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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 L8! 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
L35--the Col. Commanding only paid L55--and we are paying L70!!!
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!
I cannot say how truly I appreciate them. Anything absolutely
first-rately done of its kind is always very refreshing, and I do not
see how such national songs could be done much better. They are Irish
to the core!
Irish in local colour--in wealth of word variety--in poetry of the
earliest and freshest type--in shallow passion like a pebbly
brook!--and in a certain comicality and shrewdness. Irish--I was going
to say in refinement, but that is not the word--modern literature is
full of refinements--but Irish in the surpassingly Irish grace of
purity, so rare a quality in modern verse!
How we have laughed over Father O'Flynn! Kitty Bawn is perfect of its
kind--and No. 1 and No. 2.
It is a most graceful collection. Will it be published soon? My
husband says this copy is only a proof.
I am unjustifiably curious to know if Mr. Graves has given much labour
and polishing to these fresh impetuous things. It is against all my
experiences if he has _not_!--but then it would be an addition to my
experiences to find they were "tossed off"!
They have been a pleasant interlude amid the sordid cares of driving
the workmen along! I am getting terribly tired of it!
Yours very sincerely,
JULIANA HORATIA EWING.
TO MRS. GOING.
_Villa Ponente, Taunton._ July 11, 1883.
DEAR MADAM,
Your letter was forwarded to me last month, when I was (and to some
extent am still) very very busy in the details of setting up a new
home--of the temporary nature of military homes!--as Major Ewing has
been posted to Taunton.
As yet there are many things on which I cannot "lay my hand," and a
copy of the Tug of War Hymn is among them!
When I can find it--I will lend it to you. Should I omit to do
so--please be good enough to jog my memory!
It is a rather "ranting" tune-but has tender associations for my
ears.
The soldiers of the Iron Church, South Camp, Aldershot, used to "bolt"
with it in the manner described, and some dear little sons of an R.E.
officer always called it the "Tug of War Hymn."
With many thanks for your kind sayings, I am, dear Madam,
Yours very truly,
JULIANA HORATIA EWING.
TO THE REV. J. GOING.
October 11, 1883.
DEAR MR. GOING,
I append a rough plan of my small garden. We do not stand dead E. and
W., but perhaps a little more so than the arrows show. We are very
high and the winds are often high too! The walls are brick--and that
south bed is very warm. I mean to put bush roses down what is marked
the Potato Patch--it is the original soil with one year's potato crop
where I am mixing vegetables and flowers. The borders are given up to
flowers--mixed herbaceous ones. And on my south wall I have already
planted a Wistaria, a blue Passion-flower--and a Rose of Sharon! I am
keeping a warm corner for "Fortune's Yellow"--and now looking forward
with more delight and gratitude than I can express to "Cloth of Gold"!
I have sent to order the "well-rotted"--and the Gardener for Saturday
morning!
Now will you present my grateful acknowledgments to Mrs. Going, and
say that with some decent qualms at my own greediness--I "too-too"
gratefully accept her further kind offers. I deeply desire some
"Ladders to Heaven"--(does she know that old name for Lilies of the
Valley?)--and I am devoted to pansies and have only a scrap or two. A
neighbour _has_ given me a few Myosotis--but I am a daughter of the
horse-leech I fear where flowers are concerned, and if you really have
one or two TO SPARE I thankfully accept. The truly Irish
liberality of Mrs. Going's suggestions--emboldens me to ask if you
happen to have in your garden any of the Hellebores? I have one good
clump of Xmas Rose--but I have none of those green-faced varieties for
which I have a peculiar predilection.
(I do not expect much sympathy from you! In fact I fear you will think
that any one whose taste is so grotesque as to have a devotion for
Polyanthuses--Oxlips--Green Hellebores--every variety of Arum (including
the "stinking" one!)--Dog's-tooth violets--Irises--Auriculas--coloured
primroses--and such dingy and undeveloped denizens of the flower
garden--is hardly worthy to possess the glowing colours and last results
of development in the Queen of flowers!)
But I DO appreciate roses I assure you.
And I am most deeply grateful to you for letting me benefit by--what
is in itself such a treat! your--enthusiasm.
Mrs. Going seems to think that my soil and situation are better than
yours.
Could it be possible that you might have any rose under development
that you would care to deposit here for the winter and fetch away in
the spring? I don't know if change of air and soil is ever good for
them?
I fear you'll think mine a barren little patch on which to expend your
kindness! But you are a true _Ama_--teur--and will look at my Villa
Garden through _rose_-coloured spectacles!
Yours gratefully, J.H.E.
TO MRS. JELF,
October 19, 1883.
DEAREST MARNY,
* * * * *
One bit more of egotism before I stop!
