great an encouragement in all my work, as 1 
 
lOG HORTUS li^CLUSUS. 
 
 do in liearing that yon, after all jonr long love and 
 watchfulness of flowers, have yet gained pleasure and 
 insight from '' Proserpina'' as to leaf structure. The 
 examples you send me are indeed admirahle. Can you 
 tell me the exact name of the plant, that I may quote it? 
 Yes, and the weather also is a great blessing to me 
 — so lovely this morning. 
 
 I have been simply ashamed to write without being 
 able to say I was coming ; and this naughty Joanie has 
 put us all two months behindhand, and now Brantwood 
 still seems as far away as at Florence. (It never reallj 
 seems far away, anywhere.) 
 
 But you. will like to know that I'm very well, and 
 extremely good, and writing beautiful new notes to 
 '^ ModeiTi Painters," and getting on with " Our Fathers." 
 And what lovely accounts I have of " Frondes" from 
 Allen. 
 
 I reallj think that one book has made all our busi- 
 ness lively. 
 
 And I'm so delighted with the new brooch — the one 
 Mary gave to Joan. I never saw a more lovely pearl 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 107 
 
 9 
 
 m any (jueen's treasury, nor mure exquisite setting. 
 Joan and I have no end of pleasure in playing with it, 
 and I vainly try to summon philosophy enough to con- 
 vince either her or myself, that dew is better than 
 pearls and moss than emeralds. 
 
 I think my days of philosophy must be over. I cer- 
 tainly shall not have enough to console me, if I don't 
 get to Brantwood soon. The fog here is perpetual, and 
 I can only see, and just that, where the edge of my 
 paper is leaving me still room to say how lovingly and 
 faithfully I am 
 
 Yours, etc. 
 
 Ton won't refuse to give house room or even parlour 
 room again to tlie Jirst volume of your " Stones." It 
 has your name in it and feather sketches, which / like 
 the memory of doing, and I found another in my stores 
 to make up the set. I have to-day, regretfully, but in 
 proud satisfaction, sent to Mr. Brown's friend Miss Law- 
 ley. You will be thinking Fm never going to write 
 any neio books more, I've promised so long and (huie 
 nothing. But Xo. 2 and No. 4 of " Amiens" have been 
 
108 HOETUS INCLIJSUg. 
 
 going on at once, and 'No. 3 and No. 4 of " Love's 
 Meinie," and No. 7 of " Proserpina" had to be done in 
 the middle of all four, like the stamens in a tormentilla. 
 And now my total tormentilla is all but out. But " ail- 
 but" is a long, long word with mj printers and me. 
 Still something has been done every day, and not ill 
 done lately ; and Joanie tells me your friends enjoyed 
 their little visit, as I did seeing them. And Joanie is 
 well, and literally as busy as a bee, and sometimes tum- 
 bles down at last on the sofa just at bedtime, like the 
 rather humbly bees in the grass when they've been too 
 busy. And Fm pretty well, and asking young ladies 
 to come and see me. 
 
 I'm getting steadily better, and breathing the sunshine 
 a little again in soul and lips. But T always feel so 
 naughty after having had morning prayers, and that the 
 whole house is a sort of little Bethel that I've no busi- 
 ness in. 
 
 I'm reading history of early saints too, for my Amiens 
 book, and feel that I ought to be scratched, or starved, 
 or boiled, or something unpleasant, and I don't know if 
 
MISCELLAN-EOUS. lOO 
 
 I'm a saint or a sinner in tlie least, in medijieval language. 
 How did saints feel themselves, I wonder, about tlieir 
 saintsliip ! 
 
 It is such a joj to hear that you enjoy anything of 
 mine, and a double joy to have your sympathy in my 
 love of those Italians. How I wish tliere were more like 
 yon ! What a happy world it would be if a quarter of 
 the people in it cared a quarter as much as you and I do, 
 for what is good and true! 
 
 That Nativity is the deepest of all. It is by tlie 
 master of Botticelli, you know ; and whatever is most 
 sweet and tender in Botticelli he owes to Lippi. 
 
 But, do yon know, I quite forget about Cordelia, r.nd 
 where I said it! ])Iease keep it till I come. I hope to be 
 across to see yon to-morrow. 
 
 They've been doing photographs of me again, and Tm 
 an orang-outang as usual, and am in despair. 1 thought 
 with my beard I was beginning to be just the least bit 
 nice to look at. I would give np half my books for a 
 new profile. 
 
 What a lovely day since twelve o'chjck ! I never saw 
 the lake shore more heavenlv- 
 
110 ' HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 I am verj thankful that you like this St. Mark's so 
 much, and do uot feel as if I had lost power of mind. I 
 think the illness has told on me more in laziness than 
 foolishness. T feel as if there was as much m me as 
 ever, hut it is too much trouble to say it. And I find 
 myself reconciled to staying in bed of a morning to a 
 quite woeful extent. I have not been affected so much 
 by melancholy, being very thankful to be still alive, and 
 to be able to give pleasure to some people, — foolish little 
 Joanies and Susies, and so on. 
 
 You have greatly lielped me by this dear little note. 
 And the bread's all right, brown again, and I'm ready 
 for asparagus of any stoutness, there ! Are you content? 
 But my new asparagus is quite visible this year, though 
 how much would be wanted for a dish I don't venture to 
 count, but must be congratulated on its definitely stalky 
 appearance. 
 
 I was over the water this morning on school commit- 
 tee. How bad I have been to let those poor children be 
 tormented as they are all this time ! I'm going to try 
 and stop all the spelling and counting and catechising, 
 and teach them only — to watch and pray. 
 
 The oranpjes make me think I'm in a castle in Spain ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. Ill 
 
 Your letters always warm me a little, not with laugh- 
 ing, but with the soft glow of life, for I live mostly with 
 ''ia mort dans Tame." (It is curious that the French, 
 whom one thinks of as slight and frivolous, have this 
 true and deep expression for the forms of sorrow that 
 kill, as opposed to those that discipline and strengthen.) 
 And your words and thought just soften and warm like 
 west wind. 
 
 It is nice being able to please you with what I'm writ- 
 ing, and that you can tell people I'm not so horrid. 
 
 Here's the '' Tors" you saw the proof of, but this isn't 
 quite right yet. 
 
 The Willy " quotations are very delightful. Do you 
 know tliat naughty "Cowley" at all? There's all kind 
 of honey and strawberries in him. 
 
 It is bitter cold here these last days. I don't stir 
 out, but must this afternoon. I've to go out tu dinner 
 and work at the Arundel Society. And if you only 
 knew what was in my thougiits you would be so sorry 
 for me, that I can't tell you. 
 
 * Shakespeare. 
 
112 HORTUS II^rCLUSUS. 
 
 Corpus Chrtsti College, Oxford. 
 
 What a sad little letter ! written in that returned 
 darkness. How can yoxi ever be sad, looldng forward 
 to eternal life with all whom you love, and God over 
 all. 
 
 It is only so far as I lose hold of that hope, that any- 
 thing is ever a trial to me. But I can't think how I'm 
 to get on in a world with no Venice in it. 
 
 You were quite right in thinking I would have noth- 
 ing to do with lawyers, l^ot one of them shall ever 
 have so much as a crooked sixpence of mine, to save 
 him from being hanged, or to save the Lakes from 
 being filled up. But 1 really hope there may be feel- 
 ing enough in Parliament to do a right thing without 
 being deafened with lawyers' slang. 
 
 I have never thanked you for the snowdrops. They 
 bloomed here beautifully for four days. Then I had to 
 leave them to go and lecture in London. It was nice 
 to see them, but my whole mind is set on finding 
 whether there is a country where the flowers do not 
 fade. Else there is no spring for me. People liked 
 the lecture, and so many more wjinted to come than 
 could get in, that I had to promise to give another. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 113 
 
 Here's your little note first of all. And if you only 
 knew liow my wristbands are i)laguino: me you'd be 
 very sorry. They're too much starched, and vjould 
 come down like mittens ; and now I've turned theui 
 u}), they're just like two horrid china cups upside down, 
 inside my coat, and I'm afraid to write for fear of 
 breaking them. And I've a week's work on the table, 
 to be done before one o'clock, on ])ain of upi'oar from 
 my friends, execution from my enemies, reproach from 
 my lovers, triumph from my haters, despair of Joanie, 
 and — what from Susie ? I've had such a bad niglit, 
 too ; woke at half-past three and have done a day's 
 work since tlien — composing my lecture for March, 
 and thinking what's to become of a godson of mine 
 whose — 
 
 Well, never mind. I needn't give i/on the trouble, 
 poor little Susie, of thinking too. I wonder if that 
 jackdaw story will (Mune to-dny. 
 
