[Aldershot.] March 22, 1870.

My Darling Mother,

I am so very much pleased that you think better of Benjy[36] now. As I have plenty of time, I mean to go through it, and soften Benjy down a bit. He is an awful boy, and I think I can make him less repulsive. The fact is the story was written in fragments, and I was anxious to show that it was not a little boyish roughness that I meant to make a fuss and "point a moral" about—nor did I want to go into fine-drawn questions about the cruelties of sport, and when I came to join the bits into a whole and copy out, I found I had overproved my point and made Benjy a fearful brute. But there are some hideously cruel boys, and I do think a certain devilish type of cruelty is generally combined with a certain lowness and meanness of general style—even in born gentlemen—and though quite curable, I would like to hear what the boys think of it, if it would not bore them to read it. But I certainly shall soften Benjy down—and will attend to all your hints—and put in the "Mare's Nest" (many thanks!). Tell D. I do not know how I could alter about Rough—unless I take out his death altogether—but beg her to observe that he was not the least neglected as to food, etc.; what he died of was joy after his anxiety....

[Aldershot.] May Day, 1870.

... I have got some work into my head which has been long seething there, and will, I think, begin to take shape. It is about flowers—the ancestry of flowers; whether the flowers will tell their own family records, or what the plot will be I have not yet planned, and it will take me some time to collect my data, but the family histories of flowers which came originally from old Mexico in the days of Montezuma, and the floating gardens, and the warriors who wore nosegays, and the Indians who paddled the floating gardens on which they lived up the waters of that gorgeous city with early vegetables for the chiefs—would be rather weird! And then the strange fashions and universal prevalence of Japanese gardening. The wistaria rioting in the hedges, and the great lilies wild over the hills. Ditto the camellias. With all the queer little thatched Japanese huts that always have lumps of iris on the top, which the Japanese ladies use for bandoline. Then the cacti would have queer legends of South America, where the goats climb the steep rocks and dig them up with their horns and roll them down into the valley, and kick and play with them till the spines get rubbed off, and then devour them at leisure. I give you these instances in case anything notable about flowers comes in your way, "when found to make a note of" for me....

To Mrs. Elder.

Ecclesfield, October 25, 1871.

My Dearest Aunt Horatia,

Your letter was shown to me, and I cannot tell you how much obliged to you I am for the prospect of the gold thimble, a thing I have always wished to possess.

I—(if it fits!!! But, as I told Charlie, if it is too big I can wrap a sly bit of rag round my finger, but if it's too small, unless I cut the tip, as Cinderella's sisters cut their heels, I don't know how I can secure it!) shall additionally value it as a testimony of your approval of my dear old Hermit[37], for that is one of my greatest favourites amongst my efforts. Miss Yonge prefers it, I believe, to anything I have ever done, and Rex nearly so....

Your loving niece, J.H.E.

To C.T. Gatty.

Aldershot. Holy Innocents, 1871,

... I had the very latest widow here for two days "charring." She is the lady alluded to by Rex when he told Stephen that she had been weighed, and was found wanting. In justice to her physique, I must say that this was not according to avoirdupois measure!! but figurative. She whipped about as nimbly as an elephant. She was rather given to panting and groaning. You can fancy her. [Sketch.] "Mrs. Hewin, ma'am, don't soil your 'ands! Let me! As I says to the parties at the 'Imperial' at Folkstone, ladies thinks an elderly person can't get through their work, but they can do a deal more than the young ones that has to be told every—Using the table-cloth to wipe the dishes am I? Tst, tst! so I ham! M'm! Hemma! where's your kitchen cloths? I don't know where things his yet, Mrs. Hewin. But I've 'ad a 'Ome of my own, Mrs. Hewin, and been use to take care of things"—("Take care, Mrs. Plumridge")—"Well now! 'owever did that slip through my fingers now? Tst! tst! tst! There must have been a bit of butter on the hunder side I think. Eh! deary dear! Ah—! Oh—!" Pause—Solo recitative—"Eh, dear! If my poor 'usband was but alive, I shouldn't be wanting now! I Ope I give you satisfaction, Mrs. Hewin. If I'm poor, I'm honest. I ope I give satisfaction in hevery way, Mrs. Hewin, Your property is safe in my 'ands, Mrs. Hewin! What do you think of my papers, Mrs. Hewin? One lady as see them said she didn't know what more hany one could require." (Said papers chiefly consisting of baptism registers of the little Plumridges. Marriage lines of Mrs. P., and forms in reference to the late Mr. P., a pensioner.)

