Part 5
We have had the most marvelous 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 hold the pen, but tumble back into the chair every half minute and unbutton another button of waistcoat, and gasp a little, and nod a little, and wink a little, and sprinkle some eau de Cologne a little, and try a little to write a little, and forget what I had to say, and where I was, and whether it's Susie or Joan I'm writing 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 find 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 am so sorry to have crushed this inclosed scrawl. It has been carried about in my pocket to be finished, and I see there's no room for the least bit of love at the bottom. So here's a leaf full from the Bois de Boulogne, which is very lovely; and we drive about by night or day, as if all the sky were only the roof of a sapphire palace set with warm stars.
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CHARTRES, _8th September_ (1880). (_Hotel du Grande Monarque._)
I suppose _I'm_ 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. Anyhow, I'm having everything my own way just now,--weather, dinner, news from Joanie and news from Susie, only I don't like her to be so very, 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 gaining knowledge faster than ever I could when I was young.
This is just to say where I am, and that you might know where to write.
The cathedral here is the grandest in France, and I stay a week at least.
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CHARTRES, _13th September_ (1880)
I must be back in England by the 1st October, and by the 10th shall be myself ready to start for Brantwood, 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[29] 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 the market groups exquisite, but our enjoyment of the fair is subdued by pity for a dutiful dog, who turns a large wheel (by walking up it inside) the whole afternoon, 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.
[Footnote 29: Rousseau, Shelley, Byron, Turner, and John Ruskin.]
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PARIS, _18th September_, 1880.
What a _very_ sad little letter, and how very naughty of my little Susie to be sad because there are still six weeks to the end of October! How thankful should we both be to have six weeks still before us of the blessed bright autumn days, with their quiet mildnesses in the midst of northern winds; and that these six weeks are of the year 1880--instead of '81 or '82--and that we both can read, and think, and see flowers and skies, and be happy in making each other happy. _What_ a naughty little Susie, to want to throw any of her six weeks away!
I've just sealed in its envelope for post the most important Fors I have yet written, addressed to the Trades Unions,[30] and their committees are to have as many copies as they like free, for distribution, free (dainty packets of Dynamite). I suspect I shall get into hot water with _some_ people for it. Also I've been afraid myself, to set it all down, for once! But down it is, and out it shall come! and there's a nice new bit of article for the _Nineteenth Century_, besides anyhow I keep you in reading, Susie--do you know it's a very bad compliment to me that you find time pass so slowly!
I wonder why you gave me that little lecture about being "a city on a hill." I don't want to be anything of the sort, and I'm going to-night to see the Fille du Tambour-Major at the Folies Dramatiques.
[Footnote 30: "Fors," vol. viii., Letter 5.]
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BRANTWOOD, _16th February, 1881_.
I've much to tell you "to-day"[31] 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, if you are not. Love to Mary, to Miss Rigbye, and my own St. Ursula,[32] and mind you give the messages _to all three, heartily_.
[Footnote 31: The motto on Mr. Ruskin's seal. See "Praeterita", vol. ii.,]
[Footnote 32: Photograph of Carpaccio's.]
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BRANTWOOD, _22d April, 1881_.
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 German 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.
I send you Spenser; perhaps you had better begin with the Hymn to Beauty, page 39, and 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,[33] for having brought back the light to your eyes.
[Footnote 33: For a present to Dr. Kendall.]
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BRANTWOOD, _12th July, 1881_.
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![34] I do not know it myself. 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 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 I can't pull myself over it.
I was looking at your notes on birds yesterday. How sweet they are! But I can't forgive that young blackbird for getting wild again.[35]
[Footnote 34: I learnt the whole of it by heart, and could then say it without a break. I have always loved it, and in return it has helped me through many a long and sleepless night.--S. B.]
[Footnote 35: Pages 101 _et seqq._]
* * * * *
_Last Day of 1881. And the 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 gold, and golden sand, and dark tresses, and purple shadows and moors and mists and night and starlight, and woods and wilds and dells and deeps, and every mystery of heaven and its finger work, is in those little birds' backs and wings. I am so grateful. All love and joy to you, and wings to fly with and birds' hearts to comfort, and mine, be to you in the coming year.