 ^J'his must 1)0 folded up and directed all right at once, 
 or I'm sure it will never go. Love to INFaJW, vcrv much, 
 please, and three times over ; I nn'ssed these two last 
 times. 
 
114 HORTUS INCLUSUC. 
 
 I'm going to Oxford to-day (D.Y.), really quite well, 
 and rather merry. I went to the circus with my new 
 pet, and saw lovely riding and ball play; and my pet 
 said the only drawback to it all, was that she couldn't 
 sit on both sides of me. And then I went home to tea 
 with her, and gav'e mamma, who is Evangelical, a beanti- 
 ful lecture on the piety of dramatic entertainments, 
 which made her laugh whether she would or no ; and 
 then I had my Christmas dinner in advance with Joanie 
 and Arfie and Stacy Marks, and his wife and two pretty 
 daughters, and I had six kisses — two for Christmas, two 
 for New Year's Day, and two for Twelfth Night — and 
 everybody was in the best humour with everybody else. 
 And now my room is ankle deep in unanswered letters, 
 mostly on business, and I'm going to shovel them up 
 and tie them in a parcel labelled " JSTeeding particular 
 attention" ; and then that will be put into a cupboard 
 in Oxford, and I shall feel that everything's been done 
 in a business-like way. 
 
 That badger's beautiful. I don't think there's any 
 need for such beasts as that to turn Christians. 
 
MISrKLLAXEOrS. 115 
 
 I am indeed most tliankful you are well again, tlioiigh 
 I never looked on that deafness very seriously ; but if 
 you lil'e bearing watches tick, and boots creak, and 
 plates clatter, so be it to you, for many and many a 
 year to come. I think I should so like to be deaf, 
 mostly, not expected to answer anybody in society, 
 never startled by a baifg, never tortured by a railroad 
 whistle, never hearing the nasty cicadas in Italy, nor a 
 child cry, nor an owl. JS^othing but a nice whisper into 
 my ear, by a pretty girl. Ah well, I'm very glad I can 
 chatter to you with my weak voice, to my heart's con- 
 tent ; and yoii must come and see me soon now. All 
 tliat vou sav of '' Proserpina" is joyful to me. What 
 a Susie you are, drawing like that ! and I'm sure you 
 know Latin better than I do. 
 
 I am better, but not right yet. There is no fear of 
 sore throat, I think, l)ut some of prolonged tooth worry. 
 It is more stomachic than coldic, I believe, and those tea 
 cakes are too crisply seductive. Wliat c(i)i it be, tliat 
 subtle treachery that lurks in tea cakes, and is wh(jlly 
 absent in the rude honestv of toast ? 
 
116 HORTUS IITCLUSUS. 
 
 The metaphysical effect of tea cake last night Was, 
 that I had a perilous and wearj journey in a desert, in 
 which I had to dodge hostile tribes round the corners of 
 pyramids. 
 
 A very sad letter from Joanie tells me she was going 
 to Scotland last night, at which I am not only very 
 sorry but very cross. 
 
 A chirping cricket on the hearth advises me to keep 
 my heart up. Foolish hedgehog, not to come for that 
 egg. Don't let Abigail be cast down about her tea 
 cakes. An " honest" egg is just as destructive of my 
 peace of mind. 
 
 Your happy letters (with the sympathetic misery of 
 complaint of dark days) have cheered me as much as 
 anything could do. 
 
 The sight of one of my poor " Companions of St. 
 George," who has sent me, not a widow's but a parlour- 
 maid's (an old schoolmistress) " all her living," and 
 whom I found last night, dying, slowly and quietly, in a 
 damp room, just the size of your study (which her land- 
 lord won't mend the roof of), by the light of a single tal- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 117 
 
 low ciDclle — civilly, I sav, sloidy^ of consumption, not 
 yet neai* t]:e end, but contemplating' it with sorrow, 
 mixed partly wiih feai', Itst she should not have done all 
 she could for her children ! 
 
 The sight of all this and my own shameful comforts, 
 three wax candles and blazing tire and dry roof, and 
 Susie and Joauie for friends ! 
 
 Oh me, Susie, what Is to become of me in the next 
 world, who have in this life all n^y good things ! 
 
 What a sweet, careful, tender letter this is ! I re-en- 
 close it at once for fear of mischief, thougli I've scarcely 
 read, for indeed my eyes are weary, but I see what gen- 
 tle mind it means. 
 
 Yes, you will love and rejoice in your Chaucer more 
 and more. Fancy, I've never time, now, to look at him, 
 — obliired toieid even my Ilomcr and ShnkoF^p^nre p^ a 
 scraiiibh', half missing the sense, — the business of life 
 disturbs one so. 
 
 Will you please tha?d< Miss Watson for the '' (Juecn's 
 Wake." I should like to tell lier about II(irL'"'s visit to 
 
118 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 Heme Hill, and my dog Dash's reception of liim; but 
 I'm never pleased with the Siiepherd's bearing to Sir W. 
 Scott, as one reads it in " Lockhart." 
 
 There's no fear of Susie's notes ever being less bright 
 as long as she remains a child, and it's a long while jet 
 to look forward to. 
 
 I had such a nice dinner all alone with Joanie jester- 
 day, and Sarah waiting. Joanie coughed and startled 
 me. I accused her of having a cold. To . defend her- 
 self she said (the mockerj), Perhaps she oughtn't to kiss 
 me. I said, " Couldn't Sarah * trj first, and see if anj 
 harm comes of it ?" (Sarah highlj amused.) For good- 
 ness' sake don't ttll Kate. 
 
 I've onlj a crushed bit of paper to express mj crushed 
 heart upon. It's the best ! 
 
 That you should be thinking, designing, undermining, 
 as Mrs. Somebody sajs in that disgusting *' Mill on the 
 Floss," to send to London for port. And m?/ port get- 
 ting crustj, dustj, cobwebbj, and generallj like its mas- 
 ter, just because it's no use to nobodj. / don't drink 
 
 * Our Herue Hill parlour-maid for four years. Oue of quite the 
 brightest and handsomest types of English beauty I ever saw, either 
 in life, or fancied in painting. 
 
MISCELLAiq-EOUS. 
 
 119 
 
 it ; Joan don't ; Arfie's always stuck up with liis claret 
 and French vinegaret things (gave him all his rheuma- 
 tism, / saj) ; and now here's my Susie sending to Lon- 
 don, and passing me by and my sorrowful bin. I 
 didn't think she'd have bin and done it. Even the Al- 
 pine plants of which I hear, as darlings, don't at present 
 console me. 
 
 Just you try such a trick again, that's all ! 
 
 IIerne Hill. 
 Here's your letter first thing in the morning, while 
 I'm sip[)ing my coffee in the midst of such confusion 
 
 r 
 
 H^ 
 
 3^ 
 
 :j) •-: 
 
 H 
 
 as I've not often achieved at my best. The little room, 
 which 1 think is as nearly as possible the size of your 
 
120 HORTLTS INCLUSUS. 
 
 study, but witb a lower roof, lias to begin witb — A, 
 m)' bed ; B, my basin stand ; C, my table ; D, my cbest 
 of drawers ; thus arranged in relation to E, tbe window 
 (which has still its dark bars to prevent the little boy 
 getting out) ; F, the fireplace ; G, the golden or min- 
 eral ogical cupboard ; and H, the grand entrance. The 
 two dots witb a back represent my chair, wliicb is prop- 
 erly solid and not ?/72-easy. Thi*ee otliers of lighter 
 disposition find place somewbere about. These with 
 the chimney-piece and drawer's bead are covered, or 
 rather heaped, with all they can carry, and the morning 
 is just looking in, astonished to see what is expected 
 of it, and smiling — (yes, I may fairly say it is smiling, 
 for it is cloudless for its part above the smoke of the 
 borizon line) — at Sarab's hope and mine, of ever getting 
 that room into order by twelve o'clock. The cbimney- 
 piece with its bottles, spoons, lozenge boxes, matches, 
 candlesticks, and letters jammed behind them, does ap- 
 pear to me entirely hopeless, and this the moi'e because 
 Sarah, wben I tell ber to take a bottle away that has 
 a mixture in it wbicli I don't like, looks me full in the 
 face, and says " she wonH^ because I may want it." I 
 submit, because it is so nice to get Sarah to look one 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 121 
 
 full in tlie face. She really is the prettiest, round faced, 
 and round eyed girl I ever saw, and it's a great shame 
 she should be a housemaid ; only I wish she would take 
 those bottles away. She says I'm looking better to day, 
 and I think I'm feeling a little bit more, — no, I mean, 
 a little bit less demoniacal. But I still can do that 
 jackdaw beautifully. 
 
