Chapter X: Part IV (6)

I have really got some pretty sketches done the last few days. Not _finished_ ones, the weather is not fit for long sitting; but H.H. has given me some "Cox" paper, a rough kind of stuff something like what _sugar_ is wrapped up in, and with a very soft black pencil I have been getting in quick outlines--and then tinting them with thin pure washes of colour. I have been doing one of the Clog-shop. This quaint yard has doors--old doors--which long since have been painted a most charming red. Then the old shop is red-tiled, and an old stone-chimney from which the pale blue smoke of the wood-fire floats softly off against the tender tints of the wood, on the edge of which lie fallen logs with yellow ends, ready for the clog-making, and all the bare brown trees, and the green and yellow sandstone walls, and Jack the Daw hopping about. The old man at the clog-yard was very polite to me to-day. He said, "It's a pratty bit of colour," and "It makes a nicet sketch now you're getting in the _dit_tails." He went some distance yesterday to get me some india-rubber, and then wanted me to keep it! He's a perfect "picter card" himself. I must try and get _his_ portrait.

* * * * *

_Ecclesfield._ Dec. 23, 1881.

... I cannot tell you the pleasure it gives me that you say what you do of "Daddy Darwin." No; it will not make me overwork. I think, I hope, nothing ever will again. Rather make me doubly careful that I may not lose the gift you help me to believe I have. I have had very kind letters about it, and Mrs. L. sent me a sweet little girl dressed in pink--a bit of Worcester China!--as "Phoebe Shaw."...

Aunt M. sent "Daddy Darwin" to T. Kingdon (he is now Suffragan Bishop to Bishop Medley), and she sent us his letter. I will copy what he says: "'Daddy Darwin' is very charming--directly I read it I took it off to the Bishop--and he read it and cried over it with joy, and then read it again, and it has gone round Fredericton by this time. The story is beautifully told, and the picture is quite what it should be. When I look at the picture I think nothing could beat it, and then when I read the story I think the story is best--till I look again at the picture, and I can only say that _together_ I don't think they could be beaten at all in their line. I have enjoyed them much. There is such a wonderful fragrance of the Old Country about them."

I thought you would like to realize the picture of our own dear old Bishop crying with joy over it! What a young heart! tenderer than many in their teens; and what unfailing affection and sympathy....

January 17, 1882.

* * * * *

Mrs. O'M. is delighted with "Daddy Darwin." I had a most curious letter about it from Mrs. S., a very clever one and very flattering! F.S. too wrote to D., and said things almost exactly similar. It seems odd that people should express such a sense of "purity" with the "wit and wisdom" of one's writing! It seems such an odd reflection on the tone of other people's writings!!! But the minor writers of the "Fleshly school" are perhaps producing a reaction! Though it's _marvellous_ what people will read, and think "so clever!" Some novels lately--_Sophy_ and _Mehalah_, deeply recommended to me, have made me aghast. I'm not very young, nor I think very priggish; but I do decline to look at life and its complexities solely and entirely from a point of view that (bar Christian names and the English language) would do equally well for a pig or a monkey. If I _am_ no more than a Pig, I'm a fairly "learned" pig, and will back myself to get some small piggish pleasures out of this mortal stye, before I go to the Butcher!! But--IF--I am something very different, and very much higher, I won't ignore my birthright, or sell it for Hog'swash, because it involves the endurance of some pain, and the exercise of some faith and hope and charity! _Mehalah_ is a well-written book, with a delicious sense of local colour in nature. And it is (pardon the sacrilege!) a LOVE _story_! The focus point of the hero's (!) desire would at quarter sessions, or assizes, go by the plain names of outrage and murder, and he succeeds in drowning himself with the girl who hates him lashed to him by a chain. In not one other character of the book is there an indication that life has an aim beyond the lusts of the flesh, and the most respectable characters are the tenants whose desires are summed up in the desire of more suet pudding and gravy!! To any one who KNOWS the poor! who knows what faiths and hopes (true or untrue) support them in consumption and cancer, in hard lives and dreary deaths, the picture is as untrue as it is (to me!) disgusting.

* * * * *

March 22, 1882.

* * * * *

On Saturday night I went down with A. and L. to Battersea, to one of the People's Concerts. I enclose the programme. It is years since I have enjoyed anything so much as _Thomas's_ Harp-playing. (He is not Ap-Thomas, but he _is_ the Queen's Harper.) His hands on those strings were the hands of a _Wizard_, and form and features nearly as quaint as those of Mawns seemed to dilate into those of a poet. It was very marvellous.

Did I tell you that Lady L. has sent _me_ a ticket this year for her Sunday afternoons at the Grosvenor? We went on Sunday. The paintings there just now are Watts's. Our old blind friend at Manchester has sent a lot. It is a very fine collection. I think few paintings do beat Watts's 'Love and Death'--Death, great and irresistible, wrapped in shrowd-like drapery, is pushing relentlessly over the threshold of a home, where the portal is climbed over by roses and a dove plays about the lintel. You only see his back. But, facing you, Love, as a young boy, torn and flushed with passion and grief, is madly striving to keep Death back, his arms strained, his wings crushed and broken in the unequal struggle.

Beside the paintings it was great fun seeing the company! Princess Louise was there, and lots of minor stars. And--my Welsh Harper was there! I had a long chat with him. He talks like a true artist, and WE must know him hereafter. When I said that when I heard him play the 'Men of Harlech,' I understood how Welshmen fought in the valleys if their harpers played upon the hills (_most true!_), he seized my hand in both his, and thanked me so excitedly I was quite alarmed for fear Mrs. Grundy had an eye round the corner!!!

