Hortus Inclusus Part 5

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 G.o.d 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 peac.o.c.k'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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 princ.i.p.al rooms of one of the chief palaces in the very headmost sweep of the Grand Ca.n.a.l 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 ma.s.s 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. .h.i.therto 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.