 I am quite sure you would have felt like Albert 
 Diirer, had you gone on painting wrens. 
 
 The way Nature and Heaven waste the gifts and 
 souls they give and make, passes all wonder. You 
 might have done anything you chose, only you were 
 too modest. 
 
 1^0, I never will call you my dear lady ; certainly, 
 if it comes to that, something too dreadful will follow. 
 
 That is so very nice, isn't it, about the poor invalid 
 and "Frondes." It is terrible that doctors should say 
 such things, but on the wliole when they feel them 
 strongly, they should speak, else it would be impossible 
 
122 HOETUS IKCLUSUS. 
 
 for them to give trustworthy comfort and healing 
 hope. 
 
 I wish that peacock of yours would teach me to 
 brush my hair before I come to dinner, for I am, 
 though 
 
 Ever your loving 
 
 J. E., 
 not fit to be seen lately, with fighting midges in my 
 hair. 
 
 I am most interested in your criticism of " Queen 
 Mary." I have not read it, but the choice of subject 
 is entirely morbid and wrong, and I am sure all you 
 say must be true. The form of decline which always 
 comes on mental power of Tennyson's passionately sen- 
 sual character, is always of seeing ugly things, a kind 
 of delirium tremens. Turner had it fatally in his last 
 years. 
 
 I am so glad you enjoy writing to me more than any 
 one else. The book you sent me of Dr. John Brown's 
 on books, has been of extreme utility to me, and con- 
 tains matter of the deepest interest. Did you read it 
 yourself? If not I must lend it to you. 
 
 I am so glad also to know of your happiness in 
 
Cliaucer. Don't linrry in reading. I will get you iin 
 edition for your own, that you may mark it in peace. 
 
 I send you two books, neither I fear very amusing, 
 but on my word, I think books are always dull when 
 one rCally most wants them. No, other people don't 
 feel it as you and I do, nor do the dogs and ponies, but 
 oughtn't we to be thankful that we do feel it. The 
 thing I fancy we are both wanting in, is a right power 
 of enjoying the past. What sunshine there lias been 
 even in this sad yearl I have seen beauty enough in 
 one afternoon, not a fortnight ago, to last me for a year 
 if I could rejoice in memory. 
 
 But I believe things are a little better at Seascale. 
 Arfie's gone off there, but I have a painter friend, Mr. 
 Goodwin, con^.ing to keep me company, and Tm a little 
 content in this worst of rainy days, in hopes there may 
 be now some clearing for him. 
 
 Our little kittens pass the days of their youth up 
 against the wall at the back of the house, where the heat 
 of the oven comes through. What an existence I and yet 
 with all my indoor advantages 
 
 I am yuur sorrowful and repining 
 
 J. K. 
 
124 HORTUS i:n'clusus. 
 
 I am entirely grateful for your letter, and for all the 
 sweet feelings expressed in it, and am entirely reverent 
 of the sorrow wliicli you feel at my speaking thus. If 
 only all were like you. But the chief sins and evils of 
 the day are caused by the Pharisees, exactly as in the 
 time of Christ, and " they make broad their phylacteries" 
 in the same way, the Bible superstitiously read, becom- 
 ing the authority for every error and heresy and cruelty. 
 To make its readers understand that the God of their 
 own day is as living, and as able to speak to them 
 directly as ever in the days of *Isaiah and St. John, 
 and that He would now send messas^es to His Seven 
 Churches, if the Churches would hear, needs stronger 
 words than any I have yet dared to use, against the 
 idolatry of the historical record of His messages long 
 ago, perverted by men's forgetfulness, and confused by 
 mischance and misapprehension ; and if instead of the 
 Latin form " Scripture" we put always " writing" instead 
 of •' written" or '' write" in one place, and " Scripture,'' 
 as if it meant our English Bible, in another, it w^ould 
 make such a difference to our natural and easy under- 
 standing the range of texts. 
 
 The peacock's feathers are marvellous. I am very glad 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 125 
 
 to see them. I never had any of their downy ones be- 
 fore. My eoni])linients to the bird, upon them, please. 
 
 I have liad a tirinii: forenoon in tlie house with dark 
 air, and must 2:0 out; and po(>r Susie will not only 
 scarce find a turned leaf but an empty line in the 
 unturned one. 
 
 But children always like to have letters about any- 
 thing. 
 
 I found a strawberry growing just to please itself, as 
 red as a ruby, high up on Yewdale crag yesterday, in a 
 little corner of rock all its own ; so I left it to enjoy 
 itself. It seemed as happy as a lamb, and no more 
 meant to be eaten. 
 
 Yes, those are all sweetest bits from Chaucer (the pine 
 new to me) ; your own copy is being bound. And all 
 the Richard, — but you uiust not copy out the Kichard 
 bits, for I like all mv Ilichard alike from bcirinnino: to 
 end. Yes, my "seed pearl'' bit is ])retty, I admit; it 
 was like the thing. The cascades here, Fm afraid, come 
 down more like seed oatmeal. 
 
 Kow it's very naughty of you, Susie, to think every- 
 body else would have ate that strawberry. JVIr. Severn 
 
1^6 nORTUS IKCLUSUS. 
 
 and Mr. Patmore were both with me; and when /said,, 
 "Now, I doD't believe three other people could be found 
 who wonld let that alone," Mr. Patmore was quite 
 shocked, and said, " I'm quite sure nobody but yoit 
 would have thought of eating it !" 
 
 Ever your loving, gormandising (Patmore knows me !) 
 
 J. R. 
 
 Actually I've never thanked you for that exquisite 
 cheese. The mere look of it puts one in heart like a 
 fresh field. I never tasted anything so perfect in its 
 purity of cream nature. The Chaucer bits, next to the 
 cheese, are delicious, too. 
 
 About the railroad circular, I knew and know nothing 
 but that I signed my name. They may have printed 
 said circular perhaps. 
 
 At all events, irost thankful should I be to any one 
 who would help in such cause. I'm at work on a piece 
 of moss again, far better, I hope likely to be, than the 
 one you saw. 
 
 I believe in my hasty answer to your first kind letter 
 I never noticed what you said about Aristophanes. If 
 
MISCELLAXEOUS. 127 
 
 you will indeed send me some notes of the passages that 
 interest yon in the "Birds," it will not only be very 
 pleasant to me, but quite seriously useful, for the 
 " Birds" have always been to me so mysterious in that 
 comedy, that I have never got the good of it which I 
 know is to be had. The careful study of it put off from 
 day to day, was likely enough to fall into the great 
 region of my despair, unless you had chanced thus to 
 remind me of it. 
 
 Please, if another chance of good to me come in your 
 way, in another brown spotty-purple peacock's feather, 
 will you yet send it to me, and I will be always your 
 most grateful and faithful J. R. 
 
 Herxe Hill. 
 
 It is so very sweet and good of you to write such 
 lovely play letters to Joanie and me ; they delight and 
 comfort us more than I can tell you. 
 
 What translation of Aristophanes is that? I must 
 get it. I've lost I can't tell you how much knowledge 
 and j)owcr thi'oiiiili false pride in refusing t(t i-cad ti'ans- 
 lations, though I couldiTt lead the original without more 
 trouble and time than I could spare; nevertheless, you 
 
128 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 must not thiiik this Englisli gives yon a true idea of the 
 original. The English is much more " English" in its 
 temper than its words. Aristophanes is far more dry, 
 severe, and concentrated ; his v^ords are fewer, and have 
 fuller flavour ; this English is to him what currant jellj is 
 to currants. But it's immensely useful to me. 
 