* * * * *

_Amesbury_, May 28, 1182.

... 'Tis a sweet, sweet spot! Not one jot or one tittle of the old charm has forsaken it. Clean, clean shining streets and little houses, pure, pure air!--a changeful and lovely sky--the green watermeads and silvery willows--the old patriarch in his smock--the rushing of the white weir among the meadows, the grey bridge, the big, peaceful, shading trees, the rust-coloured lichen on the graves where the forefathers of the hamlet sleep (oh what a place for sleep!), the sublime serenity of that incomparable church tower, about which the starlings wheel, some of them speaking words outside, and others replying from the inside (where they have no business to be!) through the belfry windows in a strange chirruping antiphon, as if outside they sang:

"Have you found a house, and a nest where you may lay your young?

(and from within):

Even Thy altars, O Lord of Hosts! my King and my God!"

D. and I wandered (how one _wanders_ here) a long time there yesterday evening. Then we went up to the cemetery on the hill, with that beautiful lych-gate you were so fond of. I picked you a forget-me-not from the old Rector's grave, for he has gone home, after fifty-nine years' pastorship of Amesbury. His wife died the year before. Their graves are beautifully kept with flowers.

_Whit-Monday_, 9.30 p.m. We are in the upper sitting-room to-day, the lower one having been reserved for "trippers." It is a glorious night--beyond the open window one of several Union Jacks waves in the evening breeze, and one of several brass bands has just played its way up the street. How these admirable musicians have found the lungs to keep it up as they have done since an early hour this morning they best know! Oh, how we have laughed! How _you_ would have laughed!! It has been the most good-humoured, civil crowd you can imagine! Such banners! such a "gitting of them" up and down the street by ardent "Foresters" and other clubs in huge green sashes and flowers everywhere! Before we were up this morning they were hanging flags across the street, and seriously threatening the stability of that fine old window!

When I was dressed enough to pull up the blind and open the window some green leaves fluttered in in the delicious breeze. I went off into raptures, thinking it was a big _Vine_ I had not noticed before, creeping outside!!

It was a maypole of sycamore branches, placed there by the Foresters!!!

Frances Peard laughed at me much for something like to this I said at Torquay! She said, "You are just like my old mother. Whenever we pass a man who has used a fusee, she always becomes knowing about tobacco, and says, _There_, Frances, my dear--there IS a fine cigar.'"

* * * * *

... We came here last Thursday. When I got to Porton D. had sent an air-cushion in the fly, and though I had a five miles drive it was through this exquisite air on a calm, lovely evening, and by the time we got to a spot on the Downs where a little Pinewood breaks the expanse of the plains, the good-humoured driver and I were both on our knees on the grass digging up plots of the exquisite Shepherd's Thyme, which carpets the place with blue!

Yesterday we drove by Stonehenge to Winterbourne Stoke. It was glaring, and I could not do much sketching, but the drive over the downs was like drinking in life at some primeval spring. (And this though the wind did give me acute neuralgia in my right eye, but yet the air was so exquisitely refreshing that I could cover my eye with a handkerchief and still enjoy!) The charm of these unhedged, unbounded, un-"cabined, cribbed, confined" _prairies_ is all their own, and very perfect! And _such_ flowers _enamel_ (it _is_ a good simile in spite of Alphonse Karr!) the close fine grass! The pale-yellow rock cistus in clumps, the blue "shepherd's thyme" in tracts of colour, sweet little purple-capped orchids, spireas and burnets, and everywhere "the golden buttercup" in sheets of gleaming yellow, and the soft wind blows and blows, and the black-nosed sheep come up the leas, and I drink in the breeze! Oh, those flocks of black-faced lambs and sheep are TOO-TOO! and I must tell you that the old Wiltshire "ship-dog" is nearly extinct. I regret to say that he is not found equal to "the Scotch" in business habits, and one see Collies everywhere now....

_London._ June 29, 1882.

* * * * *

I had a great treat last Sunday. One you and I will share when you come home. D., U., and I took Jack to church at the Chelsea Hospital, and we went round the Pensioners' Rooms, kitchen, sick-wards, etc. afterwards, with old Sir Patrick Grant and Col. Wadeson, V.C. (Govr. and Lieut.-Govr.), and a lot of other people.

It is an odd, perhaps a savage, mixture of emotions, to kneel at one's prayers with some _pride_ under fourteen French flags--_captured_ (including one of Napoleon's while he was still Consul, with a red cap of Liberty as big as your hat!), and hard by the FIVE bare staves from which the FIVE standards taken at Blenheim have rotted to dust!--and then to pass under the great Russian standard (twenty feet square, I should say!) that is festooned above the door of the big hall. If Rule Britannia IS humbug--and we are mere Philistine Braggarts--why doesn't Cook organize a tour to some German or other city, where we can sit under fourteen captured British Colours, and be disillusioned once for all!!! Where is the Hospital whose walls are simply decorated like some Lord Mayor's show with trophies taken from us and from every corner of the world? (You know Lady Grant was in the action at Chillianwallah and has the medal?) We saw two Waterloo men, and Jack was handed about from one old veteran to another like a toy. "Grow up a brave man," they said, over and over again. But "The Officer," as he called Colonel Wadeson, was his chief pride, he being in full uniform and cocked hat!!