Sequel.

"Emma, where's the water-can?"

"Please 'm, Mrs. Plumberridge, she left it outside of the door yesterday, and some one's took it."

There is yet a later widow, but I do not think of taking her into the house. The Widow Bone has taken to boning her daughter's clothes, so she is forbidden the house....

To A.E.

Brighton. April 17, 1872.

... I got here all right, and wonderfully little tired, though the train shook a good deal the latter part of the way.

Oh! the FLOWERS! The cowslips, the purple orchids, the kingcups, the primroses! And the grey, drifting cumuli with gaps of blue, and the cinnamon and purple woods, broken with yellowish poplars and pale willows, with red farms, and yellow gorse lighted up by the sun!!! The oaks just beginning to break out in yellowish tufts, [Sketch.] I can't tell you what lovely sketches I passed between Aldershot and Redhill!

On to Brighton I took charge of a small boy being sent by a fond mother to school. When I mention that he was nine years old,—and informed me—that he had got "a jolly book," which proved to be A School for Fathers, that his own school wasn't much of a one, and he was going to leave, and ate hard-boiled eggs and crystallized oranges by the way—you will see how this generation waxes apace!!

Ecclesfield. May 27, 1872.

... The weather is very nice now. I stayed till the end of the Litany in church yesterday, and then slipped out by the organ door and sat with Mother. I sat on the Boy's school side of the chancel, where a little lad near me was singing alto (not a "second" of thirds!) strong and steady as a thrush in a hedge!! The music went very well.

The country looks lovely, but for the smoke. If it had but our blue distance it would be grand. But the

gets worse every year! And when I think of our lovely blue and grey folds of distance, and bright skies, and tints, I feel quite Ruskinish towards mills and manufactories.

To C.T. Gatty.

X Lines, South Camp, Aldershot.
August 10, 1873.

My Very Dear Old Charlie,

Don't you suppose your sister is forgetting you. Two causes have delayed your drawings.

1. I have been working—oh so hard! It was because Mr. Bell announced that he wanted a "volume," and that for the Xmas Market one must begin at once in July!

Such is competition!

He had an idea that something which had not appeared in any magazine would be more successful than reprints. So I have written "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, or the Luck of Lingborough," and you will recognize your Cockie in it! I have taken no end of pains with it, and it has been a matter of seven or eight hours a day lately. I mean the last few days. Rather too much. It knocked me off my sleep, and reduced "my poor back" to the consistency of pith. But I am picking up, partly by such gross material aid as bottled stout affords! and any amount of fresh air blowing in full draughts over my bed at night!!

2. I have been at work for you, but I get so horribly dissatisfied with my things. No; I must do some real steady work at it. One can't jump with a little "nice feeling" and plenty of theories into what can give any lasting pleasure to oneself or any one else. I will send you shortly (I hope) a copy of one of Sir Hope Grant's Chinnerys, and perhaps a wee thing of Ecclesfield. The worst of drawing is, it wants mind as well as hands. One can't go at it jaded from head work, as one could "sew a long white seam" or any mechanical thing!...

When D—— was with me, we went to a fête in the North Camp Gardens, and I was talking to Lady Grant about the Chinnerys, and the "happy thought" struck her to introduce me to a Mr. Walkinshaw. They live somewhere in this country, and Mrs. Walkinshaw came up afterwards to ask if she might call on me, as they have a Chinnery collection (gathered in China), and Mr. Walkinshaw would show them to me!... I mean to collect all possible information on the subject, and either to write myself, or prime you to write an article on him some day!

To C.T. Gatty.

X Lines. August 20, 1873.

Dear Old Boy,

... I enjoyed your letter very much, and am so glad you keep "office hours." It is very good of you not to be angry with my good advice! "Experientia does it," as Mr. 'Aughton would say.... I break down about once in three months like clockwork—from sheer overwork. I certainly am never happy idle; but I have too often to sit in sackcloth in the depths of my heart—whilst everybody is beseeching me to be "idle"—from a consciousness that, not from doing nothing, but by doing B when I should have done A, and C when I should have done B, a kind of indolence at the critical moment, I have wasted my strength and time, not merely overworked myself. Also that on many things—drawing, languages, etc.—I have spent in my life a great deal of labour with little result, because it has not been consecutive and methodical. One would like one's own failures to be one's friends' stepping-stones. I may say too that I have an excuse which, thank God, you can't plead now—ill-health. It is not always easy, even for oneself, to judge when languor at the precise instant of recurring duty is spine-ache from brain work, and the sofa is the remedy,—or when it is what (in reference to an unpublished—indeed unwritten—story on this head) I call Boneless on the spine! MY back is apt to ache in any case!... I am trying to teach myself that if one has been working, one has not necessarily been working to good purpose, and that one may waste strength and forces of all sorts, as well as time!