 Yes, that is very sweet about the kissing. I have 
 done it to rocks often, seldom to flowers, not being sure 
 that they would like it. 
 
 I recollect giving a very reverent little kiss to a young 
 sapling that was behaving beautifully in an awkward 
 chink, between two great big ones that were ill-treating 
 it. Poor me, (I'm old enough, I hope, to write grammar 
 my own way,) my own little self, meantime, never by 
 any chance got a kiss when I wanted it, — and the better 
 I behaved, the less chance I had, it seemed. 
 
 I never thought the large packet was from you ; it 
 was thrown aside with the rest, till evening, and only 
 opened then by chance. I was greatly grieved to find 
 what I had thus left unacknowledged. The drawings 
 are entirely beautiful and wonderful, but, like all the 
 
MISCELLAXEOUS. 1^20 
 
 good work done in those bygone days, (Donovan's own 
 book being of inestimable excellence in this kind,) they 
 affect nie witli profound melancholy in the tlionght of 
 the loss to the entire' body of the nation of all this perfect 
 artistic capacity, and sweet will, for want of acknowledg- 
 ment, system, and direction. I must write a careful pas- 
 sage on this matter in my new Elements of Drawing. 
 Your drawings have been sent me not by you, but by 
 my mistress Fors, for a text. It is no wonder, when you 
 can draw like this, that you care so much for all lovely 
 nature. But I shall be ashamed to show you my pea- 
 cock's feather ; I've sent it, however. 
 
 What a naughty child you are to pick out all that was 
 useless and leave all that's practical and useful for 
 "Frondes"! You ought to have pounced on all the 
 best bits on drawing from nature ! 
 
 It is very sweet of you to give me your book, but I 
 accept it at once most thankfully. It is the best type I 
 can show of the perfect work of an Englisli hidy in her 
 own simple peace of enjoyment and natiii'al gift of ti-iitli, 
 in her sight and in her mind. And many [)retty things 
 
130 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 are in my mind and heart about it, if my hands were 
 not too cold to shape words for them. The book shall 
 be kept with mj Bewicl\? ; it is in nowise inferior to 
 them in fineness of work. The finished proof of next 
 '* Proserpina" will, I think, be sent me by Saturday's 
 post. Much more is done, but this number was hindered 
 by the revisal of the Dean of Christ Church, which puts 
 me at rest about mistakes in my Greek. 
 
 It is a great joy to me that you like the Wordsworth 
 bits ; there are worse coming (unless Diddie, perhaps, 
 begs them off) ; but I've been put into a dreadful pas- 
 sion by two of my cleverest girl pupils " going off 
 pious" ! It's exactly like a nice pear getting " sleepy" ; 
 and I'm pretty nearly in the worst temper I can be in, 
 for W. W. But what are these blessed feathers? 
 Everything that's best of grass and clouds and chryso- 
 prasg. What incomparable little creature wears such 
 things, or lets fall? The " fringe of flame" is Carlyle's, 
 not mine, but we feel so much alike, that you may often 
 mistake one for the other now. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 131 
 
 Yoli cannot in the least tell what a help you are to 
 me, in caring so much for my things and seeing what I 
 try to do in them. You are quite oue of a thousand 
 for sympathy with everybody, and oue of the ten times 
 ten thousand, for special sympathy with my own feel- 
 ings and tries. Yes, that second column is rather nicely 
 touched, tliough I say it, for hands aud eyes of sixty- 
 two ; but when once the wind stops I hope to do a bit 
 of primrosey ground that will be richer. 
 
 Here, not I, but a thing with a dozen of colds in its 
 head, am ! 
 
 I caught one cold on Wednesday last, another on 
 Thursday, two on Friday, four on Saturday, and one at 
 every station between this and Ingleborongh on ]\lon- 
 day. I never was in such ignoble misery of cold. I've 
 no cough to speak of, nor anything worse than usnal 
 in the way of sneezing, but my hands are cold, my 
 pulse nowhere, my nose tickles and wrings me, niy ears 
 sing — like kettles, my mouth has no taste, my heart no 
 hope of ever being good for anything, any more. I 
 never passed such a wretched morning by my own lire- 
 
132 HORTUS IXCLUSUS. 
 
 side in all mv days, and I've quite a fiendish pleasure 
 in telling you all tins, and thinking how miserable you'll 
 be too. Oh me, if I ever get to feel like myself again, 
 won't I take care of myself. 
 
 Seven of the eleven colds are better, but the other 
 four are worse, and they were the worst before, and I'm 
 such a wreck and rag and lump of duet being made 
 mud of, that I'm ashamed to let the maids bring me 
 my dinner. 
 
 Your contemptible, miserable, beyond pitiable, past 
 
 deplorable 
 
 J. E. 
 
 The little book is very lovely, all of it that is your 
 own. The religion of it you know is, anybody's, 
 what my poor little Susie was told when she was a year 
 or two younger than she is now. 
 
 AYhat we should all try to do, is to find out some- 
 thing certain about God, for ourselves. 
 
MISCELLAXEOUS. 133 
 
 Tlie featliers nearly made me fly away from all my 
 Psalters and Exoduses, to yon, and my dear peacocks. 
 I wonder when Solomon got his ivory and apes and 
 peacocks, whether he ever had time to look at them. 
 He couldn't always be ordering children to be chopped 
 in two. Alas, I suppose his wisdom, in England of to- 
 day, would have been taxed to find out which mother 
 lied in saying which child wasn't hers ! 
 
 But you lolll like my psalter, I'm sure. Diddie 
 wouldn't copy the wickedest bits, so I was obliged to 
 leave them out ! 
 
 Oh dear, I feel so wicked to-day, I could even tease 
 you^ by telling you Joanie was better, and how it came 
 to pass. I mustn't say more, but that I love you ever 
 so much, and am ever, etc. 
 
 I began this note especially to tell you how delighted 
 I was with your idea of the flower show; how good it 
 will be for the people, and how nice for you ! 
 
 I've been writing to Miss R. again, and Miss L.'s quite 
 right to stay at home. " She thinks I have an eagle's 
 eye." Well, what else should 1 liavc, in (\\\\ tiine^ to- 
 gether with my cat's eye in the dark \ But you may 
 tell her I should be very sorry if my eyes were no better 
 
134 IIORTUS IXCLCSUS. 
 
 than eaglesM "Dotli the eagle know what is in the 
 pit?" /do. 
 
 I'm only going away for Sunday, coming back on the 
 Monday, and going to stay for a week longer. Mr. 
 MacD. has begun a pretty drawing of the study (and 
 really depends on my assistant criticism) ; and Diddie, I 
 think, will enjoy her dinner with you to-morrow better 
 than if 1 had gone for good and all ; and I think I shall 
 enjoy my Sunday at Sheffield, if I had gone for evil and 
 all. I've turned the page to say I'm rather pleased with 
 that trans-mutation (what a stupid thing of me to divide 
 that stupid word) of " for good and all," mockingest of 
 common phrases, even if one were going aw^ay for a 
 honeymoon it would only be for better or worse, — or 
 stay, perhaps it means for good and all else. One uses it 
 too without the all, — " for good" meaning that nothing 
 that isn't good can be eternal. I am puzzled ; but I be- 
 lieve I'm coming back for good anyhow. And, there 
 now, I've to turn the page once more, and, I was going 
 to say something stupid about goodbye, a word that 
 makes me shudder from head to foot 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 135 
 
 I've found anotlier stone for yon, lapis lazuli, wliicli 
 nev^er fades, and is heaven colour to all time. 
 
 That you may not make a complete infidel of yourself 
 with those insidious '' Arabian Kights," or a complete 
 philosopher of yourself, which would be unbecoming at 
 your age, with the " Council of Friends" I send you a 
 Western book of a character at once prosaic, graceful, 
 and simple, which will disenchant and refresh you at 
 once. I will find a second volume before you have 
 finished tlie first, and meanwhile you must come and 
 choose the next book that is to be, out of my lil)rary, 
 which you never condescend to look at when you're 
 here. 
 