And I must tell you--in the sick ward I saw a young man, fair-curled, broad-chested, whose face seemed familiar. He was with Captain Cleather at the Aldershot Gym., fell, and is "going home"--slowly, and with every comfort and kindness about him, but of spinal paralysis. It _did_ seem hard lines! He was at the Amesbury March Past, and we had a long chat about it.

* * * * *

July 21, 1882.

* * * * *

I cannot tell you how it pleases me that you liked the bit about Aldershot in "Lætus." I hope that it must have _grated_ very much if I had done it badly or out of taste, on any one who knows it as well as you do; and that its moving your sympathies does mean that I have done it pretty well. I cannot tell you the pains I expended on it! All those sentences about the Camp were written in scraps and corrected for sense and euphony, etc., etc., bit by bit, like "Jackanapes"!!! Did I tell you about "Tuck of Drum"? Several people who saw the proof, pitched into me, "Never heard of such an expression." I was convinced I knew it, and as I said, as a _poetical_ phrase; but I could not charge my memory with the quotation: and people exasperated me by regarding it as "camp slang." I got Miss S. to look in her _Shakespeare's Concordance_, but in vain, and she wrote severely, "My Major lifts his eyebrows at the term." I was in despair, but I sent the proof back, trusting to my instincts, and sent a postcard to Dr. Littledale, and got a post-card back by return--"Scott"--"Rokeby."

"With burnished brand and musketoon,
So gallantly you come,
I rede you for a bold dragoon,
That lists the tuck of drum."--
"I list no more the tuck of drum,
No more the trumpet hear;
But when the beetle sounds his hum,
My comrades take the spear."

And I copied this on to another postcard and added, _Tell your Major!_ and despatched it to Miss S.! She said, "You _did_ Cockadoodle!"--

But isn't it _exquisite_? _What_ a creature Scott was! Could words, could a long romance, give one a finer picture of the ex-soldier turned "Gentleman of the Road"? The touch of regret--"I list no more the tuck of drum," and the soldierly necessity for a "call"--and then _such_ a call!

When the Beetle _sounds his hum_--

The Dor Beetle!--

I hope you will like the tale as a whole. It has been long in my head.

* * * * *

Oh! how funny Grossmith was! Yesterday I was at the Matinée for the Dramatic School, and he did a "Humorous Sketch" about Music, when he said with care-carked brows that there was only one man's music that _thoroughly_ satisfied him (after touching on the various schools!)--and added--"my own." It was inexpressibly funny. His "Amateur Composer" would have made you die!

Ah, but THE treat, such a treat as I have not heard for years--was that old Ristori RECITED the 5th Canto of the _Inferno_. I did not remember which it was, and feared I should not be able to follow, but it proved to be "Francesca." Never could I have believed it possible that reciting could be like that. I could have gone into a corner and cried my heart out afterwards, the tension was so extreme. And oh what power and WHAT refinement!

* * * * *

July 28, 1882.

* * * * *

Last Saturday D. and I went down to Aldershot to the Flat Races!!! As we went along, tightly packed in a carriage full of ladies in what may be termed "dazzling toilettes," pretty girls and Dowager Mammas everywhere!--and as we ran past the familiar "Brookwood North Camp," where white "canvas" shone among the heather (and the heather, the cat heather, oh SO bonny! with here and there a network of the red threads of the dodder, so thick that it looked like red flowers), and all the ladies, young and old, craned forward to see the tents, etc., I really laughed at myself for the accuracy of my own descriptions in "Lætus"! P. met us at the R.E. Mess, where we had luncheon. After lunch we went to the familiar stables, and inspected the kit for Egypt. Then P. drove us to the Race Course. I met a lot of old friends. The Duke and Duchess of Connaught were there. It all looked very pretty, the camp is so much grown up with plantations now. The air was wondrous sweet. P. drove us back to the Mess for tea, and then down to the station. It was a great pleasure, though rather a sad one. Everybody was very grave. A sort of feeling, "What will be the end?"...

_The Castle, Farnham._ Aug. 17, 1882.

* * * * *

It is one of the sides of X.'s mind which makes me feel her so _limited_ an artist that she seems almost to take up a school as she takes up a lady-friend--"one down another come on." I think her abuse of Wagner now curiously _narrow_. I can't see why one should not feel the full spell and greater purity of Brahms without dancing in his honour on Wagner's bones!! It seems like her refusing to see any merit in, or derive any enjoyment from modern pictures because she has been "posted" in the Early Italian School. So from year to year these good people who have been to Florence will not even look at a painting by Brett or Peter Graham, though by the very qualities and senses through which one feels the sincerity, the purity, the nobleness, and the fine colour of those great painters, the photographs of whose pictures even stir one's heart,--one surely ought also to take delight in a landscape school which simply did not exist among the ancients. If sea and sky as GOD spreads them before our eyes are admirable, I can't think how one can be blind to delight in such pictures as 'The Fall of the Barometer,' 'The Incoming Tide,' or Leader's 'February Fill-dyke.' Things which no Florentine ever approached, as transcripts of Nature's mood apart from man....

Yesterday we had a most delicious drive through the heather and pines to Crookham. Ah, 'tis a bonny country, and I _did_ laugh when I said to Mr. Walkinshaw, "How glorious the heather is this year!" and he said, "Yes. If only it was growing on its native heath." For a minute I couldn't tell what he meant. Then I discovered that he regards heather as the exclusive property of bonnie Scotland!!!

