Chapter 6

And my only resource is the quiet of my own work, to which--these last days--I have nearly given myself altogether. Yet I _had_ read your letter as far as the place where you said you wanted one and then, began to think what I should say--and "read no further"[43] that day--and now here is this harm that had befallen you--which I trust, nevertheless, is of no real consequence, and this one thing I must say once for all, that whatever may be my feelings to you--you must _never_ more let yourself imagine for an instant they can come of any manner of offense? _That_ thought is real injustice to me. I have never, and never can have, any other feeling towards you than that of the deepest gratitude, respect, and affection--too sorrowfully inexpressible and ineffectual--but never changing. I will drive, walk, or row, over to see you on New Year's day--if I am fairly well--be the weather what it will. I hope the bearer will bring me back a comforting report as to the effects of your accident and that you will never let yourself again be discomforted by mistrust of me, for I am and shall ever be

Your faithful and loving servant, JOHN RUSKIN.

[Footnote 43: Dante, "Inferno," v. 144.]

* * * * *

I never heard the like--my writing good! and just now!! If you only saw the wretched notes on the back of lecture leaves!

But I am so very glad you think it endurable, and it is so nice to be able to give you a moment's pleasure by such a thing. I'm better to-day, but still extremely languid. I believe that there is often something in the spring which weakens one by its very tenderness; the violets in the wood send one home sorrowful that one isn't worthy to see them, or else, that one isn't one of them.

It is mere Midsummer dream in the wood to-day.

You could not possibly have sent me a more delightful present than this Lychnis; it is the kind of flower that gives me pleasure and health and memory and hope and everything that Alpine meadows and air can. I'm getting better generally, too. The sun _did_ take one by surprise at first.

How blessedly happy Joanie and the children were yesterday at the Thwaite! I'm coming to be happy myself there to-morrow (D.V.).

Here are the two bits of study I did in Malham Cove; the small couples of leaves are different portraits of the first shoots of the two geraniums. I don't find in any botany an account of their little round side leaves, or of the definite central one above the branching of them.

Here's your lovely note just come. I am very thankful that the "Venice" gives you so much pleasure.

I _have_, at least, one certainty, which few authors could hold so surely, that no one was ever harmed by a book of mine; they may have been offended, but have never been discouraged or discomforted, still less corrupted.

_There's_ a saucy speech for Susie's friend. You won't like me any more if I begin to talk like that.

* * * * *

A sapphire is the same stone as a ruby; both are the pure earth of clay crystallized. No one knows why one is red and the other blue.

A diamond is pure _coal_ crystallized.

An opal, pure flint--in a state of fixed _jelly_.

I'm in a great passion with the horrid people who write letters to tease my good little Susie. _I won't have it._ She shall have some more stones to-morrow.

I must have a walk to-day, and can't give account of them, but I've looked them out. It's so very nice that you like stones. If my father, when I was a little boy, would only have given me stones for bread, how I should have thanked him.

What infinite power and treasure you have in being able thus to enjoy the least things, yet having at the same time all the fastidiousness of taste and imagination which lays hold of what is greatest in the least, and best in all things!

Never hurt your eyes by writing; keep them wholly for admiration and wonder. I hope to write little more myself of books, and to join with you in joy over crystals and flowers in the way we used to do when we were both more children than we are.

* * * * *

TO MISS BEEVER.

I am ashamed not to have sent you a word of expression of my real and very deep feelings of regard and respect for you, and of my not _fervent_ (in the usual phrase, which means only hasty and ebullient), but serenely _warm_, hope that you may keep your present power of benevolent happiness to length of many days to come. But I hope you will sometimes take the simpler view of the little agate box than that of birthday token, and that you will wonder sometimes at its labyrinth of mineral vegetable! I assure you there is nothing in all my collection of agates in its way quite so perfect as the little fiery forests of dotty trees in the corner of the piece which forms the bottom. I ought to have set it in silver, but was always afraid to trust it to a lapidary.