Curious that you and D—— should both have quoted that saying of J.H. Newman to me in one week! I also will adopt it! Indeed "bit by bit" is the only way I feel equal to improve in anything, and I do think it is God's way of teaching and leading us all as a rule, and it is the principle on the face of all His creation—Gradual growth. The art of being happy was never difficult to me. I think I am permitted an unusual intensity of joy in common cheap pleasures and natural beauties—fresh air, colour, etc., etc., to compensate for some ill-health and deprivations.

Herewith comes my "Portrait by Spoker," and a copy of a Chinnery. The first-fruits of "regular" work at drawing an hour a day!!!

Farewell, Beloved.... Ever your very loving old sister,

Juliana Horatia Ewing.

To A.E.

Ecclesfield Vicarage, Sheffield.
Sunday, Oct. 5, 1873.

... It is all over. She is with your Father and Mother, and the dear Bishop, and my two brothers, and many an old friend who has "gone before." Had she been merely a friend she is one of those whose loss cannot but be felt more as years and experience make one realize the value of certain noble qualities, and their rarity; but if God has laid a heavy cross upon us in this blow,—which seems such a blow in spite of long preparing!—He has given us every comfort, every concession to the weaknesses of our love in the accidents of her death.... It was an ideal end. God Who had permitted her to suffer so sorely in body, and to be often visited in old times—by dread of death and of "death-agonies," parted the waves of the last Jordan, and she "went through dryshod!"... The sense of her higher state is so overwhelming, one cannot indulge a common sorrow. For myself I can only say that I feel as if I were a child again in respect of her. She is as much with me now, as with any of her children, even if I am in Jamaica or Ceylon. Now she knows and sees my life, and I have a feeling as if she were an ever-present conscience to me (as a mother's presence makes a child alive to what is right and what is wrong), which I hope by God's grace may never leave me and may make me more worthy of having had such a Mother....

To C.T. Gatty,

R Lines; South Camp. January 4, 1874.

Dearly Beloved,

What would I give to have a visit from you! I fear you did not get home at Xmas! Thank you a thousand times for your card—I think it almost the very prettiest I ever saw!

... As I am not prompt to time with my Xmas Box I may as well be appropriate in kind. Is there any trifle you are "in want" of?

"Price ner object," as Emmanuel Eaton (the old Nursery man) (very appropriately) named his latest Fuchsia, when he saw us children turning down the Wood End Lane in the Donkey Carriage on a birthday, flush of coppers—and bashful about abating prices!

... I was on the border of sending you a nice collection of poetry—and a shadow crossed my brain that you have said you "don't care about poetry"—"Lives there a man with soul so dead"—or does the great commercial whirl weary out the brain?—If I am wrong and you like it—will you have (if you don't possess) Trench's fine collection of poems of all dates?

Your ever devoted

J.H.E.

To C.T. Gatty,

X Lines, South Camp. March 13, 1874.

My Dearest Charlie,

I am quite a brute not to have written before. I didn't, because (to say the truth!) I had a "return compliment" in the Valentine line in my head, and I never got time to do it! You know what the pressure of work is, and I have had a lot in hand, and been very far from well.

It was very good of you to send me a Val., and much appreciated.

I also owe you thanks for a copy of the "fretful" Porcupine [Sketch] duly received. I was very glad to get it—for you have greatly, wonderfully improved in your writing. I liked your article extremely, and was so very glad to see the marked improvement....

I am not, when I speak of improvement in the art of English composition, alluding solely to the time when you wrote as follows (italics and caps your own):

"Mr. Gatty thinks that Messrs. Fisher & Holmes has sent more than he desired he said 2s. or 2s. 6d. and he thinks there is here more than that he hopes he will answer and tell me what price the lot is and how many plants I may take for 2s. or 2s. 6d. by return of post or by Cox which will be better Ecclesfield June 1866."