I think you will be pleased to hear that I did, what I have long wanted, yesterday. Thoroughly made Mrs. Walkinshaw's acquaintance, and thanked her for that old invitation we never accepted to go there to see the Chinnerys' sketches. How Scotch and _kindly_ she is! She insisted on bringing her husband and daughters to be introduced, and sent _warmest_ messages to you. She said she feared you must have quite forgotten her; but I told her she was quite wrong there! She says she has a little Chinnery she meant to give me long ago, and she insists on sending it....

Sept. 1, 1882.

* * * * *

I must tell you that I had such a mixture of pain and pleasure at Britwell in the nearest approach to Trouvé I have ever known. A larger dog, and not quite so "Möcent," but in character and ways his living image. The same place on his elbow (which his Aunt was always wanting to gum a bit of astrachan on to); he "took" to his Aunt at once! _Nero_ by name. The sweetest temper. I have kissed the nice soft places on his black lips and shaken hands by the hour!!! Yesterday the others went to a garden-party, so I went on to the Downs to sketch, and when the dogs saw me, off they came, Nero delighted, and little Punch the Pug. They came with me all the way, and lay on the grass while I was sketching, and Nero kept sitting down to save a corner, and watch which way I meant to go, just like dear True! [_Sketch._] They were very good, sitting with me on the downs, but they roamed away into the woods after game a good deal on the road home!...

_Grenoside._ Oct 5, 1882.

* * * * *

I do so long to hear how you like the end of "Lætus." As F.S.'s tale turned out seven pages longer than was accounted for, I had to cut out some of _my_ story, and so have missed the point of its being S. Martin's Day on which Leonard died. S. Martin was a soldier-saint, and the Tug-of-War Hymn is only sung on Saints' Days.

I have completed a tale[42] for the November No., and gave a rough design to André for the illustration, which will be in colours. I hope you will like _that_. There is not a tear in it this time! "Lætus" was too tragic!

[Footnote 42: "Sunflowers and a Rushlight," vol. xvi.]

* * * * *

Will we or will we not have a Persian Puss in our new home by the name of--Marjara?--It is quite perfect! Do Brahmans like cats? I must have a tale about Marjara!!!--

Karava is grand too!

Oh Karava!
Oh the Crier!
Oh Karava!
Oh the Shouter!
Oh Karava, oh the Caller!
Very glossy are your feathers,
Very thievish are your habits,
Black and green and purple feathers,
Bold and bad your depredations!!!

Doesn't he sound like a fellow in _Hiawatha_?

Oh, it's a fine language, and must have fine _lils_ in it!

* * * * *

TO MRS. JELF.

_Ecclesfield._ Oct. 10, 1882.

MY DEAREST MARNY,

Your dear, kind letter was very pleasant sweetmeat and encouragement. I am deeply pleased you like the end of "Lætus"--and feel it to the point--and that my polishings were not in vain! I polished that last scene to distraction in "the oak room" at Offcote!

I should _very_ much like to hear how it hits the General. I think "_Pav_ilions" (as my Yorkshire Jane used to call civilians!) may get a little mixed, and not care so much for the points. Some who have been rather extra kind about it are--Lady W---- (but yesterday she amusingly insisted that she _had_ lived in camp ---- at Wimbledon!!)--the Fursdons and "Stella Austin," author of _Stumps_, etc.--(literary "civilians" who think it the best thing I have ever done), and two young barristers who have been reading it aloud to each other in the Temple--with tears. And yet I fancy many non-military readers may get mixed. P. vouchsafes no word of it to _me_, but I hear from D. (under the veil of secrecy!) that he and Mr. Anstruther read it together in Egypt with much approval. I am more pleased by military than non-military approval. Old Aldershottians would so easily spot blunders and bad taste!!! Mrs. Murray wrote to me this morning about it--and of course wished they were back in dear old Aldershot!

You make me very egotistical, but I DO wish you to tell me what you, _and_ Aunty, _and_ Madre think of "Sunflowers and a Rushlight," when you read it. I fear it has rather scandalized my Aunt, who is staying with us. She is obviously shocked at the plain-speaking about drains and doctors, and thinks that part ought to have been in an essay--not in a child's tale. I am a little troubled, and should _really_ like (what is seldom soothing!) a candid opinion from _each of you_. You know how I think the riding _some_ hobbies takes the _fine edge_ off the mind, and if you think I am growing coarse in the cause of sanitation--I beseech you to tell me! As to putting _the teaching_ into an essay--the crux there is that the people one wants to stir up about sanitation are just good family folk with no special literary bias; and they will read a tale when they won't read an essay! But do tell me if any one of you feel that the subject _grates_, or my way of putting it.

Now, my darling, I must tell you that I have got a telegram from my goodman--the Kapellmeister!--to say he IS to be sent home in "early spring." This is a great comfort. I would willingly have let him stay two months longer to escape spring cold; but he has got to _hate_ the place so fiercely, that I now long for him to get away at any cost. It must be most depressing! The last _letter_ I got, he had had a trip by sea, and said he felt perfectly different till he got back to Colombo, when the oppression seized him again. He has been to Trincomalee, and is charmed with it, and said he could read small print when he got there, but his eyes quite fail in the muggyness of Colombo. However he will cheer up now, I hope! and Nov. and Dec. and Jan. are good months.

Now good-bye, dear. My best love to Aunty and Madre.

