Hortus Inclusus Part 8

I am arranging the caryophylls, which I ma.s.s broadly into "Clarissa,"

the true jagged-leaved and clove-scented ones; "Lychnis," those whose leaves are essentially in two lobes; "Arenaria," which I leave untouched; and "Mica," a new name of my own for the pearlworts of which the French name is to be Miette, and the representative type (now Sagina proc.u.mbens) is to be in--

_Latin_--Mica amica.

_French_--Miette l'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 which I can copy. Hunting 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 the 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 Susan Beever. To the kindness of this young lady, and that of her sister, Miss Mary Beever, I am indebted for the four plants figured in this number."

I have copied lest you should have trouble in looking for the book, but now, you darling Susie, please tell me whether I may not separate these lovely pearlworts wholly from the spergulas,--by the pearlworts having only two leaves like real pinks at the joints, and the spergulas, a _cl.u.s.ter_; 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 cla.s.sification of the minerals in the Sheffield Museum, important as the first practical arrangement ever yet attempted for popular teaching, and this with my other work makes me fit for nothing in the 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[26] of "Proserpina," or with its ignorances. I am going during my wood-chopping really to ascertain in my own way what simple persons ought to know about tree growth, and give it clearly in the next number. I meant to do the whole book very differently, but can only now give the fragmentary pieces as they chance to come, or it would never be done at all.

You must know before anybody else how the exogens are to be completely divided. I keep the four great useful groups, mallow, geranium, mint, and wallflower, under the head of domestic orders, that their sweet service and companionship with us may be understood; 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, h.e.l.lebores, ivies, and forget-me-nots.

What plants I cannot get ranged under these 12+4+2+7==25 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 particular and coolest of cranberry minds; and then each of us choosing a little special bed of bog, the tufts were deeply put in 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.

[Footnote 26: Part 5.]

BRANTWOOD.

I hope you did not get a chill in the garden. The weather is a little wrong again, but I am thankful for last night's sunset.

You know our English Bible is only of James 1st time--Stalk is a Saxon word, and gets into English I fancy as early as the Plantagenets--but I have not hunted it down.--I'm just in the same mess with "pith," but I'm finding out a great deal about the thing though not the word, for next "Deucalion," in chopping my wood.

You know, "Funckia" won't last long. I am certain I shall have strength enough to carry my system of nomenclature at least as far, as to exclude people's individual names.

I won't even have a "Susia"--stay--that's Christian--yes, I will have a Susia. But not a "Beeveria," though----

TO MISS 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 refusing to admit, that such calamities[27] may be used to point a moral (all useful morality having every point that G.o.d 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 out that all concealments, even of trivial matters, on the part of young servants from kind mistresses, are dangerous no less than unkind and ungenerous, and that a great deal of preaching respecting the evil nature of man and the anger of G.o.d might be spared, if children and servants were only taught, as a religious principle, to tell their mothers and mistresses, when they 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 checking, the current of such thoughts in your minds; and I am in hopes that you may have a little pleasure in examining the plates in the volume of Sibthorpe's "F. Graeca" which I send to-day, in comparison 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 Sibthorpe, by a young German, were as exquisite as the Dane's, but the English engraver and colorist spoiled all.

I will send you, if you like them, the other volumes in succession. I find immense interest in comparing the Greek and Danish forms or conditions of the same English flower.

I send the second volume, in which the Rufias are lovely, and scarcely come under my above condemnation. The _first_ is nearly all of gra.s.s.

[Footnote 27: One of our younger servants had gone on to the frozen lake; the ice gave way, and she was drowned.--S. B.]

BRANTWOOD, _4th February_ (1879).

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 gra.s.s of Epidote inside, which is like what my 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 green weedy brooches out of, and a nice mouse-colored natural agate, and a great black and white one, stained with sulphuric acid, black but very fine always, and interesting 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; you hear all they say, I'm sure.

I cannot tell you how delighted I am with your lovely gift to Joanie.

The perfection of the stone, its exquisite color, 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 bedecked with, and it is as if Susie had given her a piece of Coniston Water itself.

And the setting is delicious, and positively must not be altered. I shall come on Sunday to thank you myself for it. Meantime I'm working hard at the Psalter, which I am almost sure Susie will like.

BRANTWOOD.

I am so very glad you like Sir Philip so much.

I've sent for, and hope to get him for you. He was shot before he had done half his Psalter--His sister finished it, but very meanly in comparison, you can tell the two hands on the harp at a mile off.

The photograph--please say--like all photos whatsoever, is only nature dirtied and undistanced.--If that is all one wants in trees,--they might be dead all the year round.

_25th May_ (1879).

This is a most wonderful stone that Dr. Kendall has found--at least to _me_. I have never seen anything quite like it, the arborescent forms of the central thread of iron being hardly ever a.s.sumed by an ore of so much metallic l.u.s.ter. 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; might I come and ask about it on Dr. Kendall's next visit to you? I could be there waiting for him any day.