Part 29 (1/2)
It was a sort of repayment of a tender chromolithographic (!) debt.
Do you remember, when Fredericton was our home, and when everything pretty from Old England did look so very pretty--how on one of those home visits from which he brought back bits of civilization--the Bishop brought _me_ a ”chromo” of dogs and a fox which has hung in every station we've had since?
Now--as a friend's privilege is--I will talk without fear or favour of myself! The last real contact with you was the Bishop's too brief peep at us in Bowdon--a shadowy time out of which his Amethyst ring flashes on my mind's eye. No! Not Amethyst--what IS the name? Sapphire!--(I have a little mental confusion on the subject. I have a weak--a very weak corner--in my heart for another Bishop, an old friend of your Bishop's--Bishop Harold Browne; and have had the honour now and again of wearing his rings on my thumb--a momentary relaxation of discipline and due respect, which I doubt if your Bishop would admit!!! though I hope he has a little love for me, frightened as I now and then am of him!!!!
The last time but one I was at Farnham, I was asked to stay on another two days to catch the Brownes' fortieth wedding-day. Just as we were going down to dinner I reproached the Bishop for not having on his ”best” ring! Very luckily--for he said he always made a point of it on his wedding-day--left me like a hot potato in the middle of the stairs and flew off to his room, and returned with _the_ grand sapphire!)
Well, dear--that's a parenthesis--to go back to Bowdon. I was not to boast of there, and after the move to York, and I had fitted up my house and made up for lost time in writing work, I was a very much broken creature, keeping going to Jenner and getting orders to rest!--and then came the order to Malta, not six months after we were sent to York, and I stayed to pack up and sent out all our worldly goods and chattels, and then started myself, and was taken ill in Paris and had to come back, and have been ”of no account” for three years.
Well. My news is now far better than once I hoped it ever could be.
I'm not strong, but I can work in moderation, though I can't ”rackett”
the least bit. And--Rex is to come home in Spring!--the season of hope and _nest-building_--and I am trying not to wonder my wits away as to what part of the British Isles it will be in which I shall lay the cross-sticks and put in the moss and wool of our next nest!! There is every reason to suppose we shall be ”at home” for five years, I am thankful to say....
Rex loved Malta, and _hates_ Ceylon. But he has been _very_ good and patient about it.
Latterly he has consoled himself a good deal with the study of Sanscrit, which he means me also to acquire, though I have not got far yet! It is a beautiful character. He says, ”Of all the things I have tried Sanscrit is the most utterly delicious! Of the alphabet alone there are (besides the ten vowels and thirty-three simple consonants) rather more than two hundred compound consonants,” etc., etc.! He adds, ”[Sanskrit: aayi]
are my detached initials, but I could write my whole name in 'Devanagiri,' or 'Writing of the G.o.ds.'”
TO A.E.
_Ecclesfield._ December 8, 1882.
... I got back from Liverpool on Monday. When I called at the Museum on that morning a Dr. Palmer was there, who said, ”I was in Taku Forts with your husband,” and was very friendly. He gave me a prescription for neuralgia! and sent you his best remembrances.
First and last I have annexed one or two nice ”bits of wool for our nest.” For _8s._ (a price for which I could not have bought _the frame_, a black one with charming old-fas.h.i.+oned gold-beading of this pattern) [_sketch_] I bought a real fine old soft mezzotint, after Sir Joshua Reynolds' portrait of Richard Burke. Oh, such a lovely face!
Looking lovelier in powder and lace frill. But a charming thing, with an old-fas.h.i.+oned stanza in English deploring his early death, and a motto in Latin. It was a great find, and I carried it home from the p.a.w.nbroker's in triumph!--
I have got a very nice Irish anecdote for you from Mr. Shee:
Two Irishmen (not much accustomed to fas.h.i.+onable circles) at a big party, standing near the door. After a long silence:
Paddy I.--”D'ye mix much in society?”
P. II.--”Not more than six tumblers in the evening.”
S. John Evangelist, 1882.
C. ”dealt” for me for the old j.a.panese Gentleman (pottery) on whom I turned my back at 1. He has got him for _15s._ You will be delighted with him, and I have just packed him (and a green pot lobster!) in a box with sawdust.
Do you remember how your 'genteel' clerk's wife came (starving) from Islington, or some such place, to us at Aldershot, and told me she had _sold_ all her furniture (as a nice preparation to coming to free but empty quarters) EXCEPT _her parlour pier-gla.s.s and fire-irons_?
I sometimes feel as if I bought house plenis.h.i.+ng that packed together about as nicely as that!!! Witness my pottery old gentleman, and my bronze Crayfish....
December 20, 1882.
I am so glad you like ”Sunflowers and a Rushlight.” It was very pleasurable work, though hard work as usual, writing it. It was written at Grenoside, among the Sunflowers, and generally with dear old Wentworth, the big dog, walking after me or lying at my feet.