Your loving, J.H.E.

TO A.E.

_Ecclesfield._ October 24, 1882.

... It was very vexatious that the Megha Duta came just too late for last mail. It is a beautiful poem. Every now and then the local colour has a weird charm all its own. It lifts one into another land (without any jarring of railway or steamship!) to realize the _locale_ in which rearing masses of grey cumuli suggest elephants rushing into combat! And the husband's picture of his wife in his absence is as noble, as sympathetic, and as perceptive as anything of the kind I ever read. So full of human feeling and so refined. I enjoyed it very much. It reminded me, oddly enough, more than once of Young's _Night Thoughts_. I think perhaps (if the charm of another tongue, and the wonder of its antiquity did not lead one to give both more _attention_ and more _sympathy_ than one would perhaps bestow on an English poem) that the poem does not rank much higher than a degree short of the first rank of our poets. But it is very charming. And oh, what a lovely text! It is a _most beautiful_ character....

TO MRS. MEDLEY.

_Ecclesfield, Sheffield._ November 17, 1822.

MY VERY DEAR MRS. MEDLEY,

There has been long word silence between us! I made a break in it the other day by sending you my new "Picture Poem"--"A Week Spent in a Glass Pond."

It was a sort of repayment of a tender chromolithographic (!) debt.

Do you remember, when Fredericton was our home, and when everything pretty from Old England did look so very pretty--how on one of those home visits from which he brought back bits of civilization--the Bishop brought _me_ a "chromo" of dogs and a fox which has hung in every station we've had since?

Now--as a friend's privilege is--I will talk without fear or favour of myself! The last real contact with you was the Bishop's too brief peep at us in Bowdon--a shadowy time out of which his Amethyst ring flashes on my mind's eye. No! Not Amethyst--what IS the name? Sapphire!--(I have a little mental confusion on the subject. I have a weak--a very weak corner--in my heart for another Bishop, an old friend of your Bishop's--Bishop Harold Browne; and have had the honour now and again of wearing his rings on my thumb--a momentary relaxation of discipline and due respect, which I doubt if your Bishop would admit!!! though I hope he has a little love for me, frightened as I now and then am of him!!!! The last time but one I was at Farnham, I was asked to stay on another two days to catch the Brownes' fortieth wedding-day. Just as we were going down to dinner I reproached the Bishop for not having on his "best" ring! Very luckily--for he said he always made a point of it on his wedding-day--left me like a hot potato in the middle of the stairs and flew off to his room, and returned with _the_ grand sapphire!)

Well, dear--that's a parenthesis--to go back to Bowdon. I was not to boast of there, and after the move to York, and I had fitted up my house and made up for lost time in writing work, I was a very much broken creature, keeping going to Jenner and getting orders to rest!--and then came the order to Malta, not six months after we were sent to York, and I stayed to pack up and sent out all our worldly goods and chattels, and then started myself, and was taken ill in Paris and had to come back, and have been "of no account" for three years.

Well. My news is now far better than once I hoped it ever could be. I'm not strong, but I can work in moderation, though I can't "rackett" the least bit. And--Rex is to come home in Spring!--the season of hope and _nest-building_--and I am trying not to wonder my wits away as to what part of the British Isles it will be in which I shall lay the cross-sticks and put in the moss and wool of our next nest!! There is every reason to suppose we shall be "at home" for five years, I am thankful to say....

Rex loved Malta, and _hates_ Ceylon. But he has been _very_ good and patient about it.

Latterly he has consoled himself a good deal with the study of Sanscrit, which he means me also to acquire, though I have not got far yet! It is a beautiful character. He says, "Of all the things I have tried Sanscrit is the most utterly delicious! Of the alphabet alone there are (besides the ten vowels and thirty-three simple consonants) rather more than two hundred compound consonants," etc., etc.! He adds, "[Sanskrit: aayi] are my detached initials, but I could write my whole name in 'Devanagiri,' or 'Writing of the Gods.'"

TO A.E.

_Ecclesfield._ December 8, 1882.

... I got back from Liverpool on Monday. When I called at the Museum on that morning a Dr. Palmer was there, who said, "I was in Taku Forts with your husband," and was very friendly. He gave me a prescription for neuralgia! and sent you his best remembrances.

First and last I have annexed one or two nice "bits of wool for our nest." For _8s._ (a price for which I could not have bought _the frame_, a black one with charming old-fashioned gold-beading of this pattern) [_sketch_] I bought a real fine old soft mezzotint, after Sir Joshua Reynolds' portrait of Richard Burke. Oh, such a lovely face! Looking lovelier in powder and lace frill. But a charming thing, with an old-fashioned stanza in English deploring his early death, and a motto in Latin. It was a great find, and I carried it home from the Pawnbroker's in triumph!--

I have got a very nice Irish anecdote for you from Mr. Shee:

Two Irishmen (not much accustomed to fashionable circles) at a big party, standing near the door. After a long silence:

Paddy I.--"D'ye mix much in society?"

P. II.--"Not more than six tumblers in the evening."

* * * * *

S. John Evangelist, 1882.

* * * * *

C. "dealt" for me for the old Japanese Gentleman (pottery) on whom I turned my back at £1. He has got him for _15s._ You will be delighted with him, and I have just packed him (and a green pot lobster!) in a box with sawdust.

Do you remember how your 'genteel' clerk's wife came (starving) from Islington, or some such place, to us at Aldershot, and told me she had _sold_ all her furniture (as a nice preparation to coming to free but empty quarters) EXCEPT _her parlour pier-glass and fire-irons_?