I wouldn't part with the original of the above under a considerable sum of money! It always refreshes my brain to go back to it—and I laugh as often as one laughs, and re-laughs at Pickwick!—the way the pronouns become entangled and after making an imperfectly distinctive stand at "he said," jump desperately to the pith of the matter in "what price the lot is." All difficulties of punctuation being disposed of by the process of omitting stops entirely—like old Hebrew—written without points!

(What an autograph for collectors if ever you're the "King Cole" of Liverpool!)

... I have been staying with M.M. I wish I could impart my mental gleanings. I made several experiments on her intellect. I tried to pin her again and again—but quite without success—or (on her part) sense of failure. I tried to remember what she had said afterwards—and I could not succeed. I couldn't carry a single sentence.

Generally speaking I gather that—

"The Kelts are destroying themselves—the Teuton Element MUST prevail—one feels—genius—the thing—Herr Beringer—Dr. Zerffi—but whatever one may feel—so it is! Every other nation commenced where we leave off. WE began with the DRAMA and left off with the Epic—Milton's—what-is-it? But there you have Hamlet—where do you find a character like Hamlet?—NOWHERE! That's the beauty of it. The young lady's maid never reads anything—but Macbeth. Anne I can trust with Faust. I read Lessing myself—and the Greek Testament (not the Epistles—don't let me exaggerate)—with a bit of dry toast and a cup of tea without a saucer or anything. I never sit down till the Easter holidays—before breakfast—I ought to feel—what is it—proud. Dr. Zerffi says he'll show A.B.'s papers at any University against the first-class men—and they won't understand a word of them. What were those girls when they came? There's the Duchess of Somerset's 15th coz twice removed. Its all blood. My father drove four-in-hand down this very hill in the old coaching days (!!!)—and there's not another school in England where the young ladies read Bopp before breakfast. But the Vedas are a mine of—you know what—Sanskrit is English—change the letters and I could make myself understood by a Parsee better than by half the young ladies of this establishment. We're all Indians!"

If her conversation is what it was—and more so, her hospitality, her generosity—and her admirable management of the girls and the house is as A1 as ever. I never saw a prettier, jollier, nicer set of girls. H—— is growing very charming, I think. I believe the secret of her success, in spite of that extraordinary fitful intellect of hers, is that one never learns anything well but what one learns willingly, and that she makes life so much more pleasant and reasonable that the girls work themselves, and so get on.

It's getting late! Good-night. I wish we met oftener!

Ever your very loving sister,

J.H.E.

Have you seen March A.J.M.? I particularly want you to read a thing of mine called "Our Garden." I'll send it if you can't get it.

For Private Circulation Only.
(Oh, Charles! Charles!)

Time, 2 p.m. Julie in bed for the sake of "perfect quiet." M.M. "without a moment to spare."

"I see I'm tiring you—I shall not stop—I haven't a moment—I can't speak—I've given lessons on the mixed Languages this morning—and paid all my bills—Mr. B—— has called—he's better-looking than I thought, but too much hair—and the BREWER all over—you look very white—you're killing yourself—why DO you do it?—and U——'s as bad—I mean D——. Dear me! what a pleasure it has been! When I think of Ecclesfield!!!! You are not to kill yourself—I forbid it—why should you work for daily bread as I have to do?—Our bread bill doesn't exceed £4 a week—I mean a month—TEN pounds a month for groceries and wine—spirits we never have in the house—you've seen all that we have—when I was senseless and Dr. F—— called—when the other doctors came he left his card and retired, but we've employed him since—he ordered gin cloths—they sent out—when the bill came in I said Brown! Brown! BROWN!!—what's this? Gin! GIN! GIN! who's 'ad GIN! They said YOU! Such is life!

