Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books Part 33

My garden is great joy to me. Even you, I think, would allow me a moderate amount of "grubbing" in between brain work.

TO MRS. GOING.

Thursday (December 1883).

MY DEAR MRS. GOING,

You are too profusely good to me. Have you really _given me_ Quarles?

I have never even seen his _School of the Heart_, and am charmed with it. The Hieroglyphics of the life of Man were in the very old copy of _Emblems_ belonging to my Mother which I have known all my life.

Thank you a thousand times.

I write for a seemingly ungracious purpose, but I know you will comprehend my infirmities! I am not at all well. I had hoped to be better by the time your young ladies came--but luck (and I fear a little chill in the garden!) have been against me. I tried to get _Macbeth_ deferred but it could not be--and I think my only hope of enduring a long drive, and appearing as Lady Macbeth on Sat.u.r.day evening with any approach to "undaunted mettle"--is to shut myself up in absolute silence and rest for several hours before we start. This, alas! means that it would be better for your young ladies (what is left of them, after brain f.a.g and fish dinners!) to return to you by an earlier train, as I could be "no account" to them on Sat.u.r.day afternoon.

_I'll take care_ of _the poor students_ though I _am_ not at my best!

Their fish is ordered. We will spend a soothing evening on sofas and easy chairs--and go early to bed! They shall have breakfast in bed if they like. This does not sound amusing but I think it will be wholesome for their relics!

Again thanking you for the dear little book--which comes in so nicely for Advent!

TO MRS. R.H. JELF.

DEAREST MARNY,

The Queers' letters are VERY nice. Thank them with my love.

Forgive pencil, dear--I'm in bed. Got rid of my throat--and now all my "body and bones" seem to have given way, I thought it was lumbago or sciatica--but Rex said--"Simply nerve exhaustion from over-writing"--so I took to bed (for I couldn't walk!), high living and quinine! I hope I'll soon be round again. The vile body is a nuisance. I've got a story in my head--and that seems to take the vital force out of my legs!!!

Apropos to Richard's _Churchwarden's_ conscience, does he remember the (possibly churchwarden!) "soul long hovering in fear and doubt"--in a Kempis, who prostrated himself in prayer and groaned--"Oh if I only _knew that I should persevere_!" To whom came the answer of G.o.d--"If thou _didst_ know it, what wouldst thou do then? Continue to _do that_ and thou shalt be safe."

His letter and yours were _very_ comforting. I was just feeling very low about my writing. I always do when I have to re-read for new editions! It does seem such twaddle--and so unlike what I want to say!

Thank you greatly for believing in me!

Your loving, J.H.E.

TO MRS. HOWARD.

_Villa Ponente, Taunton._ Jan. 18, 1884.

MY DEAR MRS. HOWARD,

In this Green Winter (and _you_ know how I love a Green Winter!) you and all your kindness comes back so often to my mind. "Grenoside" is a closed leaf in my life as well as in yours, but it is one that I shall never forget so long as I can remember any of the things that have mitigated the pains of life for me, or added to its pleasures!--The bits of Green Winter I enjoyed with you did both--I hardly know which the most! For the pleasure was very great, and the benefit immeasurable--though now a fair amount of strength and "all my faculties" have come back to me, I feel what a very tedious companion I must have been when _vegetating_ was all I was fit for, and I did such delightful vegetating between your sofa--and Greno Wood.

I want to tell you that I have some bits of you in what does the work of Greno Wood for me here--namely, my little patch of garden, looking out upon, what I call _my_ big fields. For some time I feared the said bits were not going to live, but they have now, I really think, got grip of the ground. They are those offshoots of your American Bramble which you gave to me. And, ere long, I hope to sow a little paper of your poppy seed, and--if two years' keeping has not destroyed its vitality--I may, perchance, send you some of your own poppies to deck your London rooms. You cannot think--or rather I have no doubt that you can!--the refreshment my bit of garden is to me. It has become so dear, that (like an ugly face one loves and ceases to see plain!)--I find it so charming that it is _with a start_ that I recognize that new friends see no beauty in--

[_Sketch._]

This four-square patch!!

But A and B are "beds," and there are borders under the brick walls, and a rose-growing admirer of "Laetus" made a pilgrimage to see me!--and brought me nineteen grand climbing roses--and wall S faces _nearly quite_ south, and on it grow Marechal Niel, and Cloth of Gold, and Charles Lefebvre, and Triomphe de Rennes, and a Banksia and Souvenir de la Malmaison, and Cheshunt Hybrid, and a bit of the old Ecclesfield summer white rose--sent by Undine--and some Pa.s.sion Flowers from dear old Miss Child in Derbyshire--and a _Wistaria_ which the old lady of _the lodgings_ we were in when we first came, tore up, and gave to me, with various other _oddments_ from her garden!

and--the American Bramble! And also, by the bye, a very lovely rose, "Fortune's Yellow,"--given to me by a friend in Hampshire.

Major Ewing declares my borders are "so full _there is no room for more_" which is very nasty of him!--but I have been very lucky in preserving, and even multiplying, the various contributions my bare patch has been blessed with! D. sent me a _barrel_ of bits last autumn from the Vicarage, and Reginald sent me an excellent hamper from Bradfield, and Col. Yeatman sent me a hamper from Wiltshire, and several friends here have given me odds and ends, and our old friend Miss Sulivan, before she went abroad, sent me a farewell memorial of sweet things--Lavender, Rosemary, Cabbage Rose, Moss Rose, and Jessamine!!!--Oh! talking of sweet things, I must tell you--I went into the market here one day this last autumn, and of a man standing there--I bought a dug-up clump of BAY _tree_--for 2/6.

You know how you indulged my senses with bay leaves when I was far from them? Well, I put my clump and myself into a cab and went home--where I pulled my clump to pieces and made eight nice plants of him--and set me a bay hedge, which has thriven so far very well!!! But then--'tis a Green Winter!

Now I want to know if there is a chance of tempting you down here for a little visit? I have thought that perhaps some time in the Spring the School might be taking holiday, and Harry might be striding off on a week or 10 days' country "breathe,"--and perhaps you would come to me? Or if he were inclined for fresh fields and pastures new, that you would come together, and he might make his head-quarters here, and go over to Glas...o...b..ry, etc., etc., etc., whilst we took matters more quietly at home?

I feel it is a long way to come, but it would be so very pleasant to me to welcome you under my own roof!

If you cannot get away in Spring, I _must_ persuade you when London gets hotter and less pleasant!

You _must_ miss your country home--and yet I envy you a few things!

London has cords of charm to attract in many ways! I wish I could _fly over_, and see the Sir Joshuas and one or two things.

(I am stubbornly indifferent to the _Spectator's_ dictum that we like "Sir Joshuas" because we are a nation of sn.o.bs!!!)

Ever affectionately yours, JULIANA HORATIA EWING.

Do tell me what hope there is of seeing you--and showing you your own bramble on my own wall!

TO MRS. GOING.

March 11, 1884.

MY DEAR MRS. GOING,

I do not think you will ever let me have my Head Gardener here again!

I CAN'T take care of him!

I really could have sat down on the door-step and cried--when our old cabby--"the family coachman" as we call him, arrived and had missed Mr. Going. How _he_ did not miss his train, I cannot conceive! He must have run--he must have flown--he _must_ be a bit uncanny--and the flap-ends of the comforter must have spread into wings--or our clocks must have been beforehand--or the trains were behindhand--

Obviously luck favours him!!