I sometimes feel as if I bought house plenishing that packed together about as nicely as that!!! Witness my pottery old gentleman, and my bronze Crayfish....

December 20, 1882.

* * * * *

I am so glad you like "Sunflowers and a Rushlight." It was very pleasurable work, though hard work as usual, writing it. It was written at Grenoside, among the Sunflowers, and generally with dear old Wentworth, the big dog, walking after me or lying at my feet.

You may, or may not, have observed, that the _Times_ critic says, that "of one thing there can be no doubt"--and that is--"_Miss_ Ewing's nationality. No one but a Scotchwoman bred and born _could_ have written the 'Laird and the Man of Peace.'"

It is "rich in pawky humour." But if I can get a copy I'll send it to you. It is complimentary if not true!

I am putting a very simple inscription over our dear Brother. Do you like it?

TROUVÉ commonly and justly called TRUE. FOUND 1869; LOST 1881, by A.E. and J.H.E.

TO H.K.F.G.

_Eccelsfield._ December, 1882.

... I rather HOPE to have a story for you for March, which will be laid in France. Will it do if you have it by February 8?...

It is a terribly close subject, and I shall either fail at it, or make it I hope not inferior to "Jackanapes." I don't _think_ it will be long. The characters are so few, I have only plotted it. It will be called--

"THE THINGS THAT ARE SEEN": AN OLD SOLDIER'S STORY.

_DRAM. PERS._

MADAME. HER MAID. THE FATHER OF MADAME. THE FATHER OF THE SERGEANT. THE MOTHER OF THE SERGEANT. THE SERGEANT. THE PRIEST. THE MURDERER. A POODLE.

Soldiers, Peasants, Priests, Gendarmes, a Rabble, Reapers--but you know I generally overflow my limits. I hope I can do it, but it tears me to bits! and I've walked myself to bits nearly in plotting it this morning,--a very little written, but I believe I could be _ready_ by February 8. I don't think it will be as long as "Daddy Darwin," not nearly.

Please settle with Mr. B. what you will do about an illustration. The first scene is that of the death-bed of the sergeant's father. I think it would be quite as good a scene for illustration as any, and will, I trust, be ready in a day or two. Is it worth Mr. B.'s while to see if R.C. would do it in shades of brown or grey? (a very chiaroscuro scene in a tumble-down cottage, light from above). All _I_ must have is a good illustration or none at all. (I would send copy of scene to R.C. and ask him.) I think it might pay, because I am certain to want to _re_publish it, and whoever I publish it with will pay half-price for the old illustration. I do myself believe that it might be _colour-printed_ in (say seven instead of seventeen) shades of colour (blues, and browns, and black, and yellow, and white) at much less cost than a full-coloured one, but that I leave to Mr. B.: only I have some strong theories about it, and when I come to town I mean to make Edmund Evans's acquaintance.

Strange to say, I believe I _could_ make the tale illustrate the "Portrait of a Sergeant" if it were possible to get permission to have a thing photoed and reduced from _that_!!!--Goupil would be the channel in which to inquire--but the artist would not be a leading character, as far as I can see, so it might not be all one could wish. But it is worth investigating....

Or again, I wonder what Herkomer would charge for an _etching_ of the dying old Woodcutter, and his kneeling son? I believe THAT would be the thing!--But the plate must be surfaced so that _A.J.M._ mayn't exhaust all the good impressions. If Herkomer would etch that, and add a vignette of a scene I could give him with a beautiful peasant girl--or of the old sergeant and the portly and worldly "Madame," we SHOULD "do lovely!" Will you try for that, please?

No more today for

"I am exhaust
I can not!"

Your devoted, J.H.E.

Remember _I_ wish for Herkomer. He will be the right man in the right place. R.C. is for dear old England, and this is French and Roman Catholic--and Keltic peasant life.

TO A.E.

January 4, 1883,

* * * * *

Caldecott says his difficulty over my writing is that "the force and finish" of it frightens him. It is painted already and does not need illustration; and he has lingered over "Jackanapes" from the conviction that he could "never satisfy me"!! This difficulty is, I hope, now vanquished. He is hard at work on a full and complete edition of "Jackanapes," of which he has now begged to take the entire control, will "submit" paper and type, etc. to me, and hopes to please. "But you are _so_ particular!"

I need hardly say I have written to place everything in his hands. I am "not such a fool as" to think I can teach _him_! (though I am insisting upon certain arrangements of types, etc., etc., to give a _literary_--not Toy Book--aspect to the volume).

André I _know I help_. But then only a man of real talent and mind would accept the help and be willing to be taught. The last batch of _A Soldier's Children_ that came had three pages that grated on me.

1. "They mayn't have much time for their prayers on active service, _and we ought to say them instead_." The first part of this line is splendidly done by a brush with Zulus among mealies, but the second part (as underlined) was thus. Nice old church (good idea) and the officer's wife and children at prayer. BUT--the lady was like a shop-girl, in a hat and feathers, tight-fitting jacket with skimpy fur edge (inexpressibly vulgar cheap finery style!), kneeling with a highly-developed figure backwards on to the spectator! and with her eyes up in a theatrical gaze heavenwards. Little boy _sitting_ on seat, with his hat on.

2. For "GOD bless the good soldiers like old father and Captain Powder and the men with good conduct medals, and please let the naughty ones be forgiven,"--he had got some men being released out of prison cells.