* * * * *
_Easter Day_, 1882.
I have had a happy Easter morning, entirely bright in its sun and clear in sky; and with renewed strength enough to begin again the piece of St. Benedict's life 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 lessoning; but I _have_ learnt it, from these repeated dreams and fantasies, that we walk in a vain shadow and disquiet ourselves in vain. So I am for the present, everybody says, quite good, and give as little trouble as possible; but people _will_ take it, you know, sometimes, even when I don't give it, and there's a great fuss about me yet. But _you_ 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 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.
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HERNE HILL, _8th June_ (1882).
You write as well as ever, and the eyes must surely be better, and it was a joyful amazement to me to hear that Mary was able to read and could enjoy my child's botany. You always have things before other people; will you please send me some rosemary and lavender as soon as any are out? I am busy on the 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 really think now of anything but flirting, and I'm only much the worse for it afterwards.
And I'm generally wicked and weary, like the people who ought to be put to rest. But you'd miss me, and so would Joanie; so I suppose I shall be let stay a little while longer.
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SALLANCHES, SAVOY, _13th September_ (1882).
I saw Mont Blanc again to-day, unseen since 1877; and was very thankful. It is a sight that always redeems me to what I am capable of at my poor little best, and to what loves and memories are most precious to me. So I write to _you_, one of the few true loves left. The snow has fallen fresh on the hills, and it makes me feel that I must soon be seeking shelter at Brantwood and the Thwaite.
* * * * *
GENOA, _Sunday, 24th September_ (1882).
I got your delightful note yesterday at Turin, and it made me wish to run back through the tunnel directly instead of coming on here. But I had a wonderful day, the Alps clear all the morning all round Italy--two hundred miles of them; and then in the afternoon blue waves of the Gulf of Genoa breaking like blue clouds, thunderclouds, under groves of olive and palm. But I wished they were my sparkling waves of Coniston instead, when I read your letter again.
What a gay Susie, receiving all the world, like a Queen Susan (how odd one has never heard of a Queen Susan!), only you _are_ so naughty, and you never do tell me of any of those nice girls when they're _coming_, but only when they're gone, and I never shall get glimpse of them as long as I live.
But you know you really represent the entire Ruskin school of the Lake Country, and I think these _levees_ of yours must be very amusing and enchanting; but it's very dear and good of you to let the people come and enjoy themselves, and how really well and strong you must be to be able for it.
I am very glad to hear of those sweet, shy girls, poor things.[36] I suppose the sister they are now anxious about is the one that would live by herself on the other side of the Lake, and study Emerson and aspire to Buddhism.
I'm trying to put my own poor little fragmentary Ism into a rather more connected form of imagery. I've never quite set myself up enough to impress _some_ people; and I've written so much that I can't quite make out what I am myself, nor what it all comes to.
[Footnote 36: Florence, Alice, and May Bennett. Florence is gone. Alice and May still sometimes at Coniston, D.G. (March 1887).--J. R.
"One Companion, ours no more, sends you I doubt not Christmas greeting from her Home,--Florence Bennett. Of her help to us during her pure brief life, and afterwards, by her father's fulfillment of her last wishes, you shall hear at another time."--_Fors Clavigera_, vol. viii.]
* * * * *
TO MISS BEEVER.
_10th January, 1883._
I cannot tell you how grateful and glad I am, to have your lovely note and to know that the Bewick gave you pleasure, and that you are so entirely well now, as to enjoy anything requiring so much energy and attention to this degree. For indeed I can scarcely now take pleasure myself in things that give me the least trouble to look at, but I know that the pretty book and its chosen wood-cuts ought to be sent to you, first of all my friends (I have not yet thought of sending it to any one else), and I am quite put in heart after a very despondent yesterday, passed inanely, in thinking of what I _couldn't_ do, by feeling what you _can_, and hoping to share the happy Christmas time with you and Susie in future years. Will you please tell my dear Susie I'm going to bring over a drawing to show! (so thankful that I am still able to draw after these strange and terrible illnesses) this afternoon. I am in hopes it may clear, but dark or bright I'm coming, about half past three, and am ever your and her most affectionate and faithful servant.