"Dear, dear, IT is a pleasure to see you—but I see your head's bad and I'm going—I must dress.—May I ring your bell for the maid—a black silk, Julie, good and well cut is economical, my dear. No underground to Whiteley's for me! Lewis and Allenby—they dress me—I order nothing—I know nothing—I haven't a rag of clothing in the world—they line the bodices with silk and you can darn it down to the last—I eat nothing—I drink nothing—I only work—I never sleep—I read German classics in bed—Lessing—and the second part of Schiller's Faust—I give lessons on it before breakfast in my dressing-gown—this morning the young ladies hung on my lips—I know the lesson was a good one—It was the Sorrows of Goethe. Last week Dr. Zerffi said—'All religions are one and one religion is all—particularly the Brahmas.' It was splendid! and none of the young ladies knew it before they came. But Poor Mrs. S——! She didn't seem one bit wiser. I sent him a Valentine on the 14th—designed by the young ladies. He said 'I knew where it came from—by the word BOPP. Zis is ze only establishment in England where the word BOPP is known.' He's a great man—and the Teutonic element must prevail. The Kelts are very charming, but they will go. We've the same facial angle as the Hindoo, but poor Mrs. S—— can't see it. Dr. A—— says I must have some sleep—so I've given up Sanscrit—You can't do everything even in bed. And it's English when all's done—and Brown speaks it as well as I do!! Go to India, Julie, if ever you have the chance, and talk to the natives—they'll understand you. They understand me. Signor Ricci sometimes does not. But then he speaks the modern—the base—Italian, and I—the classic. He said, 'I do not understand you, Mees M——.' I said, 'E vero, Signor—I know you don't. But that's because I speak classic Italian. All the organ-boys understand me.' And he smiled. Dear, dear! How pleasant it is to see a Gatty—but I wish you didn't look so white—when I see other people suffer, and think of all the years of health I've enjoyed, I never can be thankful enough—and when I've paid my monthly bills I'm the happiest woman in England. When I think of how much I have and how little I deserve, I don't know what to do but say my prayers. Dear, I'm sorry I told you that story about X——. If she sent this morning for £10 I must let her have it, if I had to go out and borrow it. I am going out—the Dr. says I must. In the holidays I go on the balcony—and look down into the street—and see the four-in-hands—and the policemen—and the han(d)som cabmen (they're most of them gentlemen—and some of them Irish gentlemen), and I say—'Such is life!' And poor Mrs. S—— says 'Is it, Miss M——?' and I know I speak sharply to her, which I should not do. And I go into Kensington Gardens—and see the Princess—and the Ducks in the water—and the little ragged boys going to bathe—and I say 'This is a glorious world!' I saw Lord—Lord—dear me! I know his name as well as my own—Lord—Lord—Oh Lord! he believes in Tichborne—K——, that's it—Lord K—— in the Row. He always asks after me. HE married a woman—well. No more about that. He couldn't get a divorce. Her sister married a parson. She was the mother of that poor woman—you know—who was murdered by those people—they lived two streets off Derby House—the brother—a handsome man—lived opposite Gipsey Hill Station. You know that? Well. His wife had a bunch of curls behind (I hate curls and bunches behind—keep your hair clean and put it up simply). She—got off and so did he. They—that's the parson and his wife—wrote to Lord K—— and said 'Lady K—— is dead,' He said 'Then bury her.' and he married again at once. She was a Miss A., and she said—'I marry him because I've been told to'—but that's neither here nor there, and these things occur. ANN! is that you? My dear, how black you are under the eyes—DO, Julie, try and take better care of yourself—and keep quiet. If I were Major Ewing I'd thrash you if you didn't. Coming, Ann!—What was it?—Oh, Lord K—— and Tichborne—well—just let me shut the door. He IS Tichborne—but he murdered him. That's the secret.

"ANN! My black silk—go to my room—murdered who? why—Castor.

"Now try and get some sleep. If I find you with papers I'll burn them. Oh! there go all the drags and Mr. M—— on the box—and there go the 4.45, 5.15, and 5.25 to Baker St.—The days fly! But it's a glorious life. Work! Work!—Keep quiet, dear—I shall be back directly."

To A.E.

"Sheffield House," New Quay, Dartmouth.
June 4, 1874.

... The above I find is our correct address, though what I sent you is all-sufficient, especially as you can't land without our seeing you out of our window, as we are almost within speaking distance of the steamer....

From Exeter here the line is lovely. Half the way you run along the shore. The fields ploughed and meadowed, and with trees, and cattle come down to the shore. [Sketch.]

Torbay is in this line. The cliffs are a deep red sandstone, the sky deep blue, and the fields deep green!! [Sketch.]

At Dawlish, Torquay, etc. the jutting rocks of worn-away sandstone mark the points of the little bays with fantastic looking shapes, like petrified giants. [Sketch.]

Looking back from Teignmouth is a very curious one on which the sea-birds sit. Bless their noses! and their legs! How they do enjoy the waves! [Sketch.]

Those lazy ripples damp their boots so nicely!