3. For "There are eight verses and eight Alleluias, and we can't sing very well, but we did our best.

"Only Mary would cry in the verse about 'Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest'!"-- --he had got a very poor thing of three children singing.

Now these were all highly-finished drawings. Quite complete, and I know the man is _driven_ with work (for cheap pay!). So I hesitated, and worried myself. At last I took courage and sent them back, having faith in the "thoroughness" which he so eminently works with.

For 1, I sent him a sketch! said the lady must wear a bonnet in church, and her boys must take off their hats! That she must kneel _forwards_, be dressed in a deep sealskin with heavy fox edge, and have her eyes _down_, and the children must kneel _imitating her_, and I should like an old _brass_ on the wall above them with one of those queer old kneeling families in ruffs.

For 2, I said I could not introduce child readers to the cells, and I begged for an old Chelsea Pensioner showing his good conduct medal to a little boy.

3. I suggested the tomb of a Knight Crusader, above which should fall a torn banner with the words, "In Coelo Quies."

Now if he had kicked at having three pictures to do utterly over again, one could hardly have wondered, pressed as he is. But, back they came! "I am indeed much indebted to you," the worst he had to say! The lady in No. 1 now _is_ a lady; and as to the other two, they will be two of the best pages of the book. Old Pensioner first-rate, and Crusader under torn banner just leaving "Coelo Quies," a tomb behind "of S. Ambrose of Milan" with a little dog--and a snowy-moustached old General, with bending shoulders and holding a little girl by the hand, paying _devoir_ at the Departed Warrior's tomb in a ray of rosy sunlight!!

This is the sort of way we are fighting through the Ewing-André books.

* * * * *

_Ecclesfield._ January 10, 1883.

* * * * *

Fancy me "learning a part" again! _That_ has a sort of sound like old times, hasn't it?

I feel half as if I were a fool, and half as if it would be very good fun! R.A. theatricals at Shoeburyness. The FoxStrangways have asked me. Major O'Callaghan is Stage Manager I believe. Then there is a Major Newall, said to be very good. He says he "has a fancy to play 'A Happy Pair' with me!" It is his _cheval de bataille_ I believe.

I think it is best to try and do what one is _asked_ over parts (though they were very polite in offering me a choice), so I said I would try, and am learning it. I think I shall manage it. They now want me to take "A Rough Diamond" as well, _Margery_. I doubt its being wise to attempt both. It will be rather a strain, I think.

* * * * *

_Shoeburyness._ January 25, 1883.

* * * * *

I am playing Mrs. Honeyton in "A Happy Pair" with Major Newall. He knows his work well, is a good coach, and very considerate and kind.

In my soul I wish that were all, but they have persuaded me also to take Margery in "A Rough Diamond," and getting THAT up in a week is "rough on" a mediocre amateur like myself!

This is a _curious_ place. Very nice, bar the east winds. I have been down on the shore this morning. The water sobs at your feet, and the ships and the gulls go up and down. Above, a compact little military station clusters together, and everywhere are Guns, Guns, Guns; old guns lying in the grass, new guns shattering the windows, and only _not_ bringing down the plaster because the rooms are ceiled with wood "for the same purpose."...

TO MRS. JELF.

Sunday, April 1883.

MY DEAREST MARNY,

I must write a line to you about your poor friends! It is THE tragedy of this war! Very terrible. I hope the bitterness of death was _short_, and to gallant spirits like theirs hope and courage probably supported them till the very last, when higher hopes helped them to undo their grasp on this life.

In the dying--they suffered far less than most of us will probably suffer in our beds--but to be at the fullest stretch of manly powers in the service of their country among the world's hopes and fears and turmoils, and to be suddenly called upon to "leave all and follow Christ"--when the "all" for them had most righteously got every force of mind and body devoted to it--must be at least one hard struggle. And death away from home does seem so terrible!

Richard will feel it very much. That Nottingham election seems so short a time ago.

* * * * *

Back from Church! Great haste. We have had that grand hymn with--

"Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest."

I did not forget the poor souls.

Prayers for the dead is one of those things which always seems to me the most curiously obvious and simple of duties!

Your most loving, J.H.E.

71, _Warwick Road_. April 9, 1883.

DEAREST MARNY,

I write a line to tell you that D. was at S. Paul's yesterday afternoon to Evensong, and to hear Liddon preach.

I know you will like to hear how very gracefully he alluded to your poor friend as "the accomplished Engineer," and to Charrington and Palmer. Of the last--he spoke very feelingly--as to his great loss from the learning point of view. He said--or to this effect--"We laid them here last Friday in the faith of Him who died for their sins and ours, and this is the first Sunday when above their ashes we commemorate that Resurrection through which we hope that they and we shall rise again." The "Drum Band" was duly played after the service, and D. says that crowds remained to listen.

I know you will like to hear this, though I have given a bad second-hand account.

I hope my Goodman gets to Malta to-day or to-morrow!

* * * * *

Ever, dearest Marny, Your loving J.H.E.

TO A.E.

April 24, 1883.

... I sent you a telegram this morning to make you feel quite happy in your holiday. "Real good times" (a Yankeeism I hate, but it is difficult to find its brief equivalent!) are not so common in "this wale" that you should cut yours short. I rather hope this may be in time to catch you (it is not _my_ fault that you will be without letters). If you would like to linger longer--Do. You are not likely to find "the like of" your present surroundings on leave in Scotland, least of all as to sunshine and flowers. One doesn't go to Malta every day. I wish I was there! But I can't be, and ten to one should catch typhoid where you only smell orange-blossoms, and I don't think my sins run in the Dog-in-the-manger line, and I hope you'll quaff your cup of content as deeply as you can.