 By hook or by crook, by swans and cygnets, by Car- 
 paccio and the Queen of Sheba, I'll come to see yuu, 
 please, to-day. 
 
 Fm really not quite so bad all over, yet; and I've 
 written things lately with much in them tliat will com- 
 fort yon for me, though I can't quite comfoi-t myself. 
 And ril come often to 1h' lectured ; and I'm not reading 
 novels just now, but only birds and beasts. 
 
136 nORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 I want to know the names of all jour five cats ; they 
 were all at the door yesterday, and I sliould Lave made 
 six, but tliey ran away. 
 
 I send two of Miss Kate's books for Mary and you to 
 keep as long as you choose. Miss Arnold is coming to- 
 morrow, but I hope to get to the Thwaite at half-past 
 twelve. Only my morning goes just now like the flash 
 of a Christmas cracker. 
 
 I'm better ; I trust you are ! It is a day at last ; and 
 the flowers, are all off their heads for joy. I've been 
 writing some pretty things too, and thinking naughty 
 ones, as I do when I'm pretty well. 
 
 But I've lost my voice and can't sing them! 
 
 Yes, of course keep that book, any time you like ; but 
 I think you'll find most of it unreadable. If you do get 
 through it, you'll have to tell me all about it, you know, 
 for Pve never read a word of it except just the plums 
 here and there. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 137 
 
 Publishers are bmtes, and always spoil one's books, and 
 then say it's o^ir fault if tliev don't sell ! 
 
 Yes, that is a lovely description of a picture. All the 
 same I believe the picture itself was merely modern sen- 
 sationalism. 
 
 Thej can't do witliout death nowadays, not because 
 they want to know how to die, but because they're too 
 stupid to live. 
 
 I hope you will be comforted in any feeling of languor 
 or depression in yourself by hearing that I also am 
 wholly lack lusti'ous, (^/<?pressed, e^/^pressed, 6'6'?yq)ressed, 
 and fZ6>z^;2 pressed by a quite countless pressgang of 
 despondencies, humilities, remorses, shamefacednesses, all 
 overnesses, all undernesses, sicknesses, dulnesses, dark- 
 nesses, sulkinesses, and everything that rhymes to less- 
 ness and distress, and that I'm sure you and I are at 
 present the mere targets of the darts of the — , etc., etc., 
 and Mattie's waiting and mustn't be loaded with more 
 sorrow; but I can't tell you how sorry I am to break my 
 promise to-day, but it would not be safe for mc to come. 
 
138 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 I'll look at the dial to oiglit. What a cruel thing of 
 you to make me " look upon it " ! I'm not gone to 
 Venice yet, but thinking of it hourly. I'm very nearly 
 done with toasting my bishop ; he just wants another 
 turn or two, and then a little buttero 
 
 I'm a little better, but can't laugh much yet, and won't 
 cry if I can help it. Yet it always makes me nearly cry, 
 to hear of those poor working men trying to express 
 themselves and nobody ever teaching them, nor anybody 
 in'^ all England, knowing that painting is an art^ and 
 sculpture also, and that an untaught man can no more 
 carve or paint, than play the fiddle. All efforts of the 
 kind, mean simply that we have neither master nor 
 scholars in any rank or any place. And I, also, what 
 have /done for Coniston schools yet? I don't deserve 
 an oyster shell, far less an oyster. 
 
 KiRBY Lonsdale, 
 
 Thursday evening. 
 You won't get this note to-morrow, I'm afraid, but 
 after that I think they will be regular till I reach Ox- 
 
MiSCELLAXEOrS. 130 
 
 ford. It is very nice to know tliat there is someone 
 who does care for a letter, as if she were one's sister. 
 Yon won Id be g:hd to see the clonds break for me ; and 
 I had indeed a very lovely morning drive and still love- 
 lier evening, and fnll moonrise here over the Lnne. 
 
 I suppose it is Kirk-bj-Lune's Dale ? for the chnrch, 
 I find, is a very important Korman relic. By the way, 
 I should tell you, that the coloured plates in the '' Stones 
 of Venice" do great injustice to my drawings ; the 
 patches are worn on the stones. My drairings were 
 not good^ but tlie plates are total failures. Tlie oidy 
 one even of the engravings wliieh is rightly done is the 
 {last, I think, in Appendix) inlaid dove and raven. J'll 
 show you the drawing for that when I come back, and 
 perhaps for the San Michele, if I recollect to fetch it 
 from Oxford, and I'll fetch you the second volume, 
 which has really good plates. That blue beginning, I 
 forgot to say, is of the Straits of Messina, and it is 
 really very like the colour of the sea. 
 
 That is intensely curious about the parasitical plant 
 of Borneo. But — very dreadful! 
 
140 EORTUS IKCLUSUS. 
 
 You are like Timon of Atliens, and I'm like one of 
 Lis parasites. Tlie oranges are delicious, the brown 
 bread dainty ; wliat the melon is going to be I have no 
 imagination to tell. But, oh me, I had such a lovely 
 letter from Dr. John, sent me from Joan this morning, 
 and I've lost it. It said, '' Is Susie as good as her let- 
 ters? If so, she must be better. What freshness of 
 enjoyment in everything she says !" 
 
 Alas! not in everything she feels in this weather, I 
 fear. Was ever anything so awful ? 
 
 Do you know, Susie, everything that has happened 
 to me (and the leaf I sent you this morning may show 
 you it has had some hurting in it) is little in comparison 
 to the crushing and depressing effect on me, of what I 
 learn day by day as I work on, of the cruelty and ghast- 
 liness of the nature I used to think so Divine ? But, I 
 get out of it by remembering, This is but a crumb of 
 dust we call the " world," and a moment of eternity 
 which we call " time." Can't answer the great question 
 to-night. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 141 
 
 I can only thank vou for tellinjj^ nie ; and say, Praised 
 be God fur giving liini back to ns. 
 
 Woi-ldly people say "Thank God" wlien they get 
 what they want; as if it amused God to phigne them, 
 and was a vast piece of self-denial on Ilis part to give 
 them what they liked. But I, who am a simple person, 
 thank God when He hurts me, because I don't tliink 
 He likes it ;my more than I do; but I can't yy/v^/.sr Ilim, 
 because — I don't understand why — I can only praise 
 what's pretty and pleasant, like getting back our doctor. 
 
 26^/4 November. 
 
 And to-morrow I'm not +o be there; and I've no 
 present for yon, and I am so sorry for both of us; but 
 oh, ray dear little Susie, the good people all say this 
 wretched makeshift of a world is coming to an end 
 next year, and you and I and everybody who likes biids 
 and roses are to have new birthdays and ])resents of 
 such sugar plums. Crystals of candied cloud and tiianna 
 in sticks with no ends, all the way to the sun, and v. liite 
 stones; and new names in tlicni, and heaven knows 
 what besides. 
 
 It sounds all too good to be true ; but the good people 
 
142 HORTUS IKCLUSUS. 
 
 are positive of it, and so's tlie great Pyramid, and the 
 Book of Daniel, and the " Bible of Amiens." Yon 
 caivt possibly believe in any more promises of mine, 
 I knov»', but if I do come to see you this day week, 
 don't think it's a ghost; and believe at least that we 
 all love yon and rejoice in your birthday wherever 
 we are. 
 
 I'm so thankful you're better. 
 
 Reading my old diary, I came on a sentence of yours 
 last year about the clouds being all " trimmed with 
 swansdown," so pretty. (I copied it out of a letter.) 
 The thoughts of you always trim me with swansdown. 
 
 I never got your note written yesterday ; meant at 
 least to do it even after post time, but was too stupid, 
 and am infinitely so to-day also. Only I must pray you 
 to tell Sarah we all liad elder wine to finish our even- 
 ing with, and I mulled it myself, and poured it out in 
 the saucepan into the expectants' glasses, and everybody 
 asked for more ; and I slept like a dormouse. But, as 
 I said, I am so stupid this morning that . Well, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 143 
 
 tliere's no ''that" able to say how stupid I am, unless 
 the Hy that wouldn't keep out of the candle last night ; 
 and he had bur c notion of bliss to be found in candles, 
 and I've no notion of anything. 
 
