I will take real care about the addresses—but I really must have a pretty one for the New House—you don’t suppose I’m going to write Frognal every day of my life—It might as well be Dognal—Hognal—Lognal—I won’t. If it is to be I’ll have it printed!!!
But Kate saved him the trouble, for thenceforward she kept him supplied with sheaves of envelopes addressed to herself in her own handwriting.
The day before the actual flitting he took care to write a letter to welcome her in the new house.
Brantwood, 15 February 1885.
I hope you are beginning by this time in the afternoon to be very happy in thinking you’re really at home on the Hill, now,—and that you will find all the drawers slide nicely, corners fit and firesides cosy, and that the flowers are behaving prettily, and the chimnies—draw—as well as you.—That’s a new pun, all my own—only think! It isn’t a very complimentary one—but indeed—the first thing to be seriously thought of in a new house is chimnies,—one can knock windows out—or partitions down—build out oriels—and throw up turrets—but never make a chimney go that don’t choose.
Anyhow—I am glad you are settled somewhere—and that I shan’t have my letters to direct nobody knows where.—And let us bid, both, farewell to hollow ways, that lead only to disappointment—and know what we’re about,—and not think truths teazing, but enjoy each other’s sympathy and admiration—and think always—how nice we are!
No sooner was she settled than she began to receive uninvited attentions. On the 4th March she wrote to Mrs. Severn:—
There was a horrid man drawing the outside [of the house] all day. So I suppose he is cribbing Mr. Shaw’s design, and going to put my house up somewhere else, who knows where.
Her friends were not all entirely satisfied with it. On 25th March she wrote:—
My dearest Mrs. Severn,—
Mr. Locker came to see this new studio yesterday. He said, ‘What a frightful falling off from the old one.’ Isn’t that sad?—but I fear true.
But she was pleased to think that although it was not so pretty as her last studio, it was larger, lighter, and altogether more practical.
The household included Kate’s father and mother and her brother, John Greenaway. Mr. Greenaway was still practising as a wood-engraver, with an office in the City; Mr. John Greenaway was the sub-editor of the Journal of the Chemical Society, a post he holds at the present time; while Mrs. Greenaway managed the domestic affairs. Of the routine of Miss Greenaway’s life at this time Mr. John Greenaway writes:—
Of my sister at work, we saw very little. She very wisely made it a fixed rule that, during working hours, no one should come into the studio save on matters of urgency. Her great working time was the morning, so she was always an early riser and finished breakfast by eight o’clock. Her most important work was done between then and luncheon time (1 o’clock). Practically she never went out in the morning. After luncheon she usually worked for an hour or two, unless she was going out anywhere for the afternoon; and then went for a walk on the Heath, and came back to tea. The evenings up to eight o’clock, when we had a meal that was a sort of compromise between dinner and supper, were spent in letter-writing, making dresses for models, occasionally working out schemes and rough sketches for projected books and such-like things; but all finished work was done in the morning or afternoon. In the summer too, a good deal of this time was spent in the garden seeing to her flowers. After supper she generally lay on a sofa and read until she went to bed at about 10 o’clock.
She could not stand late hours and seldom went out in the evening. For the same reason she very seldom dined out. Tea-time was always her time for going out to see friends, or for them to see her.
i144
TEA-ROOM LEADING OUT FROM THE STUDIO, 39, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD.
The change of abode was a great success; but in Miss Greenaway’s correspondence we have at this period frequent references to domestic worries and minor troubles. For instance, she writes to Miss Evans:—
It is quite tragic about all your servants going. Have you got a cook yet? You get a better chance of hearing something about them before you engage them than we do.
I almost HATE ours! They pretended they could do such a lot. You would have thought that one was used to distinguished beings the way she went on. We felt quite vulgar. She spoke of the puddings as sweets and when I tried to convey to her mind that in our house they were called puddings she said, ‘Ah! I see! you prefer comfort to style!’ which is quite true, I do—only I don’t get it at her hands, and as for style!—unless it consists in a nice coating of dirt over everything, I don’t know where that is either. I hope your fate won’t be such.
The work of 1885 has been described in the last chapter. It only remains to complete the year’s record by extracts from Ruskin’s letters, which in consequence of another severe illness break off abruptly on May the 22nd.