For one thing winter has returned. We had snow yesterday, and the east wind, the Beast Wind! through which I went this morning to send your telegram was simply killing; dust like steel filings driving into your skin, waves of hard dust with dirty paper foam.--Ugh!!--Spend as much of your leave as you and your friends think well where you are. I've waited three years. I can wait an odd three weeks and welcome! Especially as I am up to my eyes in packing and arranging matters for our new home. What I do hope is you will be happy _there_! But I believe in laying in happiness like caloric. A good roast keeps one warm a long time!

How often I have thought that philosophers who argue from the premiss of the fleeting nature of pleasure, might give pause if they had had my experience. A body so frail that _nearly_ every pleasure of the senses has had to be enjoyed chiefly after it had "fleeted"--by the memory. Pictures (one of my chiefest pleasures), the theatre, any great sight, sound, or event, being a pleasure after they (and the _headache_!) have passed away. The "passing pleasures" of life are just those which this world gives very capriciously, but cannot take away! They are possessions as real as ... marqueterie chairs! Of which--more anon,--when you return to the domestic hearth.

* * * * *

I had such a round in Wardour Street the other day! I do wish for a Dutch marqueterie chest of drawers with toilet glass attached, but he is £8! Too much. But (I _must_ let it out!) I got two charming Dutch marqueterie chairs for my drawing-room for 35/- each. You will be surprised to find what nice things we have!...

TO MRS. JELF.

_7, Mount Street, Taunton._ June 3, 1883.

DEAREST MARNY,

I know you forgive a long silence--especially as I have "packed in spite of you "!

* * * * *

I took lots of time over it all. All my "remains" are piled in cases in the attics, and I have arranged "terms" with the Great Western, and hope to do my moving very cheaply.

We had need economize somewhere, for, my dear! we have been VERY extravagant over our house!!! I should like to hear if you and your dear ladies (I know Auntie would be candid!) think we have been wisely so!--Our predecessor had a cottage and garden for £35--the Col. Commanding only paid £55--and we are paying £70!!!

It is a question of _three things_: 1st, higher and healthier situation--2nd, modern appliances and drains unconnected with the old town sewers--3rd, my Goodman took a wild fancy to the house--and picked his own den--and said he could "live and be at peace" there: and this means life and death to _me_!

So we have boldly taken this other house! A mile _above_ the town--on high ground, built by one of the sanitary commission (!), brand new--and with a glorious view. Not a stick in the garden! but things grow fast here. I shall have a charming drawing room 24 feet long (so it will hold me!!!), with two quaint little fire-places with blue tiles. Rex has a very nice den with French doors into the garden, where he seems to hope to "attain Nirwana"--and live apart from the world. Small as I am, I have an odd liking for large rooms (the oxygen partly--and partly that I "quarterdeck" so when I am working--and suffer so in my spine and head from close heat). Now it is _very_ hot here. There's no doubt about it! So, on the whole, I hope we've done well to house ourselves as we have. And we _can_ give a comfortable bedroom to a friend! My dear Marny--you _must_ come and see me! It's really a quaint old town--with a rather foreign-looking cloistered "Place"--and a curious Saturday Market--with such nice red pottery on sale!!

Now to go back--and tell you about my Goodman. He had three weeks of "real high time" in Malta. Then he came home--to Warwick Road. At first I thought him much _hot-climatized_, and was worried. But he is now looking as well as can be. We had a few very happy days at Ecclesfield. It is a most tender spot with me that he is so fond of my old home! They know his ways--he says he is at peace--and he rambles about among the old books--and the people in the village are so glad to see him--and it is very nice.

He took up his duties here on our 16th wedding day!

The place suits him admirably. I felt sure it would. But I did not hope _I_ should feel as well in it as I do. It IS hot--and not VERY dry--but it is _much_ less relaxing than I thought, and where we have got our house it is high and breezy--and very, very nice. I am most thankful, and only long to get settled and be able to work!

We are in lodgings close to--next door to--the very fine barracks. Our room looks into the barrack-yard, and the dear bugles wake and send us to sleep!

Your loving J.H.E.

Caldecott has done _seventeen_ illustrations to "Jackanapes."

TO MRS. A.P. GRAVES.

June 15, 1883.

MY DEAR MRS. GRAVES,

Once more I thank you for lovely flowers! including one of my chief favourites--a white Iris. It is very good of you. You do not know what pleasure they give me! If you continue to bless me with an occasional nosegay when I move into my house, I shall not so bitterly suffer from the barrenness of the garden.

This is suggestive of the nasty definition of gratitude that it is a keen sense of favours to come!

I have been meaning to write to you to express something of our delight with the "Songs of Old Ireland."

Major Ewing is charmed by the melodies, on which his opinion is worth something and mine is not! and _I_ can't "read them out of a printed book" without an instrument. But--we are equally charmed by the words!!

It is a very rare pleasure to be able to give way to unmitigated enjoyment of modern verse by one's friends. Don't you know? But we have fairly raved over one after the other of these charming songs!

I do hope Mr. Graves does not consider that friendly criticisms come under the head of "personal remarks" and are offensive!