What you say of the Greek want of violets is also very interesting to me, for it is one of my little pet discoveries that Homer means the blue iris by the word translated "violet."

* * * * *

_Thursday morning._

I'm ever so much better, and the jackdaw has come. But why wasn't I there to meet his pathetic desire for art knowledge? To think of that poor bird's genius and love of scarlet ribbons, shut up in a cage! What it might have come to!

If ever my St. George's schools come to any perfection, they shall have every one a jackdaw to give the children their first lessons in arithmetic. I'm sure he could do it perfectly. "Now, Jack, take two from four, and show them how many are left." "Now, Jack, if you take the teaspoon out of this saucer, and put it into _that_, and then if you take two teaspoons out of two saucers, and put them into this, and then if you take one teaspoon out of this, and put it into that, how many spoons are there in this, and how many in that?"--and so on.

Oh, Susie, when we _do_ get old, you and I, won't we have nice schools for the birds first, and then for the children?

That photograph is indeed like a visit; how thankful I am that it is still my hope to get the real visit some day!

I was yesterday and am always, certainly at present, very unwell, and a mere trouble to my Joanies and Susies and all who care for me. But I'm painting another bit of moss which I think Susie will enjoy, and hope for better times.

Did you see the white cloud that stayed quiet for three hours this morning over the Old Man's summit? It was one of the few remains of the heaven one used to see. The heaven one had a Father in, not a raging enemy.

I send you Rogers' "Italy," that is no more. I do think you'll have pleasure in it.

* * * * *

I've been made so miserable by a paper of Sir J. Lubbock's on flowers and insects, that I must come and whine to you. He says, and really as if he knew it, that insects, chiefly bees, entirely originate flowers; that all scent, color, pretty form, is owing to bees; that flowers which insects don't take care of, have no scent, color, nor honey.

It seems to me, that it is likelier that the flowers which have no scent, color, nor honey, don't get any attention from the bees.

But the man really knows so much about it, and has tried so many pretty experiments, that he makes me miserable.

So I'm afraid you're miserable too. Write to tell me about it all.

It is very lovely of you to send me so sweet a note when I have not been near you since the tenth century. But it is all I can do to get my men and my moor looked after; they have both the instinct of doing what I don't want, the moment my back's turned; and then there has not been light enough to know a hawk from a hand-saw, or a crow from a ptarmigan, or a moor from a meadow. But how much better your eyes must be when you can write such lovely notes!

I don't understand how the strange cat came to love you so quickly, after one dinner and a rest by the fire! I should have thought an ill-treated and outcast animal would have regarded everything as a trap, for a month at least,--dined in tremors, warmed itself with its back to the fire, watching the door, and jumped up the chimney if you stepped on the rug.

If you only knew the good your peacock's feathers have done me, and if you could only see the clever drawing I'm making of one from the blue breast! You know what lovely little fern or equisetum stalks of sapphire the filaments are; they beat me so, but they're coming nice.

* * * * *

That is so intensely true what you say about Turner's work being like nature's in its slowness and tenderness. I always think of him as a great natural force in a human frame.

_So_ nice all you say of the "Ethics"! And I'm a monster of ingratitude, as bad as the Dragon of Wantley. Don't like Dr. Brown's friend's book at all. It's neither Scotch nor English, nor fish nor flesh, and it's tiresome.

I'm in the worst humor I've been in this month, which is saying much; and have been writing the wickedest "Fors" I ever wrote, which is saying more; you will be _so_ angry.

* * * * *

I'm so very glad you will mark the bits you like, but are there not a good many here and there that you _don't_ like?--I mean that sound hard or ironical. Please don't mind them. They're partly because I never count on readers who will really care for the prettiest things, and it gets me into a bad habit of expressing contempt which is not indeed any natural part of my mind.

It pleases me especially that you have read "The Queen of the Air." As far as I know, myself, of my books, it is the most useful and careful piece I have done. But that again--did it not shock you to have a heathen goddess so much believed in? (I've believed in English ones long ago). If you can really forgive me for "The Queen of the Air," there are all sorts of things I shall come begging you to read some day.