You know how I love my bit of garden!--An admirer--specially of
"Laetus"--whom I had never seen--an Irishman--and a Dorsetshire
Parson. (But who had worked for over twenty years in the slums of
London--which it is supposed only the Salvation Army venture to
touch!)--
--arrived here last Saturday with nineteen magnificent climbing roses,
and has covered two sides of my house and the south wall of my
garden!--but one sunny corner has been kept sacred to Aunty's
Passion-flower, which is doing well--and one for a rose Mrs. Walkinshaw
has promised me. He is a very silent Irishman--a little
alarming--possibly from the rather brief, authoritative ways which men
who have worked big parishes in big towns often get. When Rex said to
him, at luncheon--"How did you who are a Rose Fancier and such a flower
maniac--LIVE all those years in such a part of London?" in rather a
muttered sort of way he explained,
"Well, I had a friend a little out of town who had a garden, and his
wife wanted flowers, and they knew nothing about it: so I made a
compact. I provided the roses--I made the soil--I planted them--and I
used to go and prune them and look after them. They were
_magnificent_".
"Oh, then you _had_ flowers?"
"Well, I made a compact. They never picked a rose on Saturday. On
Saturday night I used to go and clear the place. I had roses over my
church on Sundays--and all Festivals. The rest of the year his wife
had them."
It struck me as a most touching story--for the man is Rose Maniac.
What a sight those roses must have been to the eyes of such a
congregation! The Church should have been dedicated to S. Dorothea! He
is of the most modest order of Paddies--and as I say a little
alarming. I was _appalled_ when I saw the _hedge_ of the
"finest-named" roses he brought, and it was very difficult to "give
thanks" adequately!--I said once--"I really simply cannot tell you
the pleasure you have given me." He said rather grumpily--"You've
given me pleasure enough--and to lots of others." Then he suddenly
_chirped_ up and said--"Laetus cost me _2s. 6d._ though. My wife bet
me _2s. 6d._ I couldn't read it aloud without crying. I thought I
could. But after a page or two--I put my hand in my pocket--I
said--There! take your half-crown, and let me cry comfortably when I
want to!!!"
My dear, what a screed I have written to you!!
But your letter this morning _was_ a pleasure. There is something so
nice in your getting the very hut where--as I think--"Old Father"
first began to recover after Cyprus-fever. I wish you had had F. to
stride about the old lines also--and knock his head against your
door-tops!--Best love to R., F., and the Queers--
Your loving, J.H.E.
Dec. 3, 1883.
MY DEAREST MARNY,
You are always so forbearing!--and I have been driven to a degree by
work which I had promised, and have just despatched! Some day it may
appeal to "the Queers." For it is a collated (and Bowdlerized!)
version of the old Peace Egg Mumming Play for Christmas. I have been
often asked about it: and the other day a Canon Portal wrote to me,
and he urged me to try and do it, and it is done!
But it was a much larger matter than I had thought. The version I have
made up is made up from five different versions, and I hope I have got
the cream of them. It will be in the January number, which will be out
before Xmas.
I have also been trying to see my way--I SHOULD so like to go
to you--and if I can't yet awhile I hope you'll give me another
chance.
This week I certainly cannot--thank you, dear! And I _don't_ see my
way in December at all. I will _post-card_ you in a day or two again.
I am yours always lovingly,
J.H.E.
My garden is great joy to me. Even you, I think, would allow me a
moderate amount of "grubbing" in between brain work.
TO MRS. GOING.
Thursday (December 1883).
MY DEAR MRS. GOING,
You are too profusely good to me. Have you really _given me_ Quarles?
I have never even seen his _School of the Heart_, and am charmed with
it. The Hieroglyphics of the life of Man were in the very old copy of
_Emblems_ belonging to my Mother which I have known all my life.
Thank you a thousand times.
I write for a seemingly ungracious purpose, but I know you will
comprehend my infirmities! I am not at all well. I had hoped to be
better by the time your young ladies came--but luck (and I fear a
little chill in the garden!) have been against me. I tried to get
_Macbeth_ deferred but it could not be--and I think my only hope of
enduring a long drive, and appearing as Lady Macbeth on Saturday
evening with any approach to "undaunted mettle"--is to shut myself up
in absolute silence and rest for several hours before we start. This,
alas! means that it would be better for your young ladies (what is
left of them, after brain fag and fish dinners!) to return to you by
an earlier train, as I could be "no account" to them on Saturday
afternoon.
* * * * *
_I'll take care_ of _the poor students_ though I _am_ not at my best!
Their fish is ordered. We will spend a soothing evening on sofas and
easy chairs--and go early to bed! They shall have breakfast in bed if
they like. This does not sound amusing but I think it will be
wholesome for their relics!
Again thanking you for the dear little book--which comes in so nicely
for Advent!
TO MRS. R.H. JELF.
DEAREST MARNY,
The Queers' letters are VERY nice. Thank them with my love.