 The blue sky is so wonderful to-day and the woods 
 after the rain so delicious for walking in that I must still 
 delay any school talk one day more. Meantime I've sent 
 you a book which is in a nice lai'ge print, and may in 
 some parts interest yon. I gut it that I might be able to 
 see Scott's material for " Peveril " ; and it seems to me 
 that lie might have made more of the real attack on La- 
 tli.iin House than of tlie iictitions one on Front de 
 Boenf's castle, had he been so minded, bnt perhaps he 
 felt himself hampered by too much known fact. 
 
 I've just finished and sent off the index to " Deuca- 
 lion," first volume, and didn't feel inclined for more 
 schooling to-day. 
 
 Tve jnst had a chai'ining message from Martha Gale 
 under the address of " that old duckling." Isn't that 
 nice? Ethel was coming to see you to-day, but Tve con- 
 fiscated her for the woodcock, and she shan't come to- 
 
144 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 morrow, for I want you all to mjself ; only it isn't lier 
 
 fault. 
 
 But you gave my present before, a month ago, and 
 I've been presenting myself with all sorts of things ever 
 since; and now it's not half gone. I'm very thankful 
 for this however, jnst now, for St. George, who is 
 cramped in his career, and I'll accept it if you like for 
 him:. Meantime I've sent it to the bank, and hold him 
 your debtor. I've had the most delicious gift besides, I 
 ever had in my life, — the Patriarch of Venice's blessing 
 written with his own hand, with his portrait. 
 
 I'll bring you this to see to-morrow, and a fresh 
 Turner. 
 
 I have forbidden Joanie's going out to-day, for she 
 got a little chill in the wind last night, and looked pale 
 and chfaite in the evening ; she's all right again, but I 
 can't risk her out, though she was much minded to come, 
 and I am sure you and Mary will say I am right. She 
 will be delighted and refreshed,«by seeing the young la- 
 dies; and the Turners look grand in the grey light. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 145 
 
 So I Lave told Baxter to hriiig up a fly from the Wa- 
 terhead, and to secure your guests on their way here, and 
 put up to bring them so far back. I sliall also send 
 back by it a purple l)it of Venice, whicli pleases me, 
 though the mount's too large and spoils it a little ; but 
 you will be gracious to it. 
 
 What delicious asparagus and brown bread IVe been 
 Laving !!!!!!! I should like to write as mauy notes of 
 admiration as there are waves on the lake; the octave 
 must do. I've been writing a pretty bit of chant for 
 Byron's heroic measure. Joan must play it to you when 
 she next comes. I'm mighty well, and rather mis- 
 chievous. 
 
 The weather has grievously depressed me this last 
 week, and I have not been fit to speak to anybody. I 
 had much interruption in the early part of it though, 
 from a pleasant visitor; and 1 have not been able to look 
 rightly at your pretty little book. N^evertheless, I'm 
 fpiite sure your strength is in ])iMvate letter wi'iting, and 
 that a cni-ioiis kind oi shyness prevents your doing your- 
 self justice in ])riiit. Vou might also surely have found 
 a iiioi'e pregnant motto about birds' nests! 
 
146 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 Am not I cross ? But these grey skies are mere 
 poison to my thoiiglits, and I have been writing such let- 
 ters, that I don't think many of my friends are likely to 
 speak to me again. 
 
 I think you must have been spinning the sunbeams 
 into gold to be able to scatter gifts like this. 
 
 It is your own light of the eyes that has made the 
 woodland leaves so golden brown. 
 
 Well, I have just opened a St. George account at the 
 Coniston Bank, and this will make me grandly miserly 
 and careful. 
 
 I am very thankful for it. 
 
 Also for Harry's saying of me that I am gentle ! I've 
 been quarrelling with so many people lately, I had for- 
 gotten all grace, till you brought it back yesterday and 
 made me still your gentle, etc. 
 
SUSIE'S LETTERS. 
 
SUSIE'S LETTERS. 
 
 The following Letters and the little ^Notes on Birds 
 are inserted liere by the express wish of Mr. Riiskin. 
 I had it in my mind to pay Susie some extremely fine 
 compliments about these Letters and I'Totes, and to 
 compare her method of observation with Thoreau's, and 
 above all, to tell some very pretty stories showing her 
 St. Francis-like sympathy with, and gentle power over, 
 all living creatures ; but Susie says that she is already 
 far too prominent, ancl we hope that the readers of 
 " Hortus" will see for themselves liow she reverences 
 and cherishes all noble life, with a special tenderness, I 
 think, for furred and feathered creatures. To all out- 
 cast and hungry things the Thwaite is a veritable Bethle- 
 hem, or House of Bread, and to her, their sweet " Ma- 
 donna Nourrice," no less than to her Teacher, the spar- 
 
 148 
 
SUSIK's LETT K us. 14'^) 
 
 rows and liniit'tri that crowd its thresholds are in a \cvy 
 particular sense '* Sons of God." 
 
 A. F. 
 
 Apnl Uth, 1874. 
 
 I sent off such a long letter to jou yesterday, my dear 
 friend. Did yon think of your own quotation from 
 Homer, when you told me that field of yours was full 
 of violets ? But where are the four fountains of ichite 
 water ? — through a meadow full of violets and parsley I 
 How delicious Calypso's fire of finely cho])ped cedar I 
 How shall I thank you for allowing me, Susie the little, 
 to distil your writings ? Such a joy and comfort to 
 me — for I shall need much very soon now. I do so 
 thank and love you for it ; I am sure I may say so to 
 you. I rejoice again and again that I have such a 
 friend. May I never love liim less, never })i-ove un- 
 wortliy of his friendship! How I wanted my letter, 
 and now it has come, and I have told our Dr. John of 
 your safe ])rogress so far. J trust you will he kept safe 
 from ererythiuij that miglit injure you in anv way. 
 
 The snow has melted away, and this is a rcallv sweet 
 April day and ought to he enjoyed — if only Susie could. 
 
150 nORTUS IJS'CLUSUS. 
 
 But both she and her dear friend must strive with their 
 grief. When I was a girl — (I was once) — I used to de- 
 light m Pope's Homer. I do believe I rather enjoyed 
 tlie killing and slaying, specially the splitting down the 
 chine ! But when I tried to read it again not very long 
 ago, I got tired of this kind of thing. If you had only 
 translated Homer! then I should have had a feast. 
 When a schoolgirl, going each day with my bag of 
 books into Manchester, I used to like Don Quixote and 
 Sir Charles Grandison with my milk porridge. I must 
 send you only this short letter to-day. I can see your 
 violet field from this window. How sweetly the little 
 limpid stream would tinTde to-day ; and how the prim- 
 roses are sitting listening to it and the little birds sip- 
 ping it ! I have come to the conclusion that bees go 
 more by sight than by scent. As I stand by my pea- 
 cock with his gloriously gorgeous tail all spread out, a 
 bee comes rightat it (very vulgar, but expressive) ; and 
 I have an Alpine Primula on this window stone brightly 
 in flower, and a bee came and alighted, but went away 
 again at once, not finding the expected honey. I won- 
 • der what you do the livelong day, for I know you and 
 idleness are not acquaintances. I am so sorry your 
 
Susie's letters. 151 
 
 fav(»i]rite places are spoiled. But dear Erantwood will 
 grow prettier and prettier under your care. 
 
 April Wi. 
 
 I have just been pleased by seeing a blackbird enjoy- 
 ing with schoolboy appetite, portions of a moistened 
 crust of bread which 1 threw out for him and his fellow- 
 creatures. How he dug with his orange bill I — even 
 more orange than usual perhaps at this season of the 
 year. At length the robins have built a uest in tlie ivy 
 in our yard — a very secure and sheltered place, and a 
 very convenient distance from the crunib market. Like 
 the Old woman, Jie sings with a merry devotion, and sjie 
 thinks there never was such music, as she sits ui)()n liei 
 eggs ; he comes again and again, with every little dainty 
 that his linjited inc(;me allows, and sJie thinks it all the 
 sweeter because Jie brings it to her. Kow and then she 
 leaves her nest to stretch her wings, aiid to shake oft" tli(; 
 dust of care, and to ])revent her pretty anJiles being 
 ci'ainped. Ihit she knows \\vy duty too well to remain 
 absent long from her pivclous eggs. 
 
