Part 3
I wonder how the clergymen's wives will feel after the next Fors or two! I've done a bit to-day which I think will go in with a shiver. Do you recollect the curious _thrill_ 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.
[Footnote 14: I've forgotten what it was, and don't feel now as if I had 'got hold' of _any_ one.--J. R.]
[Footnote 15: See "Fors Clavigera", Letter LI.]
* * * * *
BOLTON STRID.
I stopped here to see the Strid again--not seen these many years. It is curious that life is embittered to me, now, by its former pleasantness; while _you_ have of these same places painful recollections, but you could enjoy them now with your whole heart.
Instead of the drive with the poor over-labored one horse through the long wet day, here, when I was a youth, my father and mother brought me,[16] and let me sketch in the Abbey and ramble in the 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 over-burdened cattle; cheerful dinner or tea waiting for me always, on my return from solitary rambles. Everything right and good for me, except only that they never put me through any trials to 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 me, 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 of sorrow and remorse and wonder. Black spirits among the gray, all like a mist between me and the green woods. And I feel like a caterpillar,--stung _just enough_. Foul weather and mist enough, of quite a real kind besides. An hour's sunshine to-day, broken up speedily, and now veiled utterly.
[Footnote 16: In 1837.]
* * * * *
HERNE HILL, LONDON, _11th February, 1875_.
I have your sweet letter with news of Dr. John and his brother. I 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.[17] 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 be 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 the cold heart, and yet accepted, makes it one of the prettiest little hymns I know.
I cannot tell you how very apposite to my work these two feathers are. I am just going to dwell on the exquisite result of the division into successive leaves, by which nature obtains the glittering look to set off her color; 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 color.
How those boys must tease you! but you will be rewarded in the world that good Susies go to.
[Footnote 17: Herrick's. See "Fors Clavigera", Letter XLIII.]
* * * * *
HERNE HILL, _4th October_ (1875).
All your letter is delicious, but chiefest the last sentence where you say you like your Chaucer so much.--And you need never fear touching that wound of mine--It is never more--never less--without its pain. I like you to lay your pure--gentle hand on it.
But I am not despondent or beaten at all, and I'm at work on your peacock's feathers--and oh me, they should be put into some great arch of crystal where one could see them like a large rainbow--I use your dear little lens deep in and in--and can't exhaust their wonderfulness.
* * * * *
HOTEL MEURICE, PARIS, _26th August, '76_.
I'm so very miserable just now that I can't write to you: but I don't want you to think that I am going so far away without wishing to be near you again. A fit of intense despondency coming on the top, or under the bottom, of already far-fallen fatigue leaves me helpless to-day, my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. Oh dear, the one pleasant thing I've to say is that it will make me know the blessings of Brantwood and dearness of the Thwaite, twenty fold more, when I get back.
* * * * *
VENICE, _10th September, '76_.
I am a sad long way from the pretty garden steps of the Thwaite, now, yet in a way, at home, here also--having perhaps more feeling of old days at Venice than at any other place in the world, having done so much work there, and I hope to get my new "Stones of Venice" into almost as nice a form as "Frondes." I'm going to keep all that I think Susie would like, and then to put in some little bits to my own liking, and some other little bits for the pleasure of teasing, and I think the book will come out quite fresh.
I am settled here for a month at least--and shall be very thankful for Susie notes, when they cross the Alps to me in these lovely days.
Love to Mary--I wish I could have sent both some of the dark blue small Veronica I found on the Simplon!
* * * * *
VENICE, _12th 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 principal rooms of one of the chief palaces in the very headmost sweep of the Grand 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).
* * * * *
VENICE, _18th September_ (1876).
I never knew such a fight as the good and wicked fairies are having 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 fine weather and nice gondoliers, and a good cook, and a pleasant waiter; and the bad fairies keep putting everything 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 getting something done in spite of them, only I never _can_ get my letters written.
* * * * *
VENICE, _September 29th_.
I have woeful letters telling me you also were woeful 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 heaven, 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 draw St. Ursula's blue slippers to-day, and if I can't do them nicely shall be in great despair. I've just found a little cunning inscription on her bedpost, 'IN FANNTIA.' The double N puzzled me at first, but Carpaccio spells anyhow. My head is not good enough for a bedpost....Oh me, the sweet Grange!--Thwaite, I mean (bedpost again); to think of it in this mass of weeds and ruin!
* * * * *
ST. URSULA.
VENICE, _13th November_ (1876).
I have to-day your 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 interest, 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 during the two hurried visits with Joan,[18]--my old unfinished work, and the possibilities of its better completion, rise grievously and beguilingly before me, and I have been stretching my hands to the shadow of old designs and striving to fulfill shortcomings, always painful to me, but now, for the moment, intolerable.
I am also approaching the close of the sixth year of Fors, and have 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 violence 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.
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, myself.
[Footnote 18: May 1870 and June 1872.]
* * * * *
ST. MARK'S DOVES.
VENICE, _2d December_ (1876).
I have been very dismal lately. I hope the next captain 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. And here I've no Susies nor Kathleens nor Diddies, 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, among one's feet in St. Mark's Place, and I don't know what it will come to. In old times, when there were not so many idlers about, the doves were used to brisk walkers, and moved away a foot or two in front of one; but now everybody lounges, or stands talking about the Government, and the doves won't stir till one just touches them; and I who walk fast[19] am always expecting to tread on them, and it's a nuisance.