He had now retired into seclusion at Brantwood, where he was as happy as failing health would permit in the company of Mrs. Arthur Severn, the ‘Joan’ of the letters, and her husband and family who lived with him.
Now it was that he set to work on that remarkable fragment of autobiography published at intervals under the title of PrÆterita, to which allusion has already been made; and he speaks of it in the following extracts from letters of this period:—
Ruskin to Kate Greenaway
Brantwood, 4th, Jan. (1885).
It was nice hearing of your being made such a grand Lioness of, at the tea—and of people’s praising me to you because they had found out you liked it—and of Lady Airlie and old times.
... I’ve begun my autobiography—it will be so dull!, and so meek!!—you never did!
I write a little bit every morning and am going to label old things it refers to—little drawings and printings and the like. I’m not going to talk of anybody more disagreeable than myself—so there will be nothing for people to snap and growl at. What shall I say about people who I think liked me? that they were very foolish?
I got a dainty little letter from my fifteener to-day, and have felt a little better ever since. She’s at the seaside and says there’s nothing on the shore—I’ve told her to look—and that I should like to write the ‘Natural History of a dull Beach.’
Ruskin to Kate Greenaway
Brantwood, 7th, Jan. 1885.
The auto won’t be a pretty book at all, but merely an account of the business and general meaning of my life. As I work at it every morning, (about half an hour only) I have very bitter feelings about the waste of years and years in merely looking at things—all I’ve got to say is—I went there—and saw—that. But did nothing. If only I had gone on drawing plants—or clouds—or—.
He is still full of interest in her work, unsparing of criticism and reproof where he considers them needful. On Jan. 2nd:
You are always straining after a fancy instead of doing the thing as it is. Never mind its being pretty or ugly, but get as much as you can of the facts in a few minutes and you will find strength and ease and new fancy and new right coming all together.
On Jan. 29th:—
I think the reason Miss A.[46] puzzles you is that you never make quite a sincere study, you are always making a pretence of striving for an ideal.
I want you to learn nature perfectly—then Miss A. will not puzzle you—though you will do quite different things. I am so glad you like Holbein.
And on Jan. 4th:—
I’m very glad you want to paint like Gainsborough.
But you must not try for it—He is inimitable, and yet a bad master. Keep steadily to deep colour and Carpaccio—with white porcelain and Luca—You may try a Gainsborough every now and then for play.
But he can also be unstinting of praise. On Feb. 8th:—
This is quite the most beautiful and delightful drawing you’ve ever given me, and I accept it with the more joy that it shows me all your powers are in the utmost fineness and fulness, and that you are steadily gaining in all that is best—and indeed will do many things—heaven sparing you and keeping your heart in peace,—more than [have] ever yet been seen in all human dreams.
i146
THE STUDIO, 39, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD.
On April 7th:—
Ah! just wait till you see! I’m quite crushed!—Never knew such pink and blue could be found in Boxes—and not a touch of camomile anywhere! and not a single leaf in an attitude!
Well—those anemones are a thing to tell of! What a heavenly place London might be—if there was nobody in it.
Yes, you SHALL draw the tulip this time—if there’s a bit of possible tulip in you. I have my doubts!
And on May 1st:—
I never was so much pleased with any drawing yet as with this, for it is complete in idea, and might become a consummate picture, with very little effort more, nor were ever faces more lovely than those of the central girl and the one on her right hand. You must paint me this some day—in Mays to come, when you’re doing all sorts of lovely things at Brantwood, and the books give you no more trouble and yet bring you in showers of gold like the celandines.
And I’ll try not to tease. It’s too sweet of you doing this lovely thing for me.
And—what pleases me best of all’s the beauty of the rhyme. It is higher in rhythmic power and quality than anything I’ve read of yours, and is in the entirely best style of poetry.—I believe the half of your power is not shown yet.
You have given me a very happy May-day.
Suddenly we get a glimpse of his tender feeling for, and pretty sympathy with, her beloved flower:—
Oxalis out everywhere—wanting to be drawn. They say they’d like to feel how it feels, for they never were drawn in their lives.
For a moment he returns, on July 3rd, to the old subject of drawing from the nude and incidentally shows that he looks upon her as an exception to what he considers should be the general rule:—
What you have first to do is to learn to draw ankles and feet because you are one of the instances the enemy have of the necessity of the nude.
The moment you have any leisure for study—feet—feet—and arms. No more shoes, come what will of it.—To the seashore—as soon as may be—Until you come to Brant [i.e. Brantwood].