 Now anotliei- little note fi'om Dr. John, and he 
 actually begins, " My dear ' Susie,' " — and ends, '' Let me 
 
152 HORTUS II^CLUSUS. . 
 
 hear from you soon. Ever yours affectionately." Also 
 he says, '' It is very kind in you to let me get at once 
 close to you," The rest of his short letter (like you, he 
 was bnsy) is nearly all about yoii^ so of course it is in- 
 teresting to m(?, and he hopes you are already getting 
 good from the change and I indulge the same hope. 
 
 l^fh April 
 Brantwood looked so very nice this morning decorated 
 by the coming into leaf of the larches. I wish yon could 
 have seen them in the distance as I did : the early sun- 
 shine had glanced upon them lighting up one side, and 
 leaving the other in softest shade, and the tender green 
 contrasted with the deep browns, and grays stood out in 
 a wonderful way, and the trees looked like spirits of the 
 wood, which you might think would melt away like the 
 White Lady of Avenel. 
 
 Dear sweet April still looks coldly upon us — the month 
 you love so dearlj^ Little white lambs are in the fields 
 now, and so much that is sweet is coming ; but there is a 
 shadow over this house now / and also, my dear kind 
 friend is far away. The horse-chestnuts have thrown 
 away the winter coverings of their buds, and given them 
 
Susie's letters. 153 
 
 to that dear economical mother earth, who makes such 
 good use of everything, and works up okl materials nijain 
 in a wonderful way, and is delightfully unlike most 
 economists, — the very soul of generous liherality. Now 
 some of your own woids, so powerful as they are, — you 
 are speaking of the Alp and of the " Great Builder" — of 
 your own transientness, as of the grass upon its sides ; 
 and in this very sadness, a sense of strange companionship 
 with past generations, in seeing what they saw\ They 
 have ceased to look upon it, you will soon cease to look 
 also ; and the granite wall will be for others, etc., etc. 
 
 My dear friend, was there ever any one so pathetic 
 as you ? And you have the power of bringing things 
 before one, both to the eye and to the nn'nd : you do 
 indeed paint with your pen. Xovv' I have a photograph 
 of you — not a very satisfactory one, but still I am glad 
 to have it, rather than none. It was done at ]N^ow- 
 castle-on-Tyne. Were you in search of something of 
 Bewick's ? 
 
 I have just given the S(piii'rel his little ^o^^fj (so you 
 see I am a lady,)"' he has boundetl away with it, full of 
 joy and gladness. I wish that this wimc my case and 
 * Sec "Fors Chivijrera," LcUer XLV. 
 
154 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 youi's^ for whatever we maj wish for, that we have not. 
 We have a variety and abundance of loaves. I have 
 asked Dr. J. Brown whether lie would like photographs 
 of your house and the picturesque breakwater. I do so 
 wish that you and he and I did not suifer so much, but 
 could be at least moderately happy. I am sure you 
 would be glad if you knew even in this time of sorrow, 
 when all seems stale, flat, unprofitable, the pleasure and 
 interest I have had in reading your Yol. 3 ["Modern 
 Painters"]. I study your character in your writings, and 
 I find so much to elevate, to love, to admire — a sort of 
 education for my poor old self — and oh! such beauty of 
 thought and w^ord. 
 
 Even yet my birds want so much bread ; I do believe 
 the worms are sealed up in the dry earth, and they have 
 many little mouths to fill just now^ — and there is one old 
 blackbird whose devotion to his wife and children is 
 lovely. I should like him never to die, he is one of my 
 heroes. And now a dog which calls upon me sometimes 
 at the window, and I point kitchen wards and the 
 creature knows w^iat I mean, and goes and gets a good 
 meal. So if I can only make a dog happy (as you do, 
 
SUSIE^S LETTERS. 155 
 
 only joii take yours to live with yon, and I cannot do 
 tliat) it is a pleasant thing. I do so like to make things 
 happier, and I shonld like to pnt bunches of hay in the 
 tields for the poor horses, for there is very scant suj^ply 
 of grass, and too many for the supply. 
 
 1st May. 
 
 I cannot longer refrain from writing to yon, my dear 
 kind friend, so often are you in my thoughts. Dearest 
 Joanie has told you, I doubt not, and I know how sorry 
 you are, and how truly you are feeling for your poor 
 Susie. So hnoiuing that I will say no more about my 
 sorrow. There is no need for words. I am wishing, oh, 
 so much, to know how you are : quite safe and well, I 
 hope, and al)le to have much real enjoyment in the many 
 beautiful things by which you are surrounded. May you 
 lay up a great stock of good health and receive nmcli 
 good in many ways, and then return to those who so 
 much miss you, and by whom you are so greatly beloved. 
 
 Coniston would go into your heart if you could see 
 it now — so very lovely, the oak ti'ees so I'ai'ly, nearly 
 in leaf already. Your belove<l blue hyacinths wiil soon 
 be out, and the cuckoo has come, but it is long since 
 
156 HORTirS mCLUSUS. 
 
 Susie Las been out. She only stands at an open win- 
 dow, but she must try next week to go into the garden ; 
 and she is finding a real pleasure in making extracts 
 from your writings for yoii^ often wondering " will he 
 let that remain V and lioping that he will. 
 
 Do you ever send home orders about your Brant- 
 wood 'i I have been wishing so much that your gar> 
 dener might be told to mix quantities of old mortar and 
 soil together, and to fill many crevices in your new 
 walls with it; then the breezes will bring fern seeds 
 and plant them, or rather sow them in such fashion as 
 no human being can do. When time and the showers 
 brought by the west wind have mellowed it a little, the 
 tiny beginnings of mosses will be there. The sooner 
 this can be done the better. Do not think Susie pre- 
 sumptuous. 
 
 We have hot sun and a very cool air, which I do 
 not at all like. 
 
 I hope your visit to Palermo and your lady have 
 been all that you could wish. Please do write to me ; 
 it would do me so much good and so greatly refresh 
 me. • •► 
 
StJSIE*S LETTERS. 157 
 
 This poor little letter is scarcely worth bending, only 
 it says that 1 am your loving Susie. 
 
 Uth May. 
 My dearest Friend. — Your letter yesterday did me 
 so much good, and though I answered it at once, yet 
 here I am a^ain. A kind woman from tlie other side 
 has sent me the loveliest group of drooping and very 
 tender ferns, soft as of some velvet belonging to the 
 fairies, and of the most exquisite green, and ])rim roses, 
 and a slender stalked white flower, and so arranged, 
 that they continually remind me of thnt enchanting 
 group of yours in Vol. 3, which you said I might cut 
 out. What would you have thought of me if I had i 
 Oh, that you would and could sketch this group — or 
 even that your eye could rest upon it! Now you will 
 laugh if I ask you whether harpies ever increase in 
 number? or whether they are only the '' uld (^)r!gin;il."' 
 They quite torment me when T open the window, and 
 blow chalf at me. I suppose at this moment, deaii'st 
 Joanie is steaming away to Livei'pool ; one always wants 
 to know now whether ])eople accomplish a journey 
 safely. When the blackbirds come l"oi- soaked bread, 
 
158 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 tliej generally eat a nice little lot themselves, before 
 carrying any away from tlie window for their little 
 ones ; but Bobbie, " our little English Robin," has just 
 been twice, took none for himself, but carries beak-load 
 after beak-load for liis speckled infants. How curious 
 the universal love of bread is ; so many things like and 
 eat it — even flies, and snails! 
 
 You know you inserted a letter from Jersey about 
 fish I ^ A lady there tells me that formerly yon might 
 have a bucket of oysters for sixpence, and that now you 
 can scarcely get anything but such coarse kinds of fish 
 as are not liked ; and she has a sister, a sad invalid, to 
 whom fish would be a very pleasant and wholesome 
 change. This is really a sad state of things, and here 
 the railw^ays seem very likely to carry away our but+er, 
 and it is now such a price, qnite ex[h]orbitant. Why 
 did I put an h in ? Is it to prove the truth of what 
 yon say, that ladies do not spell well 'i A letter which 
 I once wrote vvdien a girl was a wonderful specimen of 
 bad spelling. 
 
