Hortus Inclusus Part 16

I am better, but not right yet. There is no fear of sore throat, I think, but some of prolonged tooth worry. It is more stomachic than coldic, I believe, and those tea cakes are too crisply seductive! What _can_ it be, that subtle treachery that lurks in tea cakes, and is wholly absent in the rude honesty of toast?

The metaphysical effect of tea cake last night was, that I had a perilous and weary 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.

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 parlor-maid's (an old school-mistress) "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 landlord won't mend the roof of), by the light of a single tallow candle--dying, I say, _slowly_, of consumption, not yet near the end, but contemplating it with sorrow, mixed partly with fear, lest 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 fire and dry roof, and Susie and Joanie for friends!

Oh me, Susie, what _is_ to become of me in the next world, who have in this life all my good things!

What a sweet, careful, tender letter this is! I re-inclose it at once for fear of mischief, though I've scarcely read, for indeed my eyes are weary, but I see what gentle 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,--obliged to read even my Homer and Shakespeare at a scramble, half missing the sense,--the business of life disturbs one so.

HERNE HILL.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plan of Ruskin's room]

Here's your letter first thing in the morning, while I'm sipping my coffee in the midst of such confusion as I've not often achieved at my best. The little room, which I think is as nearly as possible the size of your study, but with a lower roof, has to begin with--A, my bed; B, my basin stand; C, my table; D, my chest of drawers; thus arranged in relation to E, the window (which has still its dark bars to prevent the little boy getting out); F, the fireplace; G, the golden or mineralogical cupboard; and H, the grand entrance. The two dots with a back represent my chair, which is properly solid and not _un_-easy.

Three others of lighter disposition find place somewhere about. These with the chimney-piece and drawer's head 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 horizon line)--at Sarah's hope and mine, of ever getting that room into order by twelve o'clock. The chimney-piece with its bottles, spoons, lozenge boxes, matches, candlesticks, and letters jammed behind them, does appear to me entirely hopeless, and this the more because Sarah,[45] when I tell her to take a bottle away that has a mixture in it which I don't like, looks me full in the face, and says "she _won't_, because I may want it." I submit, because it is so nice to get Sarah to look one full in the 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.

[Footnote 45: Our Herne Hill parlor-maid for four years. One of quite the brightest and handsomest types of English beauty I ever saw, either in life, or fancied in painting.--J. R.]

I am quite sure you would have felt like Albert Durer, had you gone on painting wrens.

The way Nature and Heaven waste the gifts and souls they give and make, pa.s.ses all wonder. You might have done anything you chose, only you were too modest.

No, I never _will_ call you my dear lady; certainly, if it comes to that, something too dreadful will follow.

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 pa.s.sionately sensual 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 contains 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 Chaucer. Don't hurry in reading. I will get you an 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 really 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 _has_ been even in this sad year! I have seen beauty enough in one afternoon, not a fortnight ago, to last me for a year if I could rejoice in memory.

I have a painter friend, Mr. Goodwin, coming to keep me company, and I'm a little content in this worst of rainy days, in hopes there _may_ be now some clearing for him.

Our little kittens pa.s.s 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! and yet with all my indoor advantages

I am your sorrowful and repining J. R.

I am entirely grateful for your letter, and for all the sweet feelings expressed in it, and am entirely reverent of the sorrow which 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 superst.i.tiously read, becoming the authority for every error and heresy and cruelty. To make its readers understand that the G.o.d 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 messages 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 would make such a difference to our natural and easy understanding the range of texts.

The peac.o.c.k's feathers are marvelous. I am very glad to see them. I never had any of their downy ones before. My compliments to the bird, upon them, please.

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 must not copy out the Richard bits, for I like all my Richard alike from beginning to end. Yes, my "seed pearl" bit is pretty, I admit; it was like the thing. The cascades here, I'm afraid, come down more like seed oatmeal.

I believe in my hasty answer to your first kind letter I never noticed what you said about Aristophanes. If you will indeed send me some notes of the pa.s.sages that interest you 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 peac.o.c.k's feather, will you yet send it to me, and I will be always your most grateful and faithful

J. R.

HERNE HILL.

What translation of Aristophanes is that? I must get it. I've lost I can't tell you how much knowledge and power through false pride in refusing to read translations, though I couldn't read the original without more trouble and time than I could spare; nevertheless, you must not think this English gives you 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 words are fewer, and have fuller flavor; this English is to him what currant jelly 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 c.h.i.n.k, 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.