And every now and again Ruskin shows his unabated enthusiasm for new knowledge and his gusto for new studies:—
... Please ask Johnnie what colour frozen hydrogen is, and if transparent or opaque. The rascally chemistry book gives me six pages of bad drawings of machines,—and supplies me with a picture—to aid my imagination—of a man in badly made breeches turning a wheel!—but does not tell me whether even liquid hydrogen is transparent or not,—they only say it is ‘steel-blue.’
On July 26:—
This has been a very bright day to me, not least in the thoughts of this—but in other ways very fortunate and helpful,—I’ve found out why clouds float, for one thing!!!—and think what a big thing that is!
In reply to Kate’s request for information on the cloud discovery he writes on July 28th:—
Clouds float because the particles of water in them get warmed by the sun, and warm the air in the little holes between them—then that air expands and carries them up. When they cool it comes down and then they stick together and come down altogether.
But Miss Greenaway was not yet satisfied, so to appease her curiosity he makes further answer on July 29th:—
Clouds are warmer or colder according to the general temperature of the air—but always enable the sun to warm the air within them, in the fine weather when they float high. I have yet to learn all about the wet weather on this new condition myself.
The following letters of the year speak for themselves:—
Ruskin to Kate Greenaway
Brantwood, 15 Jan. 85.
You say in one of—four!—unanswered [letters], you wonder how far I see you as you see yourself? No one sees us as we see ourselves—all that first concerns us must be the care that we do see ourselves as far as possible rightly.
In general, young people (and children, like you) know very little of themselves; yet something that nobody else can know. My knowledge of people is extremely limited, continually mistaken—and what is founded on experience, chiefly of young girls,—and this is nearly useless in your case, for you are mixed child and woman,—and therefore extremely puzzling to me.
But I think you may safely conclude that—putting aside the artistic power which is unique in its way, the rest of you will probably be seen more truly by an old man of 65, which is about my age, than by yourself—at almost any age you ever come to.
I note with sorrow that the weather bothers you. So it does me—but when the pretty times come, you can enjoy them, I can’t.
Though I do a little like to see snow against blue sky still—to-day there’s plenty of both....
You and your publishers are both and all geese.—You put as much work into that Language of Flowers as would have served three years bookmaking if you had only drawn boldly, coloured truly, and given 6 for 60 pages. The public will always pay a shilling for a penny’s worth of what it likes,—it won’t pay a penny for a pound’s worth of camomile tea. You draw—let me colour next time!
Ruskin to Kate Greenaway
Brantwood, 19 Jan. 85.
The book I send to-day is of course much more completed in shade than your outlines ever need, or ought to be, but I believe you would find extreme benefit in getting into the habit of studying from nature with the pen point in this manner and forcing yourself to complete the study of a head, cap, hair and all—whether it succeeded or not to your mind, in the time you now give to draw the profile of lips and chin.
You never need fear losing refinement,—you would gain steadily in fancy, knowledge and power of expression of solid form, and complex character. Note especially in these drawings that their expressional power depends on the rightness, not the delicacy of their lines, and is itself most subtle where they are most forcible. In the recording angels, pages 22, 23, the face of 23 is beautiful because its lines are distinct—22 fails wholly because the faint proof of the plate has dimmed them.
Tell me what the publishers ‘propose’ now, that I may sympathise in your indignation—and ‘propose’ something very different.
I can scarcely conceive any sale paying the expenses of such a book as the Language of Flowers—but think you could produce one easily with the original outlay of—say at the outsidest, £500, which you would sell 50,000 of at a shilling each in a month.
Tell me how you like this little head and tail piece herewith. I’m going to use them for a little separate pamphlet on schools.
Ruskin to Kate Greenaway
¼ past two P.M. 13 Feb. 85. Brantwood.
Am I busy? Well—you shall just hear what I’ve done to-day.
7½ past, Coffee. Read Northcote’s conversations marking extracts for lecture.
½ 7-8. Dress.
8½ past, Write two pages of autobiography.
½ past 8¼ 9. Lesson to Jane Anne on spelling and aspiration. Advise her to get out of the habit of spelling at, hat.
¼ 9-half past. Correct press of chapter of Modern Painters.