 * See " Fors Clavigera," Letter XXX. 
 
Susie's letters. 159 
 
 15t7i May. 
 
 I have found such lovely passages in Vol. 1 this 
 morning tliat 1 am delighted, and have hegun to C'opy 
 one of them. You do float in snch beautiful tilings 
 sometimes that you make me feel I don't know how I 
 
 How I thank you for ever having written them, for 
 though late in the day, they were written for me^ and 
 have at length reached me ! 
 
 You are so candid about yonr age that I shall tell 
 you mine I I am astonished to And myself sixty-eight 
 — very near the Psalmist's threescore and ten. Much 
 illness and much sorrow, and then I woke up to And 
 myself old^ and as if I had lost a great part of my life. 
 Let us hope it was not all lost. 
 
 I think yov, can understand me when I say that I have 
 a great fund of love, and no one to spend it upon, he- 
 cause there are not any to whom I could give it/V////, 
 and I love my pets so dearly, but I dare not and cannot 
 enjoy it fidly because — they die^ or get injured, and 
 then my misery is intense. I feel as if I could tell i/(nt 
 much, because your sympathy is so refined and so tender 
 and true. Cannot T be a sort of second mother to you : 
 
160 HORTrS INCLUSUS. 
 
 I am sure the first one was often praying for blessings 
 for yon, and in this, at least, I resemble her. 
 
 Am I tiresome writing all this ? It just came, and 
 you said I was to write what did. We have had some 
 nice rain, but followed not by warmth, but a cruel east 
 wind. 
 
 ABOUT WRENS. 
 
 This year I have seen wrens' nests in three different 
 kinds of places — one built in the angle of a doorway, one 
 under a bank, and a third near the top of a raspberry 
 bush ; this last was so large that when our gardener first 
 saw it, he thought it was a swarm of bees. It seems a 
 pleasure to this active bird to build ; he will begin to 
 build several nests sometimes before he completes one 
 for Jenny Wren to lay her eggs and make her nursery. 
 Think how busy both he and Jenny are when the six- 
 teen young ones come out of their shells — little helpless 
 gaping things wanting feeding in their turns the livelong 
 summer day ! What hundreds and thousands of small 
 
 insects they devour ! they catch flies with good sized 
 wings. I have seen a parent wren with its beak so full 
 
Susie's letters. jni 
 
 that the wings stood out at each side like the whiskers of 
 a cat. 
 
 Once in America in the month of June, a mower hnng 
 up his coat under a slied near a harn : two or three days 
 passed before he had occasion to pnt it on again. 
 Thrusting his arm up the sleeve he found it completely 
 filled with something, and on pulling out the mass he 
 found it to be the nest of a wi'cn completely finished aud 
 lined w^ith featliers. What a pity that all the labour of 
 the little pair had been in vain I Great was the distress 
 of the birds, who vehemently and angrily scolded him 
 for destroying their house ; happily it was an empty one, 
 without either eggs or young birds. 
 
 HISTORY OF A BLACKBIRD. 
 
 We had liad one of those sumn^er storms which so in- 
 jure the beautiful flowers and the young leaves of the 
 trees, A blackbird's uest witli young ones in it was 
 blown out of the ivy on tlie wall, and the little ones, 
 with the excej)tion of oi;e, were killed ! The jxior little 
 bird did not escape without a wound u[)on his head, and 
 
162 HORTUS INCLUSUS. 
 
 when he was bronglit to me it did not seem very likely 
 that I should ever be able to rear him ; but I could not 
 refuse to take in the little helpless stranger, so I put him 
 into a covered basket for a while. 
 
 I soon found that I had undertaken what was no easy 
 task, for lie required feeding so early in a morning that 
 I was obliged to take him and his bread crumbs into my 
 bed-room, and jump up to feed him as soon as he began 
 to chirp, which he did in very good time. 
 
 Then in the daytime I did not dare to have him in the 
 sitting-room with me, because my sleek favourites, the 
 cats, would soon have devoured him, so I carried him up 
 into an attic, and as he required feeding very often in 
 the day, you may imagine that I had quite enough of 
 exercise in running up and down stairs. 
 
 But I was not going to neglect the helpless thing after 
 once undertaking to nurse him, and I had the pleasure 
 of seeing him thrive well upon his diet of dry-bread 
 crumbs and a little scrap of raw meat occasionally ; this 
 last delicacy, you know, was a sort of imitation of 
 worms ! 
 
 Very soon my birdie knew my step, and though he 
 never exactly said so, I am sure he thought it had " uju- 
 
Susie's letters. 163 
 
 sick in't," for as soon as I touched the handle of the 
 door he set up a shriek of joy ! 
 
 " The bird that we nurse is the bird that we love,'' 
 and I soon loved Dick. And the love was not all on one 
 side, for my bonnie bird would sit upon my finger utter- 
 ing complacent little chirps, and when I sang to him in 
 a low voice he would gently peck my hair. 
 
 As he grew on and wanted to use his limbs, I put liini 
 into a largt ricker bonnet-basket, having taken out the 
 lining; it made him a large cheerful airy cage. Of 
 course I had a perch put across it, and he had plenty of 
 white sand and a pan of water ; sometimes I set his bath 
 on the floor of the room, and he delighted in bathing un- 
 til he looked half-drowned ; then what shaking of his 
 feathers, what 'preenimj and arranging there was ! And 
 how happy and clean and comfortable he looked when 
 his toilet was completed ! 
 
 You may be sure that I took him some of the first 
 ripe currants and strawberries, for blackbirds like fruit, 
 and so do boys ! When he was fledged I let him uut in 
 the room, and so he could exercise his wings. It is a 
 curious fact that if I went up to him with my bonnet o^ 
 
164 HORTUS INCLUSUS- 
 
 he did not know me at all, but was in a state of great 
 alarm. 
 
 Blackbirds are wild birds, and do not bear being kept 
 in a cage, not even so well as some other birds do ; and 
 as this bird grew up he was not so tame, and was rather 
 restless. I knew that, though I loved him so much, I 
 ought not to keep him shut up against his will. He was 
 carried down into the garden while the raspberries were 
 ripe, and allowed to fly away; and I have never seen 
 him since. Do you wonder that my eyes filled with 
 tears when he left ? 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Electrotyped by Drummond & Neu, Hague Street, New YorJc, 
 
RUSKIN'S LITTLE WANTS. 
 
 indeed, I rathei- want gfood wishes just 
 now, for T am tormented by what I can 
 not .s:et said nor done, wrote John Rus- 
 kin to Charles Eliot Norton.- I want 
 to get all the Titians. Tintorettl, Paul 
 Veronescs, Turners and Sir Joshuas— 
 in the world— into one great fireproof 
 Gothic gallery of m.arble and serpentine. 
 I want to get them all perfectly en- 
 graved. I want to go and draw all the 
 subjects of Turner's 19,000 sketches m 
 Switzerland and Italy, elaborated by 
 myself. I want to get everybody a din- 
 ner who hasn't got one. I want to mar 
 cadamize some new roads to Heaven 
 with broken fools' heads: I want to hang 
 up some knaves out of the way — not that 
 I've any dislike to them, but I think 
 it would be wholesome for them, and for 
 other people, and that Lhey would make 
 good crow's meat. 
 
 'I want to play all day long and arrange 
 my cabinet of minerals with new white 
 wool; I want somebody to amuse me 
 when I'm tired; I want Turner's pic- 
 tures not to fade; I want to bo able to 
 draw- clouds, and to understand .how, they 
 go— and I can't make theni stand still, 
 nor understand them— they all go side- 
 ways. 
 
 Further, I want to make the Italians 
 industrious, the Americans quiet, the 
 Swiss romantic, the Roman Catholics, 
 rational, and the English Parliament 
 honest — and I can't do anything and 
 don't understand what I was born for.. 
 I get melancholy— overeat myself, over- 
 sleep myself— get pains in the back-^ 
 don't know what to do in anywise. What 
 with that infernal invention of steam, 
 and gunpowder— I think the fools may 
 be a puff or barrel or two too many for 
 us. Nevertheless, the gunpowder has 
 been doing some work in China and In- 
 dia.— Atlantic Monthly. 
 
■' '^Xv^Skv