* * * * *
Forgive pencil, dear--I'm in bed. Got rid of my throat--and now all my
"body and bones" seem to have given way, I thought it was lumbago or
sciatica--but Rex said--"Simply nerve exhaustion from over-writing"--so
I took to bed (for I couldn't walk!), high living and quinine! I hope
I'll soon be round again. The vile body is a nuisance. I've got a story
in my head--and that seems to take the vital force out of my legs!!!
Apropos to Richard's _Churchwarden's_ conscience, does he remember the
(possibly churchwarden!) "soul long hovering in fear and doubt"--in A
Kempis, who prostrated himself in prayer and groaned--"Oh if I only
_knew that I should persevere_!" To whom came the answer of God--"If
thou _didst_ know it, what wouldst thou do then? Continue to _do that_
and thou shalt be safe."
His letter and yours were _very_ comforting. I was just feeling very
low about my writing. I always do when I have to re-read for new
editions! It does seem such twaddle--and so unlike what I want to say!
Thank you greatly for believing in me!
* * * * *
Your loving, J.H.E.
TO MRS. HOWARD.
_Villa Ponente, Taunton._
Jan. 18, 1884.
MY DEAR MRS. HOWARD,
In this Green Winter (and _you_ know how I love a Green Winter!) you
and all your kindness comes back so often to my mind. "Grenoside" is a
closed leaf in my life as well as in yours, but it is one that I shall
never forget so long as I can remember any of the things that have
mitigated the pains of life for me, or added to its pleasures!--The
bits of Green Winter I enjoyed with you did both--I hardly know which
the most! For the pleasure was very great, and the benefit
immeasurable--though now a fair amount of strength and "all my
faculties" have come back to me, I feel what a very tedious companion
I must have been when _vegetating_ was all I was fit for, and I did
such delightful vegetating between your sofa--and Greno Wood.
I want to tell you that I have some bits of you in what does the work
of Greno Wood for me here--namely, my little patch of garden, looking
out upon, what I call _my_ big fields. For some time I feared the said
bits were not going to live, but they have now, I really think, got
grip of the ground. They are those offshoots of your American Bramble
which you gave to me. And, ere long, I hope to sow a little paper of
your poppy seed, and--if two years' keeping has not destroyed its
vitality--I may, perchance, send you some of your own poppies to deck
your London rooms. You cannot think--or rather I have no doubt that
you can!--the refreshment my bit of garden is to me. It has become so
dear, that (like an ugly face one loves and ceases to see plain!)--I
find it so charming that it is _with a start_ that I recognize that
new friends see no beauty in--
[_Sketch._]
This four-square patch!!
But A and B are "beds," and there are borders under the brick walls,
and a rose-growing admirer of "Laetus" made a pilgrimage to see
me!--and brought me nineteen grand climbing roses--and wall S faces
_nearly quite_ south, and on it grow Marechal Niel, and Cloth of Gold,
and Charles Lefebvre, and Triomphe de Rennes, and a Banksia and
Souvenir de la Malmaison, and Cheshunt Hybrid, and a bit of the old
Ecclesfield summer white rose--sent by Undine--and some Passion
Flowers from dear old Miss Child in Derbyshire--and a _Wistaria_ which
the old lady of _the lodgings_ we were in when we first came, tore up,
and gave to me, with various other _oddments_ from her garden!
and--the American Bramble! And also, by the bye, a very lovely rose,
"Fortune's Yellow,"--given to me by a friend in Hampshire.
Major Ewing declares my borders are "so full _there is no room for
more_" which is very nasty of him!--but I have been very lucky in
preserving, and even multiplying, the various contributions my bare
patch has been blessed with! D. sent me a _barrel_ of bits last autumn
from the Vicarage, and Reginald sent me an excellent hamper from
Bradfield, and Col. Yeatman sent me a hamper from Wiltshire, and
several friends here have given me odds and ends, and our old friend
Miss Sulivan, before she went abroad, sent me a farewell memorial of
sweet things--Lavender, Rosemary, Cabbage Rose, Moss Rose, and
Jessamine!!!--Oh! talking of sweet things, I must tell you--I went
into the market here one day this last autumn, and of a man standing
there--I bought a dug-up clump of BAY _tree_--for 2/6.
You know how you indulged my senses with bay leaves when I was far
from them? Well, I put my clump and myself into a cab and went
home--where I pulled my clump to pieces and made eight nice plants of
him--and set me a bay hedge, which has thriven so far very well!!! But
then--'tis a Green Winter!
Now I want to know if there is a chance of tempting you down here for
a little visit? I have thought that perhaps some time in the Spring
the School might be taking holiday, and Harry might be striding off on
a week or 10 days' country "breathe,"--and perhaps you would come to
me? Or if he were inclined for fresh fields and pastures new, that you
would come together, and he might make his head-quarters here, and go
over to Glastonbury, etc., etc., etc., whilst we took matters more
quietly at home?