In the Exeter Station sat a —— [Sketch] Bull Dogue. O dear! He looked so "savidge," and was so nervous; every train made him tremble in every limb! I bought him a penny bun, but he was too nervous to eat, though he looked very grateful. The porter promised me to give him plenty of water, and as I gave the porter plenty of coppers I hope he did!

Tell Stephen the flowers on the railway banks give you quite a turn! Crimson, pale pink, and dead-white Valerian against a deep blue sky in hot sunshine make one not know whether to paint or press!

As to Dartmouth itself it is a mixture of Matlock, Whitby and Antwerp!!! The defect is it is really oil the river, not on the sea, but the neighbouring bays are so get-at-able we have settled here. The town is very old. Some of the streets, or rather terraces—if a perfectly irregular perching and jumbling of houses up and down a steep lull can be called a terrace—are very curious. [Sketch.]

Flowers everywhere....

To H.K.F.G.

July 12, 1874.

Dr. Edghill preached a fine sermon this morning on "Friend! wherefore art thou come?" Terribly didactic on the fate of Judas, but the practical application was wonderful and so like him! It being chiefly on the "patient love of Christ." Quite merciless on Judas, and on the coarseness, coldness and brutalness of betrayal by the tenderest sign of human love. "But" (plunging head-first among the Engineers!) "if there's any man sitting here with a heart and conscience every bit as black as Judas's in that hour: to thee, Brother, in this hour—in thy worst and vilest hour—Jesus speaks—'Friend!—You may have worn out human love, you may try your hardest to wear out Mine'"—(parenthesis to the A.S.C. and a nautical hitch of half his surplice)—("and we all try hard enough, that's certain!)—'but you never can—Friend, still My Friend!'" (Pull up, and obvious need of bronchial troches. Tonsure mopped and a re-commencement.) "Then there's the appeal to the conscience as well as to the heart. Wherefore art thou come? what art thou about—what is thy object? I tell you what, I believe if Judas had answered this in plain language to himself he would have stopped short even then. And we should stop short of many a sin if we'd face what we're going to do" (Dangerous precipitation of the whole Chaplain at the heads of the privates below.) "Some of you ask yourselves that question to-day—this evening as you're walking to Aldershot, 'Wherefore am I come?' And don't let the Devil put something else into your head, but just answer it," etc. etc.

He's not exactly an equal or a finished preacher for highly educated ears, but that sort of transparent candour which he has makes him very affecting when on his favourite topic, the inexhaustible love of God. His face when he quotes—"The Son of God Who loved Me and gave Himself for Me," is like a man showing the Rock he has clung to himself in shipwreck.

To C.T.G.

X Lines. July 22, 1874.

Dearest Charlie,

It was a great disappointment not to see you! Now don't fail me next week—you scoundrel! I want you most particularly for most selfish reasons. I am just taking my hero[38] into Victoria Docks, and want to dip my brush in Couleur locale with your help. Do come, and we'll go up to London by barge and sketch all the way!!! I know an A1 Bargemaster, and we can get beds at the inns en route. A two days' voyage! Or we can go for a shorter period and come home by rail. It won't cost us much.

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 assure 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.

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 God" 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 Saturday 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—

—not I believe supposed to refer to highwaymen!! and agricultural labourers stand (among trades) statistically high (or low!) for the crime of murder.

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 class to whom I believe it would be acceptable, is the class of whom I believe it is not (typically) true, and perhaps it is good for every class to have an ideal of its own circumstances 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 circumstances 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 cocks 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-grass 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 canal—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 canal; 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.

It is a sunny sweet day, so that I have been strolling about in the garden without a jacket. It is strangely pleasant being here, the old scenes without, and all Sir Howard Elphinstone's pretty things within. The Jelfs are staying in the Elphinstones' hut. In the matter of pictures I do not always agree with Sir Howard, but his decorative taste is very good, and the things he has picked up in all parts of the world are delightful. "Et ego, etc." We have things and things as it is, and shall pick up more! He is so very ingenious, and has made a dado over the mantelpiece, with a white or coloured border on which he puts pictures and photographs; in the centre is a square of coloured material with other things mounted on it. I foresee making a similar design for our Malta mantelpiece, with a gold Maltese cross in the centre and tiles round illustrating the eight Beatitudes....