* * * * *

_21st July._

I'm always looking at the Thwaite, and thinking how nice it is that you are there. I think it's a little nice, too, that _I'm_ within sight of you, for if I hadn't broken, I don't know how many not exactly promises, but nearly, to be back at Oxford by this time, I might have been dragged from Oxford to London, from London to France, from France who knows where? But I'm here, and settled to produce, as soon as possible, the following works--

1. New number of "Love's Meinie," on the Stormy Petrel. 2. New ditto of "Proserpina," on sap, pith, and bark. 3. New ditto of "Deucalion," on clouds. 4. New "Fors," on new varieties of young ladies. 5. Two new numbers of "Our Fathers," on Brunehaut, and Bertha her niece, and St. Augustine and St. Benedict. 6. Index and epilogue to four Oxford lectures. 7. Report and account of St. George's Guild.

And I've had to turn everything out of every shelf in the house, for mildew and moths.

And I want to paint a little bank of strawberry leaves.

And I've to get a year's dead sticks out of the wood, and see to the new oat field on the moor, and prepare lectures for October!

I'm _so_ idle. I look at the hills out of bed, and at the pictures off the sofa. Let us _both_ be useless beings; let us be butterflies, grasshoppers, lambs, larks, anything for an easy life. I'm quite horrified to see, now that these two have come back, what a lot of books I've written, and how cruel I've been to myself and everybody else who ever has to read them. I'm too sleepy to finish this note.

* * * * *

_13th June._

I do not know when I have received, or how I _could_ receive so great an encouragement in all my work, as I do in hearing that you, after all your long love and watchfulness of flowers, have yet gained pleasure and insight from "Proserpina" as to leaf structure. The examples you send me are indeed admirable. Can you tell me the exact name of the plant, that I may quote it?

Yes, and the weather also is a great blessing to me--so lovely this morning.

* * * * *

I'm getting steadily better, and breathing the sunshine a little again in soul and lips. But I always feel so naughty after having had morning prayers, and that the whole house is a sort of little Bethel that I've no business in.

I'm reading history of early saints too, for my Amiens book, and feel that I ought to be scratched, or starved, or boiled, or something unpleasant, and I don't know if I'm a saint or a sinner in the least, in mediaeval language. How did saints feel themselves, I wonder, about their saintship?

* * * * *

It is _such_ a joy to hear that you enjoy anything of mine, and a double joy to have your sympathy in my love of those Italians. How I wish there were more like you! What a happy world it would be if a quarter of the people in it cared a quarter as much as you and I do, for what is good and true:

That Nativity _is_ the deepest of all. It is by the master of Botticelli, you know; and whatever is most sweet and tender in Botticelli he owes to Lippi.

But, do you know, I quite forget about Cordelia, and where I said it! please keep it till I come. I hope to be across to see you to-morrow.

They've been doing photographs of me again, and I'm an orang-outang as usual, and am in despair. I thought with my beard I was beginning to be just the least bit nice to look at. I would give up half my books for a new profile.

What a lovely day since twelve o'clock! I never saw the lake shore more heavenly.

I am very thankful that you like this "St. Mark's" so much, and do not feel as if I had lost power of mind. I think the illness has told on me more in laziness than foolishness. I feel as if there was as much _in_ me as ever, but it is too much trouble to say it. And I find myself reconciled to staying in bed of a morning to a quite woeful extent. I have not been affected so much by melancholy, being very thankful to be still alive, and to be able to give pleasure to some people.

You have greatly helped me by this dear little note. And the bread's all right, brown again, and I'm ready for asparagus of any stoutness, there! Are you content! But my new asparagus is quite _visible_ this year, though how much would be wanted for a dish I don't venture to count, but must be congratulated on its definitely stalky appearance.