I feel it is a long way to come, but it would be so very pleasant to
me to welcome you under my own roof!
If you cannot get away in Spring, I _must_ persuade you when London
gets hotter and less pleasant!
You _must_ miss your country home--and yet I envy you a few things!
London has cords of charm to attract in many ways! I wish I could _fly
over_, and see the Sir Joshuas and one or two things.
(I am stubbornly indifferent to the _Spectator's_ dictum that we like
"Sir Joshuas" because we are a nation of snobs!!!)
Ever affectionately yours,
JULIANA HORATIA EWING.
Do tell me what hope there is of seeing you--and showing you your own
bramble on my own wall!
TO MRS. GOING.
March 11, 1884.
MY DEAR MRS. GOING,
I do not think you will ever let me have my Head Gardener here again!
I CAN'T take care of him!
I really could have sat down on the door-step and cried--when our old
cabby--"the family coachman" as we call him, arrived and had missed
Mr. Going. How _he_ did not miss his train, I cannot conceive! He must
have run--he must have flown--he _must_ be a bit uncanny--and the
flap-ends of the comforter must have spread into wings--or our clocks
must have been beforehand--or the trains were behindhand--
Obviously luck favours him!!
But where was his great-coat?--
He got very damp--and there was no time to hang him out to dry!
Tell him with my love--I have been nailing up the children in the way
they should go--and have made a real hedge of cuttings!
I wish the Weeding Woman could see my old Yorkshire "rack." It and its
china always lend themselves to flowers, I think. The old English
coffee-cups are full of primroses. In a madder-crimson Valery pot are
Lent lilies--and the same in a peacock-blue fellow of a pinched and
selfish shape. The white violets are in a pale grey-green jar (a
miniature household jar) of Marseilles pottery. The polyanthuses
singularly become a pet _Jap_ pot of mine of pale yellow with white
and black design on it--and a gold dragon--and a turquoise-coloured
lower rim.
I am VERY flowery. I must catch the post. I do hope my Head
Gardener is not in bed with rheumatic fever!!!! I trust your poor back
is rather easier?
Please most gratefully thank the girls for me.
Yours gratefully and affectionately,
J.H.E.
TO THE REV. J. GOING.
All Fools, 1884.
MY DEAR HEAD GARDENER,
You are too good, and--as to the confusion of one's principles is
sometimes the case--your virtues encourage my vices. You make me
greedy when I ought only to be grateful.
I've been too busy to write at once, and also somewhat of set purpose
abstained--for those bitter winds and hard-caked soil were not suited
for transplantation, and still less fit for you to be playing the part
of Honest Root-gatherer without your Cardigan Waistcoat!!!!
To-day
"a balmy south wind blows."
I feel convinced some poet says so. If not I do, and it's a fact.
Moreover by a superhuman--or anyhow a super-frail-feminine--effort
last Saturday as ever was I took up all that remained of the cabbage
garden--spread the heap of ashes, marked out another path by rule of
line (not of thumb, as I planted those things you took up and _set
straight_!), made my new walk, and edged it with the broken tiles that
came off our roof when "the stormy winds did blow"--an economy which
pleased me much. Thus I am now entirely flower-garden--and with room
for more flowers!!
Now to your kind offer. I think it will take rather more than 50
bunches of primroses to complete the bank according to your
plan--though not 100. Say 70: but if there are a few bunches to spare
I shall put them down that border where the laurels are, against the
wall under the ivy. They flower there, and other things don't.
Now about the wild daffodils--indeed I _would_ like some!!! I fear I
should like enough to do this: [_Sketch._]
These be the Poets' narcissus along the edge of the grass above the
strawberry bank, and I don't deny I think it would be nice to have a
row of wild Daffys (where the red marks are) to precede the same
narcissus next spring if we're spared! The Daffys to be planted _in
the grass_ of the grass-plat.
I doubt if less than two dozen clumps would 'do it handsome'!!!!!!!!
Now I want your good counsel. This is my back garden: [_Sketch._]
Next to Slugs and Snails (to which I have recently added a specimen
of)
Puppy Dog's Tails--
my worst enemy is--WIND!
The laurels are growing--for that matter, Xmas is coming!--but still
we are very shelterless. I think I would like to plant in Bed A,
_inter alia_--some shrubby things. Now I know your views about moving
shrubs are somewhat wider than those of the every-day gardener's--but
do you think I dare plant a bush of lauristinus now? It would have to
travel a little way, I fancy. There is no man actually in Taunton, I
fear, with good shrubs. I mean also to get some Japanese maples. I
think I would like a copper-coloured-leaved _nut tree_. Are nuts
hardy? I fear Gum Cistus is coming into flower--and unfit to move! How
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