½ 9½ 10. Breakfast—read letters—devise answers to smash a bookseller, and please an evangelical clergyman—also to make Kate understand what I’m about and put Joan’s mind at ease....
Wished I had been at the Circus. Tried to fancy Clemmie ‘all eyes.’ Thought a little mouth and neck might be as well besides. Pulled grape hyacinth out of box, and put it in water. Why isn’t it blue?
½ 10. Set to work again. Finished revise of M. P. chapter. Then took up Miss Alex. next number. Fitted pages etc. Wrote to Miss A. to advise her of proof coming.
Wrote to Clergyman and Joan and smashed bookseller.
½ 12. Examined chess game by correspondence. Sent enemy a move. Don’t think she’s much chance left.
1. Looked out some crystals, ‘Irish Diamonds’ for school at Cork. Meditated on enclosed mistress’ and pupils’ letters—still to be answered before resting—Query, how?
¼ past one. Lunch. Peasoup.
¼ to two. Meditate letter to Colonel Brackenbury on the Bride of Abydos. Meditate what’s to be said to K.
2. Baxter comes in—receives directions for manifold parcels and Irish diamonds—think I may as well write this, thus. Wild rainy day. Wrote Col. Brackenbury while your ink was drying to turn leaves—now for Irish Governess,—and my mineralogist—and that’s all!
Ruskin to Kate Greenaway
Whit-Black Monday, 85
[May 26, London].
I was down to very low tide to-day, and am still, but partly rested, still my head not serving me,—the driving about town continually tires me fearfully,—then I get vexed to be tired—then I can’t eat because I’m vexed—then I can’t sleep and so it goes on. I’ve been thinking rather sorrowfully over the Marigold Garden, which is no garden, but a mystification—the rather that I saw a real marigold garden at Mr. Hooper’s the wood engraver’s on Thursday and was amazed. And I mourn over your not showing me things till it’s too late to do anything less, or more.
f150
From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Harry J. Veitch, Esq.
I’m at the saddest part of my autobiography—and think extremely little of myself—then and now—I was sulky and quarrelled with all life—just because I couldn’t get the one thing I chose to fancy.—Now—I can get nothing I fancy—all the world ebbing away, and the only question for me now—What next?
If you could only change souls with me for five minutes!—What a wise Kate you would be, when you got your own fanciful one back again.
The melancholy tone of the last letter was a pathetic prelude to the very serious illness of this year, of which we find in her laconic diary the following unusually concise entries:—
July 31. He is much worse to-day.
Aug. 11. Still as ill.
—”—13. No change yet, still so quiet.
—”—14. Slightly better.
—”—15. Still better.
—”—19. Still better and downstairs.
—”—24. Still getting better but so slowly.
—”—25. Still better.
—”—26. First drive.
—”—28. Out in garden alone.
By January of the next year (1886) Mr. Ruskin had sufficiently recovered to resume work on his autobiography and wrote on the 22nd:—
I am so very thankful you like this eighth number so much, for I was afraid it would begin to shock people. I have great pleasure in the thing myself—it is so much easier and simpler to say things face to face like that, than as an author. The ninth has come out very prettily, I think—
Again on the 27th:—
I am so very very glad you like PrÆterita—for it is—as you say—the ‘natural’ me—only of course peeled carefully—It is different from what else I write because—you know—I seldom have had to describe any but heroic—or evil—characters—and this water-cress character is so much easier to do—and credible and tasteable by everybody’s own lips.
And on Feb. 23rd:—
It is lovely of you thinking of illustrating the life—I am greatly set up in the thought of it. But wait a while. I hope it will be all more or less graceful. But I fear it will not be cheerful enough. I’ll try and keep it as Katish as—the very truth can be.
Clotilde is still living, (I believe)—Baronne Du Quesne,—a managing chÂtelaine in mid-France.
On March 30 he is still insistent with criticism:— i152
I can only answer to-day the important question about the green lady—‘You mean she doesn’t stand right?’
—My dear, I mean much worse than that. I mean there’s nothing of her to stand with! She has no waist—no thighs—no legs—no feet.—There’s nothing under the dress at all.... You recollect I hope that when you were here, I told you you had never drawn a bit of drapery in your life.
When you are inclined to try to do so—go and copy as well as you can a bit of St. Jerome’s in the Nat. Gall.—and copy a bit of photograph—if you are ashamed to paint in the gallery, and send it me.