* * * * *
_24th September, 1884._
I wandered literally "up and down" your mountain garden--(how beautifully the native rocks slope to its paths in the sweet evening light, Susiesque light!)--with great happiness and admiration, as I went home, and I came indeed upon what I conceived to be--discovered in the course of recent excavations--two deeply interesting thrones of the ancient Abbots of Furness, typifying their humility in that the seats thereof were only level with the ground between two clusters of the earth; contemplating cyclamen, and their severity of penance, in the points of stone prepared for the mortification of their backs; but truly, Susie's seat of repose and meditation I was unable as yet to discern, but propose to myself further investigation of that apple-perfumed paradise, and am ever your devoted and enchanted
[Transcriber's Note: no ending to the sentence here.]
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OXFORD, _1st December_ (1884).
I gave my fourteenth, and last for this year, lecture this afternoon with vigor and effect, and am safe and well (D.G.), after such a spell of work as I never did before. I have been thrown a week out in all my plans, by having to write two new Lectures, instead of those the University was frightened at. The scientists slink out of my way now, as if I was a mad dog, for I let them have it hot and heavy whenever I've a chance at them.
But as I said, I'm a week late, and though I start for the North this day week, I can't get home till this day fortnight at soonest, but I hope not later than to-morrow fortnight. Very thankful I shall be to find myself again at the little room door.
Fancy Mary Gladstone forgiving me even that second _naughtiness_![37] She's going to let me come to see her this week, and to play to me, which is a great comfort.
[Footnote 37: The first attack on Mr. Gladstone is in "Fors", September, 1875, the apology and withdrawal in "Fors", February, 1878. The second "naughtiness" will be found in "Arrows of the Chace", Vol. II., and a final attack is made in an interview in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, 21st April, 1884. The subject is summarized in an article in the _Daily News_ of 4th July, 1898.]
* * * * *
ST. SUSIE, _27th November, 1885_.
Behold Athena and Apollo both come to bless you on your birthday, and all the buds of the year to come, rejoice with you, and your poor cat[38] is able to purr again, and is extremely comfortable and even cheerful "to-day." And we will make more and more of all the days, won't we, and we will burn our candle at both beginnings instead of both ends, every day beginning two worlds--the old one to be lived over again, the new to learn our golden letters in. Not that I mean to write books in that world. I hope to be set to do something, there; and what lovely "receptions" you will have in your little heavenly Thwaite, and celestial teas! And you won't spoil the cream with hot water, will you, any more?
The whole village is enjoying itself, I hear, and the widows and orphans to be much the better for it, and altogether, you and I have a jolly time of it, haven't we?
[Footnote 38: J. R.]
* * * * *
_20th February, 1886._
I haven't had anything nice to send you this ever so long, but here's a little bird's nest of native silver which you could almost live in as comfortably as a 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.
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BRANTWOOD, _1st March, 1886_.
Yes, I knew you would like that silver shrine! and it _is_ an extremely rare and perfect specimen. But you need not be afraid in handling it; if the little bit of spar does come off it, or out of it, no matter.
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 use of it.
Your mornings' ministry to the birds must be remembered for you by the angels who paint their feathers. They will all, one day, be birds of Paradise, and say, when the adverse angel accuses you of being naughty to _some_ people, "But we were hungry and she gave us corn, and took care that nobody else ate it."
I am indeed thankful you are better. But you must please tell me what the thing was I said which gave you so much pain. Do you recollect also what the little bit in "Proserpina" was that said so much to you? Were you not thinking of "Fors"?
* * * * *
I am very thankful for all your dear letters always--greatly delighted above all with the squirrel one, and Chaucer. Didn't he love squirrels![39] and don't I wish I was a squirrel in Susie's pear trees, instead of a hobbling disconsolate old man, with no teeth to bite, much less crack, anything, and particularly forbidden to eat nuts!
[Footnote 39:
"And many squireles, that sett Ful high upon the trees and ete And in his maner made festys." "The Dethe of Blaunche," 430.]
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