I am intensely enjoying this bit here. Yesterday the Jelfs and the boys and I had a long wander by the canal where the larches and the birches are getting their tenderest tints on.... On Thursday evening I went to the Tin Church, with the old bell tankling as I went in, and the mess bugles tootling afar as I came out. Bell the schoolmaster and baritone started as if I were a ghost, and sent me a book for the special hymn. Not a soul in the officers' seats—but a good choir and a very fair congregation of men and barrack families. Said I to myself, "I've been living in wealthy Bowdon and in ecclesiastical York, and not had this. Well done—the Tug of War and the Tin Tabernacle and the Camp! and unpaid soldiers and their sons to sing the Lord's Song in the land of their pilgrimage!"

To-day I went with Mrs. Jelf to a meeting at the Club House about "Coffee Houses." When we got in a "rehearsal" (dramatic) was going on, and the chaff was "Have you come for the rehearsal or the coffee-house?" We "Coffee-housers" adjourned to the Whist Room. Sir Thos. Steele in the chair. I had a long chat with him. He says Music and the Drama have declined dreadfully. The meeting was full of friends. "Mat Irvine" nearly wrung my hand off, and I sat by poor Knollys, who is heart-broken at the death of that dear little soul, Captain Barton. It was a first-rate meeting, mixed military and Aldershot tradesmen—a very "nice feeling" displayed—altogether it was wonderfully pleasant.

Exeter. May 16, 1879.

... The weather alternates here between North-Easters and mugginess, and I have never slept without fires yet. All the same I have had some lovely drives, which you know are so good for me. When Mrs. Fox Strangways couldn't go the Colonel has taken me alone 12 or 14 miles in the dog-cart with a very "free-going" but otherwise prettily-behaved little mare named Daphne. The tumbledown of hills and dales is very pretty here, and the deep red of the earth, and the whitewashed and thatched cottages. Very pretty bits for sketching if it had been sketching-weather....

I hope to get several things done in London. Jean Ingelow has burst out rather about my writings, and wants me to do something "in the style of Madam Liberality," and let her try to get it into Good Words, as she thinks I ought to try for a wider audience. I shall certainly go and see her, and talk over matters.... I was very much pleased Sir Anthony Home had been so much pleased with "Jan." To draw tears from a V.C. and a fine old Scotch medico is very gratifying! Capt. Patten said their own Dr. Craig had also been delighted with it. When "We and the World" is done I mean to rest well on my oars, and then try and aim at something to give me a better footing if I can....

June 14, 1879.

... I am getting as devoted to Browning as you. It is very funny—this sudden and simultaneous light on him!

May 23, 1879.

[Sketch.]

Forty-four of these aquatic plant tubs stand in one part of the back premises of Clyst S. George Rectory, full of truly wondrous varieties. The above is a thing like white tassels and purple-pink buds. Fancy how I revel in them, and in the garden, which holds 1640 species of herbaceous perennials all labelled and indexed!! The old Rector (he is 89) is as hard at it as ever. He is so pleased to be listened to, and it is enormously interesting though somewhat fatiguing, and leaves me no time whatever for anything else! My brain whirls with tiles, mosaics, tesseræ, bell-castings, bell-marks, and mottos, electros, squeezes, rubbings, etc., etc. His latest plant fad is Willows and Bamboos, of which he has countless kinds growing and flourishing!!! He is infirm, but it is very grand to see life rich with interests, and with work that will benefit others—so near the grave!

We'd a funny scene this morning when I went over the church with him, and had to write my name in the book.

Very testily—"The date, my dear, put the date!"

"I have put it."

More testily at being in the wrong—"Then put your address, put your address."

I hesitated, and he threw up his hands: "Bless me! you've not got one. It has always puzzled me so what made you take a fancy to a soldier."

He had been very full of all kinds of ancient Church matters—a wonderful bell dedicated to the Blessed Virgin in a very remarkable inscription, etc.,—so I seized the pen and wrote—Strada Maria Stella, Malta—and "I du thenk" (as they say here) it will considerably puzzle the old sexton!!!!!

Soon after sunrise on Ascension Day I was woke clear and clean by the bells breaking into song. You know campanology is his great hobby. They rang changes, with long pauses between. Bells often try me very much, at Ecclesfield par exemple, but I really enjoyed these....

May 24, 1879.

... A very pathetic bit of private news of poor little MacDowell. He was sent by the General to tell them to strike the tents, and was urging on the ammunition to the front, and encouraging the bandsmen to carry it, when a Zulu shot him. A good and not painful end—God bless him! The Capt. Jones who told this, said also that one little bugler killed three big Zulus with his side-arms before he fell! Also that a private of the 24th saved Chard's life at Rorke's Drift by pushing his head down, so that a bullet went over it!