I gave you a task to do at the same time—which you never did—but went and gathered my best cherries instead—which I wanted for my own eating—and expected me to be pleased with your trying to paint them!
But soon she is made happier by unqualified praise:—
You never did anything more lovely than the little flowers to the poem—and the poem itself is most lovely in its outflow from the heart. I am very thankful to have set the heart free again—and I hope that your great genius will soon have joy in its own power.
This year Ruskin was occupying much of his leisure by working on drawings which he had made in early life. Beginning by sending them to K. G. for criticism, he ended by insisting on her keeping for herself one out of every ten, finding much amusement in guessing which would be her choice week by week. The whole thing was a pretty contest in generosity between the great critic and his devoted admirer.
On May 21 he writes:—
If you only knew the delight it is to me to send either you or Johnnie anything that you like! But—not to worry you with the thought of their coming out of my drawers, I shall send Johnnie some only to look at and send back at leisure.—
You’re a nice Katie—you—to talk of generosity—after giving me about £2000 worth of drawings as if they were leaves off the trees.
And on June 8:—
You cannot think what a real comfort and help it is to me that you see anything in my drawings. They are all such mere hints of what I want to do, or syllables of what I saw, that I never think—or at least never thought, they could give the least pleasure to any one but myself—and that you—especially who draw so clearly, should understand the confused scratches of them is very wonderful and joyful to me.
I had fixed on the road through the water for you, out of that lot in my own mind;—it is like you, and it’s so nice that you found it out,—and that you like the hazy castle of Annecy too. But it shall be Abingdon this time—It will be very amusing to me to see which you like, out of each ten; but I think I shall know now pretty well.
Ruskin is still full of schemes of collaboration which, in his opinion, will draw out her best powers so that her gifts may be made more useful to others.
Ruskin to Kate Greenaway
Brantwood, 27 April 86.
It has been a perfect and thrice lovely April morning—absolutely calm, with dew on fields, and the wood anemones full out everywhere: and now coming in, before breakfast, I get your delicious letter about Beauty and the Beast,—I am so very thankful that you like it so—and you will do it. For I want intensely to bring one out for you—your book—I your publisher, charging you printing and paper only. Hitherto I’m sure your father and Johnnie must think I’ve been simply swindling you out of your best drawings and—a good deal more.
But now I want you to choose me the purest old form of the story—to do—such illustrations as you feel like doing.—Pencil sketch put in at ease. Then—separately, a quite severe ink line—cheaply and without error cuttable—with no bother to either of us,—and so much plain shade as you like. To be published without colour, octavo, but with design for a grand hand-coloured quarto edition afterwards. I’ll write a preface—and perhaps with your help, venture on an additional incident or two?
Yesterday was lovely too—and I couldn’t sit down to my letters—nor get the book sent.
It is about Sir Philip Sidney and an older friend of his at Vienna—mostly in letters.[47] Read only what you like—there’s lots of entirely useless politics which shouldn’t have been printed. But you will find things in it—and it is of all things good for you to be brought into living company of these good people of old days....
And again on May 7th:—
I wonder if you could put in writing about any particular face—what it is that makes it pretty? What curl of mouth, what lifting of eyelid, and the like—and what part of it you do first.
I think a new stimulus might be given to drawing in general by teaching some simple principles to girls about drawing each other’s faces.
Then there is a recurrence of his illness and a three months’ cessation of letters. In his rambling talk he is heard to say, ‘The only person I am sorry to disappoint is poor Miss Greenaway.’
Now again we find pathetic little notes in her diary:—
July 5. Heard this morning he is ill. Had a letter from him.
July 6. Not quite so ill to-day.
July 10. Still ill.
July 14. A little better now.
By September he is at the seaside and again able to use his pen, although too weary and depressed even to make use of that ‘Natural History of a dull Beach’ which he carried in his mind but which was destined never to be written.
Ruskin to Kate Greenaway
Sunday [Sep. 19, 1886].
I’m sending two miles that you may get your—this—whatever you call it—it isn’t a letter—and I dare say you won’t get it. I haven’t got yours—they won’t give anything to anybody on Sunday!—and I’m sure yours is a beauty—in the post office over the hill there, and I can’t get it and I’ve nothing to do and I can’t think of anything to think of,—and the sea has no waves in it—and the sand has no shells in it—and the shells—oystershells—at lunch had no oysters in them bigger than that [a rough drawing of a small oyster] in a shell—and that wouldn’t come out!