I was over the water this morning on school committee. How bad I have been to let those poor children be tormented as they are all this time! I'm going to try and stop all the spelling and counting and catechising, and teach them only--to watch and pray.

The oranges make me think I'm in a castle in Spain!

* * * * *

Your letters always warm me a little, not with laughing, but with the soft glow of life, for I live mostly with "la mort dans l'ame." (It is curious that the French, whom one thinks of as slight and frivolous, have this true and deep expression for the forms of sorrow that kill, as opposed to those that discipline and strengthen.) And your words and thoughts just soften and warm like west wind.

It is nice being able to please you with what I'm writing, and that you can tell people I'm not so horrid.

Here's the "Fors" you saw the proof of, but _this_ isn't quite right yet.

The Willy[44] quotations are very delightful. Do you know that naughty "Cowley" at all? There's all kind of honey and strawberries in him.

It is bitter cold here these last days. I don't stir out, but must this afternoon. I've to go out to dinner and work at the Arundel Society. And if you only knew what was in my thoughts you would be _so_ sorry for me, that I can't tell you.

[Footnote 44: Shakespeare.]

* * * * *

CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD.

What a sad little letter! written in that returned darkness. How can _you_ ever be sad, looking forward to eternal life with all whom you love, and God over all?

It is only so far as I lose hold of that hope, that anything is ever a trial to me. But I can't think how I'm to get on in a world with no Venice in it.

You were quite right in thinking I would have nothing to do with lawyers. Not one of them shall ever have so much as a crooked sixpence of mine, to save him from being hanged, or to save the Lakes from being filled up. But I really hope there may be feeling enough in Parliament to do a right thing without being deafened with lawyers' slang.

I have never thanked you for the snowdrops. They bloomed here beautifully for four days. Then I had to leave them to go and lecture in London. It was nice to see them, but my whole mind is set on finding whether there is a country where the flowers do not fade. Else there is no spring for me. People liked the lecture, and so many more wanted to come than could get in, that I had to promise to give another.

* * * * *

Here's your little note first of all. And if you only knew how my wristbands are plaguing me you'd be very sorry. They're too much starched, and _would_ come down like mittens; and now I've turned them up, they're just like two horrid china cups upside down, inside my coat, and I'm afraid to write for fear of breaking them. And I've a week's work on the table, to be done before one o'clock, on pain of uproar from my friends, execution from my enemies, reproach from my lovers, triumph from my haters, despair of Joanie, and--what from Susie? I've had such a bad night, too; woke at half-past three and have done a day's work since then--composing my lecture for March, and thinking what's to become of a godson of mine whose----

Well, never mind. I needn't give _you_ the trouble, poor little Susie, of thinking too.

* * * * *

I'm going to Oxford to-day (D.V.), really quite well, and rather merry. I went to the circus with my new pet, and saw lovely riding and ball play; and my pet said the only drawback to it all, was that she couldn't sit on both sides of me. And then I went home to tea with her, and gave mamma, who is Evangelical, a beautiful lecture on the piety of dramatic entertainments, which made her laugh whether she would or no; and then I had my Christmas dinner in advance with Joanie and Arfie and Stacy Marks, and his wife and two pretty daughters, and I had six kisses--two for Christmas, two for New Year's Day, and two for Twelfth Night--and everybody was in the best humor with everybody else. And now my room is ankle deep in unanswered letters, mostly on business, and I'm going to shovel them up and tie them in a parcel labeled "Needing particular attention;" and then that will be put into a cupboard in Oxford, and I shall feel that everything's been done in a business-like way.

That badger's beautiful. I don't think there's any need for such beasts as _that_ to turn Christians.

* * * * *

I am indeed most thankful you are well again, though I never looked on that deafness very seriously; but if you _like_ hearing watches tick, and boots creak, and plates clatter, so be it to you, for many and many a year to come. I think I should _so_ like to be deaf, mostly, not expected to answer anybody in society, never startled by a bang, never tortured by a railroad whistle, never hearing the nasty cicadas in Italy, nor a child cry, nor an owl. Nothing but a nice whisper into my ear, by a pretty girl. Ah well, I'm very glad I can chatter to you with my weak voice, to my heart's content; and you must come and see me soon now. All that you say of "Proserpina" is joyful to me. What a Susie you are, drawing like that! and I'm sure you know Latin better than I do.