If I only had time I would fain make friends with the sea-gulls, who would be quite like angels if they would only stop on one's balcony. If there were the least bit of truth in Darwinism, Venice would have had her own born sea-gulls by this time building their nests at her thresholds.
[Footnote 19: See "Fors Clavigera", Letter LXXXII.]
* * * * *
VENICE, _11th December_ (1876).
My mouth's watering so for that Thwaite currant jelly, you can't think. I haven't had the least taste of anything of the sort this three months. These wretches of Venetians live on cigars and garlic, and have no taste in their mouths for anything that God makes nice.
The little drawing (returned) is nice in color and feeling, but, which surprises me, not at all intelligent in line. It is not weakness of hand but fault of perspective instinct, which spoils so many otherwise 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 Coniston _has_ faults.
* * * * *
ST. MARK'S REST.
_23d January, 1877_.
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 chiseling 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, _I_ am!)
My new Catholic history of Venice is to be called "St. Mark's Rest."
* * * * *
_27th January_ (1877).
Joanie tells me you are writing her such sad little letters. How _can_ it be that any one 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 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 will be plenty.
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.
* * * * *
VENICE, _4th February, 1877_.
Your praise and sympathy do me double good, because you could not praise me so nicely and brightly without pleasure of your own. I'm always sure a Fors will be good if I feel it will please Susie;--but I can only write them now as they're given me; it all depends on what I'm about. But I'm doing a great deal just now which you will enjoy--I'm thankful to say, I know you will. St. Theodore's horse is delightful[20]--and our Venetian doggie--and some birds are coming too! This is not a letter--but just a purr.
[Footnote 20: St. Theodore had a contest with a Dragon, and his horse gave considerable help, trampling it down with its four feet. The Saint spoke first to the horse as to a man--"Oh thou horse of Christ comfort thee, be strong like a man, and come that we may conquer the contrary enemy." See "Fors," vol. vii. also "St. Mark's Rest,"]
* * * * *
SAINTS AND FLOWERS.
VENICE, _17th February_ (1877).
It is very grievous to me to hear of your being in that woeful weather while I have two days' sunshine out of three, and starlight or moonlight always; to-day the whole chain of the Alps from Vicenza to Trieste shining cloudless all day long, and the sea-gulls floating 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 wonderful 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 Coniston? 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, 1877_.
That is entirely new and wonderful to me about the singing mouse.[21] Douglas (was it the Douglas?) saying "he had rather hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak" needs revision. It is a marvelous fact in natural 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!
[Footnote 21: A pleasant story that a friend sent me from France. The mouse often came into their sitting-room and actually sang to them, the notes being a little like a canary's.--S. B.]
* * * * *
VENICE, _15th May, 1877_.
I've not tumbled into the lagoons, nor choked myself in a passion, nor gone and made a monk of myself--nor got poisoned by the Italian cooks.
I'm packing up, and coming to the Thwaite as soon as ever I can--after a little Alpine breathing of high air.
I'm pretty well--if you'll forgive me for being so naughty--else I can't be even plain well--but I'm always your loving----
[Transcriber's Note: no ending to the sentence here.]
* * * * *
OXFORD, _2d December_ (1877).
I write first to you this morning to tell you that I gave yesterday the twelfth and last[22] of my course of lectures this term, to a room crowded by six hundred people, two-thirds members of the University, and 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 favorite bits interested the men so much, and brought so much larger a proportion of undergraduates than usual, that I took pains to reinforce and press them home; and people say I have never given so useful a course yet. 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[23] 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. My grateful compliments to the peacock. And little (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 their nests.
[Footnote 22: An Oxford Lecture. _Nineteenth Century_, January, 1878.]
[Footnote 23: Decorative art of his plumage.--J. R.]
* * * * *
HERNE HILL, _Sunday, 16th December_ (1877).
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 out of a door any more. I have the dimmest sort of diabolical pleasure in thinking 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,[24] and, besides, I know it all by heart. I sent from town for some chivalric 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 such a person as I had ever existed. I read a lot of games of chess out of Mr. Staunton's handbook, and couldn't understand any of them. I analyzed 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. _L1 8s. 6d._ 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 sunrisings and settings. But I'll send you word every day now for a little while how things are going on.
[Footnote 24: "May I ask you to correct a false impression which any of your readers who still care to know my opinions would receive from the reference to Dickens in your kind notice of my letters to Miss Beever....I have not the letters here, and forget what I said about my Pickwick's not amusing me when I was ill, but it always does, to this hour, when I am well; though I have known it by heart, pretty nearly all, since it came out; and I love Dickens with every bit of my heart, and sympathize in everything he thought or tried to do, except in his effort to make more money by readings which killed him." _Letter to "Daily Telegraph", Sandgate, January 4, 1888._]
* * * * *
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD, _26th December, 1877_.
I don't know really whether I _ought_ to be at Brantwood or here on Christmas. Yesterday I had two lovely services in my own cathedral. You 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, you 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 anthems were lovely; and then I dined with Henry Acland and his family, where I am an adopted son,--all the more wanted yesterday because the favorite son Herbert died this year 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, I think; but I do wish I could be at Brantwood too.
Oh dear, I've scribbled this dreadfully. Can you really read my scribble, Susie? Love, you may always read, however scribbled.
* * * * *
OXFORD, _27th December_, 1877.