And the wind’s whistling through the keyhole—and I ought to go out—and don’t want to—and here’s Baxter coming to say I must, and to take ‘this’ to Morecambe.
Much good may it do you.
Soon however he is full of a new plan and once more anxious for her co-operation:—
Ruskin to Kate Greenaway
Brantwood,
Saturday [Nov. 2, 1886].
It rejoices me so that you enjoy those old master drawings.
It comes, in the very moment when I wanted it—this British M. enthusiasm of yours.
I’m going to set up a girls’ drawing school in London—a room where nice young girls can go—and find no disagreeable people or ugly pictures. They must all be introduced by some of my own sweetest friends—by K. G., by Lilias T.[48] by Margaret B. J.[49]—by my own sec. Sally[50]—or by such as ever and anon may be enrolled as Honorary Students.
And I want you at once to choose, and buy for me beginning with enclosed cheque, all the drawings by the old masters reproduced to your good pleasure—Whatever you like, I shall—and the school will be far happier and more confident in your choice ratified by mine.
And I will talk over every bit of the plan with you—as you have time to think of it.
—I’m not quite sure I shall like this American book as well as Bret Harte—but am thankful for anything to make me laugh,—if it does.
This year (1886), besides the Almanack of which 45,000 copies were issued, the American sales doubling those of England, and a large number of designs for Christmas Cards, A Apple Pie, published by George Routledge & Sons, had a gratifying success.
England took 7,000 copies, America 3,500, and France 3,000. But it did not by any means meet with Ruskin’s approval, and on Nov. 9 he writes from Brantwood:—
Ruskin to Kate Greenaway
I am considerably vexed about Apple Pie. I really think you ought seriously to consult me before determining on the lettering of things so important—
The titles are simply bill-sticking of the vulgarest sort, over the drawings—nor is there one of those that has the least melodious charm as a colour design—while the feet—from merely shapeless are becoming literal paddles and flappers—and in the pretty—though ungrammatical—‘Eat it’ are real deformities.
All your faults are gaining on you every hour that you don’t fight them—
I have a plan in my head for organising a girls’ Academy under you! (a fine mistress you’ll make—truly—) Lilias Trotter and Miss Alexander for the Dons, or Donnas of it—and with every book and engraving that I can buy for it—of noble types—with as much of cast-drawing, and coin[51]—as you can use,—and two or three general laws of mine to live under! and spending my last breath in trying to get some good into you!
The next letter refers to an advance copy of The Queen of the Pirate Isle, by Bret Harte, Illustrated by Kate Greenaway, with many charming coloured engravings, yet in our opinion certainly not deserving his estimate of it as ‘the best thing she had ever done.’ The fact is the drawings are treated in a more natural and less quaint and decorative manner than was common with her: and that is what her mentor had always been clamouring for.
Ruskin to Kate Greenaway
Brantwood [Nov. 14, 1886].
Waiting for post in expectation of Bret Harte. My dear, you must always send me all you do. If I don’t like it—the public will,—if I do—there’s always one more pleasure in my disconsolate life. And you ought to feel that when I do like it—nobody likes it so much!—nor half nor a quarter so much.
i157
Yes, it has come—you’re a dear good Katie—and it’s lovely. The best thing you have ever done—it is so real and natural. I do hope the public will feel with me for once—yes, and for twice—and many times to come.
It is all delightful, and the text also—and the print. You may do more in colour however, next time.
Then there comes a note of criticism and a note of praise.
Of criticism, harking back to A Apple Pie, in reply to a sort of good-natured protest from his resolute victim:—
But I never do scold you! never think of such a thing! I only say I’m—sorry. I have no idea what state of mind you are in when you draw stockings down at the heel, and shoes with the right foot in the left and the left in the right—and legs lumpy at the shins—and shaky at the knees. And when, ever—did you put red letters like the bills of a pantomime—in any of my drawings? and why do it to the public?
Of praise which in this case has been unduly withheld:—
I’ve never told you how much I liked a long blue nymph with a branch of roses who came a month ago. It is a heavenly little puckered blue gown with such a lovely spotty-puckery waistband and collar, and a microscopic and microcosmic cross of a brooch, most beautiful to behold. What is she waving her rosebranch for? and what is she saying?