Woolwich. Whit Monday, 1879.

Don't think you have all the picturesque beggars to yourself! Out in a street of Woolwich with Mrs. O'Malley the other day I saw this—[Sketch.] The eyes though very clear and intense-looking decided me at once the man was blind, though he had no dog, and was only walking solemnly on, with a carved fiddle of white wood under his arm! I ran back after him, and went close in front of him. He gazed and saw nothing. Then I touched him and said, "Are you blind?" He started and said, "Very nearly." I gave him a penny, for which he thanked me, and then I asked about the fiddle. He carved and made it himself out of firewood in the workhouse! The handle part (forgive my barbarism!) is "a bit of ash." It was much about the level of North American Indian art, but very touching as to patient ingenuity. He asked if anybody had told me about him. I said, "No. But I've a husband who plays the fiddle," and I gave him the balance of my loose coppers! He said, "Have you? He plays, does he? Well. This has been a lucky day for me." He was a shipwright—can play the piano, he says—lives in the workhouse in winter and comes out in summer—with the flowers—and his fiddle! I knew you would like me to give something to that povero fratello.

Woolwich. June 6, 1879.

... The painter of the Academy this year is Mrs. Butler!! I do hope some day somewhere you may see The Remnants of an Army and Recruits for the Connaught Rangers. The first is in the Academy Notes, which I send you. The second is at least as fine. [Sketch.] The landscape effect is the opal-like sky and bright light full of moisture after rain—heavy clouds hang above—the mountains are a leaden blue—and the sky of all exquisite pale shades of bright colour. Down the wet moor road comes the group. Two very tall, dark-eyed Connaught "boys"—one with a set face and his hands in his pockets looking straight out of the picture—the other with a yearning of Keltic emotion looking back at the hills as if his heart was breaking. The strapping young sergeant looks very grave; but an "old soldier" behind is lighting his pipe, and a bugler is holding back a dog. One of the best faces is that of the drummer who walks first, and whose 13-year-old face is so furrowed about the brow with oppressive anxiety—very truthful!

The Remnants of an Army is of course overpowering by the mere subject, and it is nobly painted. The man and his horse are wonderful alike. There is nothing to touch these two. But I would like to steal Peter Graham's The Seabirds' Resting-Place. Such penguins sitting on wet rocks with wet Fucus growing on them! Such myriads more in the sea-mist that hides the horizon-line—sitting on distant rocks!—and such green waves—by the light of a sunbeam into one of which you see Laminaria fronds and lumps of Fucus tossing up and down. You feel wet and ozoney to come near it! There are some very fine men's portraits, and Orchardson's Gamblers Hard Hit is the best thing of his, I think, that I know....

... There is a very beautiful old gun in the Arsenal upon a gun-carriage with wheels thus [Sketch], and with bas-reliefs of St. Paul and the Viper. It is needless to say the gun came from the island called Melita! But for cunning workmanship and fine bold designs and delicate execution the Chinese guns are the ones! I am taking rubbings of the patterns for decorative purposes! They were taken in the war.

There is yet one picture I must tell you of—"A Musical Story by Chopin"—the boy playing to a group of lads and a tutor. His utterly absorbed face is admirable. It is a very pretty thing. Not marvellous, but very good.

August 5, 1879.

I must tell you that it is on the cards that Caldecott is going to do a coloured picture for me to write to, for the October No. of A.J.M. (so that it will bind up with the 1879 volume and be the Frontispiece). He is so fragile he can't "hustle," but he wants to do it. D—— and he became great friends in London, and I think now he would help us whenever he could. We have been bold enough to "speak our minds" pretty freely to him, about wasting his time over second-rate "society" work for Graphic, etc., etc., when he has such a genius to interpret humour and pathos for good writers, and no real writing gifts himself. (He has done some things called Flirtation in France, supplying both letter-press and sketches!—that are terrible to any one who has gone heart and soul into his House that Jack built!!!) I've told him frankly if he "draws down to me" in the hopes of making my share easy by making his commonplace, and gives me a "rising young family in sand-boots and frilled trousers with an over-fed mercantile mamma," my "few brains will utterly congeal," but I have made two suggestions to him, so closely on his own lines that if hints help him I think he would find it easy. You know horses are really his spécialité. I have asked him to give me a coloured thing and one or two rough sketches, Either