Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books Part 18

voyage! Or we can go for a shorter period and come home by rail. It won't cost us much.

[Footnote 38: "A Great Emergency," vol. xi.]

I am so glad to think of you in the dear _Old_--_New_ Forest.

Now mind you come--if only to see my Nelson (bureau) Relic!! It is such a comfort to me and _my papers_!

Ever your most loving sister, J.H.E.

TO MRS. ELDER.

_X Lines, South Camp._ August 7, 1874.

MY DEAR AUNT HORATIA,

I have begged the Tiger Tom for you!

He is the handsomest I ever saw, with such a head! His name is _Peter_. [_Sketch._]

Nothing--I a.s.sure you, can exceed his beauty--or the depth of his stripes....

If I had not too many cats already I should have adopted Peter long ago. We always quote William Blake's poem to him when we see him prowling about our garden.

"Tiger! Tiger! burning bright, In the forest of the night, What immortal Hand and Eye Framed thy fearful symmetry?"

Do you remember it?

I feel _quite a wretch_ not to like your "Ploughman"[39] as well as usual. There is always poetry in your things, but TO ME the _spirit_ of this one has not quite that reality which is the highest virtue of "a sentiment"--or at least its greatest strength. But I may be wrong. Only that kind of constant lifting of the soul from the labour of daily drudgery to the Father of our spirits seems to me one of the highest, latest, and most refined Christian Graces in natures farthest removed from "the ape and tiger," and most at leisure for contemplative worship. I know there are exceptions. Rural contemplative saints among shepherds and ploughmen. But that the agricultural labourer as a type seeks "Nature's G.o.d" at the plough-tail and in the bosom of his family I fear is _not_ the case--and it would be very odd if poverty and ignorance did lead to such results, even in the advantages of an "open-air" life. Perhaps Burns knew such a Cottar on Sat.u.r.day Nights as he painted--he wasn't _sick_ himself! unless you interpret _a neet wi' Burns_ by that poem!--and there has been one contemplative Shepherd on Salisbury Plain--though the proverb says--

"Salisbury Plain Is seldom without a thief or twain."

--_not_ I believe supposed to refer to highwaymen!! and agricultural labourers stand (among trades) statistically high (or low!) for the crime of murder.

[Footnote 39: Sonnet by H.S. Elder, _Aunt Judy's Magazine_.]

But I won't inflict any more rigmarole on you, because of an obstinate conviction _in my inside_ that dear Mother was right in the idea that it is the learned--not the ignorant--who wonder, and that the ploughman feels no wonder at all in the glory of the rising sun--though YOUR mind might overflow with awe and admiration.

As to the last verse--that a "cot" should ever be "cheerful" which "serves him for" washhouse, kitchen, nursery and all--is a triumph of the "softening influence of use"--and I concede it to you! But where "he reigns as a king his toils forgot" is, I am convinced, at the Black Bull with highly-drugged beer!!!!!!

Now am I _not_ a Brute?

And yet it is _very_ pretty, and--strange to say--the cla.s.s to whom I believe it would be acceptable, is the cla.s.s of whom I believe it is not (typically) true, and PERHAPS it is good for every cla.s.s to have an _ideal_ of its own circ.u.mstances before its eyes. But I don't think it is good for rich people's children to grow up with the belief that twelve shillings a week, and cider and a pig, are the wisest and happiest earthly circ.u.mstances in which humanity with large families can be placed for their temporal and spiritual progress. I don't think it ever leads to a wish in the young Squire to exchange with Hodge for the good of his own soul, but I think it fosters a fixed conviction that Hodge has nothing to complain of, _plus_ being placed at a particular advantage as to his eternal concerns.

Will you ever forgive me? I like the descriptive parts so much, the "rival c.o.c.ks at dawn"--the "autumn's mist and spring's soft rain," the team that "turn in their trace in the furrow's face," and the life-like descriptions in verse 4. It is as true to one's observation as it is graceful....

Your loving niece, J.H.E.

TO A.E.

_Ecclesfield._ May 14, 1876.

[_Sketch._] Do you remember Whitley Hall? I used to be so fond of the place when I was a child, and no one lived there but an old woman--old Esther Woodhouse--with a face like an ideal witch--at the lodge. As you know I always hated _writing down_--but long before I accomplished a tale on paper I wrote a novel _in my head_ to Whitley Hall, and used to walk about in the wood there, by the pond--_to think it_!

_York._ February 23, 1879.

... Yesterday was sunny though cold, and I had a delicious drive to Escrick and Naburn. Oh, it _does_ send thrills of delight through me, when the hay-coloured hedge-gra.s.s begins to mix itself with green, and the hedges have a very brown-madderish tint in the sun, and all the trunks of all the old trees are far greener than the fields, and the earth is turned over, and the rooks hold Parliaments.

[_York._] Easter Day, 1879.

... I went to Church at S. John's, Mr. Wilberforce's Church; I had never been in it. That window with S. Christopher, and those strange representations of the Trinity, and the five Master Yorkes kneeling all in blue on one side, and their four sisters on the other, is very wonderful. One of the most wonderful. How fascinating these dear old churches are! Mr. Wilberforce has a fine voice, a most rich and flexible baritone, and sings ballads with a great deal of taste and expression. I shall for ever love York and its marble-white walls and dear old churches, but "Benedetta sia 'l giorno e 'l mese e 'l anno,"

when you set your face with your black poodle towards the island called Melita! This north-east wind which still blows _cruelly_ would have made you very ill, I think....

I must tell you of another thing. On Thursday I went to the Blind School to a concert. I went rather against my will, for you know I was sadly impressed before by their _very_ unhealthy and miserable look, but oh, dear, they do sing well! and it was very affecting. One of the Barnbys teaches them. They have a good organ, and one of the blind men played very well. They sang very refinedly. No doubt they are well taught, but no doubt also the sense of hearing is delicate with them....

_Frimhurst._ April 18, 1879.

I got here safely yesterday, though I had a horrid headache on Wednesday, and expected to arrive here in very bad condition. I felt rather bad yesterday morning, but as I drew near, marvellous to relate, my headache went away! Oh! I thought so much of you, as the misty network of pines against the sky--the stretches of moor--the flashes of the ca.n.a.l--and all the dear familiar Heimath Land came nearer and nearer....

It is still "chill April" even here, but wonderfully different from Yorkshire. Sunshine--and green things so much more forward--and birds singing their very throats out.

"Lion," the mastiff, I am rather frightened of, but he loves me and gives me paws over and over again. He is pawing me now and will interrupt.

April 22.

The weather is intensely cold again, though nothing can make this country quite dreary--but cold it is! Still there are all the dear old features, I did not know the Mitchett side (of the Frimhurst bridge) of the ca.n.a.l; but I have been a good way down getting water-weeds--but of course you know it well. It is curiously like bits of the S. John [New Brunswick] River. One could almost see birch-bark canoes at points.

To-day the Jelfs came. It was an affecting meeting, our first since he was so ill in Cyprus, and he said, "It used to seem so little likely one would ever again see the old faces."... He spoke at once about your calling this country Heimath Land, saying it seemed the very word.

I am going on Thursday to stay with the Jelfs till Monday; I shall be so thankful to get a Sunday in the old Tin Tabernacle.

_K Lines, South Camp, Heimath Land._ April 25.