* * * * *

I am better, but not right yet. There is no fear of sore throat, I think, but some of prolonged tooth worry. It is more stomachic than coldic, I believe, and those tea cakes are too crisply seductive! What _can_ it be, that subtle treachery that lurks in tea cakes, and is wholly absent in the rude honesty of toast?

The metaphysical effect of tea cake last night was, that I had a perilous and weary journey in a desert, in which I had to dodge hostile tribes round the corners of pyramids.

A very sad letter from Joanie tells me she was going to Scotland last night, at which I am not only very sorry but very cross.

A chirping cricket on the hearth advises me to keep my heart up.

* * * * *

Your happy letters (with the sympathetic misery of complaint of dark days) have cheered me as much as anything could do.

The sight of one of my poor "Companions of St. George," who has sent me, not a widow's but a parlor-maid's (an old school-mistress) "all her living," and whom I found last night, dying, slowly and quietly, in a damp room, just the size of your study (which her landlord won't mend the roof of), by the light of a single tallow candle--dying, I say, _slowly_, of consumption, not yet near the end, but contemplating it with sorrow, mixed partly with fear, lest she should not have done all she could for her children!

The sight of all this and my own shameful comforts, three wax candles and blazing fire and dry roof, and Susie and Joanie for friends!

Oh me, Susie, what _is_ to become of me in the next world, who have in this life all my good things!

* * * * *

What a sweet, careful, tender letter this is! I re-inclose it at once for fear of mischief, though I've scarcely read, for indeed my eyes are weary, but I see what gentle mind it means.

Yes, you will love and rejoice in your Chaucer more and more. Fancy, I've never time, now, to look at him,--obliged to read even my Homer and Shakespeare at a scramble, half missing the sense,--the business of life disturbs one so.

* * * * *

HERNE HILL.

Here's your letter first thing in the morning, while I'm sipping my coffee in the midst of such confusion as I've not often achieved at my best. The little room, which I think is as nearly as possible the size of your study, but with a lower roof, has to begin with--A, my bed; B, my basin stand; C, my table; D, my chest of drawers; thus arranged in relation to E, the window (which has still its dark bars to prevent the little boy getting out); F, the fireplace; G, the golden or mineralogical cupboard; and H, the grand entrance. The two dots with a back represent my chair, which is properly solid and not _un_-easy. Three others of lighter disposition find place somewhere about. These with the chimney-piece and drawer's head are covered, or rather heaped, with all they can carry, and the morning is just looking in, astonished to see what is expected of it, and smiling--(yes, I may fairly say it is smiling, for it is cloudless for its part above the smoke of the horizon line)--at Sarah's hope and mine, of ever getting that room into order by twelve o'clock. The chimney-piece with its bottles, spoons, lozenge boxes, matches, candlesticks, and letters jammed behind them, does appear to me entirely hopeless, and this the more because Sarah,[45] when I tell her to take a bottle away that has a mixture in it which I don't like, looks me full in the face, and says "she _won't_, because I may want it." I submit, because it is so nice to get Sarah to look one full in the face. She really is the prettiest, round faced, and round eyed girl I ever saw, and it's a great shame she should be a housemaid; only I wish she would take those bottles away. She says I'm looking better to-day, and I think I'm feeling a little bit more,--no, I mean, a little bit less demoniacal. But I still can do that jackdaw beautifully.

[Footnote 45: Our Herne Hill parlor-maid for four years. One of quite the brightest and handsomest types of English beauty I ever saw, either in life, or fancied in painting.--J. R.]

* * * * *

I am quite sure you would have felt like Albert Duerer, had you gone on painting wrens.