Home > Authors Index > John Ruskin > Hortus Inclusus > This page
Hortus Inclusus, a non-fiction book by John Ruskin |
||
Susie's Letters |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
|
|
________________________________________________
_ The following Letters and the little Notes on Birds are inserted here by the express wish of Mr. Ruskin. I had it in my mind to pay Susie some extremely fine compliments about these Letters and Notes, and to compare her method of observation with Thoreau's, and above all, to tell some very pretty stories showing her St. Francis-like sympathy with, and gentle power over, all living creatures; but Susie says that she is already far too prominent, and we hope that the readers of "Hortus" will see for themselves how she reverences and cherishes all noble life, with a special tenderness, I think, for furred and feathered creatures. To all outcast and hungry things the Thwaite is a veritable Bethlehem, or House of Bread, and to her, their sweet "Madonna Nourrice," no less than to her Teacher, the sparrows and linnets that crowd its thresholds are in a very particular sense "Sons of God." A. F. * * * * *
I sent off such a long letter to you yesterday, my dear friend. Did you think of your own quotation from Homer, when you told me that field of yours was full of violets? But where are the four fountains of _white_ water?--through a meadow full of violets and parsley? How delicious Calypso's fire of finely chopped cedar! How shall I thank you for allowing _me_, Susie the little, to _distill_ your writings? Such a joy and comfort to me--for I shall need much very soon now. I do so thank and love you for it; I am sure I may say so to _you_. I rejoice again and again that I have such a friend. May I never love him less, never prove unworthy of his friendship! How I wanted my letter, and now it has come, and I have told our Dr. John of your safe progress so far. I trust you will be kept safe from _everything_ that might injure you in any way. The snow has melted away, and this is a really sweet April day and _ought_ to be enjoyed--if only Susie _could_. But both she and her dear friend must strive with their grief. When I was a girl--(I was once)--I used to delight in Pope's Homer. I do believe I rather enjoyed the killing and slaying, specially the splitting down the _chine_! But when I tried to read it again not _very_ long ago, I got tired of this kind of thing. If _you_ had only translated Homer! then I should have had a feast. When a school-girl, going each day with my bag of books into Manchester, I used to like Don Quixote and Sir Charles Grandison with my milk porridge. I must send you only this short letter to-day. I can see your violet field from this window. How sweetly the little limpid stream would _tinkle_ to-day; and how the primroses are sitting listening to it and the little birds sipping it! I have come to the conclusion that bees go more by _sight_ than by scent. As I stand by my peacock with his gloriously gorgeous tail all spread out, a bee comes _right at it_ (very vulgar, but expressive); and I have an Alpine Primula on this window stone brightly in flower, and a bee came and alighted, but went away again at once, not finding the expected honey. I wonder what you do the livelong day, for I know you and idleness are not acquaintances. I am so sorry your favorite places are spoiled. But dear Brantwood will grow prettier and prettier under your care. * * * * *
I have just been pleased by seeing a blackbird enjoying with school-boy appetite, portions of a moistened crust of bread which I threw out for him and his fellow-creatures. How he dug with his orange bill!--even more orange than usual perhaps at this season of the year. At length the robins have built a nest in the ivy in our yard--a very secure and sheltered place, and a very convenient distance from the crumb market. Like the old woman _he_ sings with a merry devotion, and _she_ thinks there never was such music, as she sits upon her eggs; he comes again and again, with every little dainty that his limited income allows, and _she_ thinks it all the sweeter because _he_ brings it to her. Now and then she leaves her nest to stretch her wings, and to shake off the dust of care, and to prevent her pretty _ankles_ being cramped. But she knows her duty too well to remain absent long from her precious eggs. Now another little note from Dr. John, and he actually begins, "My dear 'Susie,'"--and ends, "Let me hear from you soon. Ever yours affectionately." Also he says, "It is very kind in you to let me get at once close to you." The rest of his short letter (like you, he was busy) is nearly all about _you_, so of course it is interesting to _me_, and he hopes you are already getting good from the change, and I indulge the same hope. * * * * *
Brantwood looked so very nice this morning decorated by the coming into leaf of the larches. I wish you could have seen them in the distance as I did: the early sunshine had glanced upon them lighting up one side, and leaving the other in softest shade, and the tender green contrasted with the deep browns and grays stood out in a wonderful way, and the trees looked like spirits of the wood, which you might think would melt away like the White Lady of Avenel. Dear sweet April still looks coldly upon us--the month you love so dearly. Little white lambs are in the fields now, and so much that is sweet is coming; but there is a shadow over this house _now_; and also, my dear kind friend is far away. The horse-chestnuts have thrown away the winter coverings of their buds, and given them to that dear economical mother earth, who makes such good use of everything, and works up old materials again in a wonderful way, and is delightfully unlike most economists,--the very soul of generous liberality. Now some of your own words, so powerful as they are,--you are speaking of the Alp and of the "Great Builder"--of your own transientness, as of the grass upon its sides; and in this very sadness, a sense of strange companionship with past generations, in seeing what they saw. They have ceased to look upon it, you will soon cease to look also; and the granite wall will be for others, etc., etc. My dear friend, was there ever any one so pathetic as you? And you have the power of bringing things before one, both to the eye and to the mind: you do indeed paint with your pen. Now I have a photograph of you--not a very satisfactory one, but still I am glad to have it, rather than none. It was done at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Were you in search of something of Bewick's? I have just given the squirrel his little _loaf_; (so you see I am a lady,)[48] he has bounded away with it, full of joy and gladness. I wish that this were my case and _yours_, for whatever we may wish for, that we have not. We have a variety and abundance of loaves. I have asked Dr. J. Brown whether he would like photographs of your house and the picturesque breakwater. I do so wish that you and he and I did not suffer so much, but _could_ be at least moderately happy. I am sure you would be glad if you knew even in this time of sorrow, when all seems stale, flat, unprofitable, the pleasure and interest I have had in reading your Vol. 3 ["Modern Painters"]. I study your character in your writings, and I find so much to elevate, to love, to admire--a sort of education for my poor old self--and oh! such beauty of thought and word. Even yet my birds want so much bread; I do believe the worms are sealed up in the dry earth, and they have many little mouths to fill just now--and there is one old blackbird whose devotion to his wife and children is lovely. I should like him never to die, he is _one_ of my heroes. And now a dog which calls upon me sometimes at the window, and I point kitchenwards and the creature knows what I mean, and goes and gets a good meal. So if I can only make a dog happy (as you do, only you take yours to live with you, and I cannot do that) it is a pleasant thing. I do so like to make things happier, and I should like to put bunches of hay in the fields for the poor horses, for there is very scant supply of grass, and too many for the supply. [Footnote 48: See "Fors Clavigera", Letter XLV., and "Sesame and Lilies."] * * * * * _1st May._ I cannot longer refrain from writing to you, my dear kind friend, so often are you in my thoughts. Dearest Joanie has told you, I doubt not, and I know how sorry you are, and how truly you are feeling for your poor Susie. So _knowing that_ I will say no more about my sorrow. There is no need for words. I am wishing, oh, so much, to know how you are: quite safe and well, I hope, and able to have much real enjoyment in the many beautiful things by which you are surrounded. May you lay up a great stock of good health and receive much good in many ways, and then return to those who so much miss you, and by whom you are so greatly beloved. Coniston would go into your heart if you could see it now--so very lovely, the oak trees so early, nearly in leaf already. Your beloved blue hyacinths will soon be out, and the cuckoo has come, but it is long since Susie has been out. She only stands at an open window, but she must try next week to go into the garden; and she is finding a real pleasure in making extracts from your writings, _for you_, often wondering "will he let that remain?" and hoping that he will. Do you ever send home orders about your Brantwood? I have been wishing so much that your gardener might be told to mix quantities of old mortar and soil together, and to fill many crevices in your new walls with it; then the breezes will bring fern seeds and plant them, or rather sow them in such fashion as no human being can do. When time and the showers brought by the west wind have mellowed it a little, the tiny beginnings of mosses will be there. The sooner this can be done the better. Do not think Susie presumptuous. We have hot sun and a _very_ cool air, which I do not at all like. I hope your visit to Palermo and your lady have been all that you could wish. Please _do_ write to me; it would do me so much good and so greatly refresh me. This poor little letter is scarcely worth sending, only it says that I am your loving Susie. * * * * *
MY DEAREST FRIEND,--Your letter yesterday did me so much good, and though I answered it at once, yet here I am again. A kind woman from the other side has sent me the loveliest group of drooping and very tender ferns, soft as of some velvet belonging to the fairies, and of the most exquisite green, and primroses, and a slender stalked white flower, and so arranged, that they continually remind me of that enchanting group of yours in Vol. 3, which you said I might cut out. What would you have thought of me if I had? Oh, that you would and could sketch this group--or even that your eye could rest upon it! Now you will laugh if I ask you whether harpies[49] ever increase in number? or whether they are only the "old original." They quite torment me when I open the window, and blow chaff at me. I suppose at this moment, dearest Joanie is steaming away to Liverpool; one always wants to know now whether people accomplish a journey safely. When the blackbirds come for soaked bread, they generally eat a nice little lot themselves, before carrying any away from the window for their little ones; but Bobbie, "our little English Robin," has just been twice, took none for himself, but carries beak-load after beak-load for his speckled infants. How curious the universal love of bread is; so many things like and eat it--even flies and snails! You know you inserted a letter from Jersey about fish.[50] A lady there tells me that formerly you might have a bucket of oysters for sixpence and that now you can scarcely get anything but such coarse kinds of fish as are not liked; and she has a sister, a sad invalid, to whom fish would be a very pleasant and wholesome change. This is really a sad state of things, and _here_ the railways seem very likely to carry away our butter, and it is now such a price, quite ex[h]orbitant. Why did I put an _h_ in? Is it to prove the truth of what you say, that ladies do not spell well? A letter which I once wrote when a girl was a wonderful specimen of bad spelling. [Footnote 49: See "Queen of the Air,"] [Footnote 50: See "Fors Clavigera," Letter XXX.] * * * * *
I have found such lovely passages in Vol. 1 this morning that I am delighted, and have begun to copy one of them. You do float in such beautiful things sometimes that you make me feel I don't know how! How I thank you for ever having written them, for though late in the day, they were written for _me_, and have at length reached me! You are so candid about your age that I shall tell you mine! I am astonished to find myself sixty-eight--very near the Psalmist's threescore and ten. Much illness and much sorrow, and then I woke up to find myself _old_, and as if I had lost a great part of my life. Let us hope it was not all lost. I think _you_ can understand me when I say that I have a great fund of love, and no one to spend it upon, because there are not any to whom I could give it _fully_, and I love my pets so dearly, but I _dare not_ and cannot enjoy it fully because--they _die_, or get injured, and then my misery is intense. I feel as if I could tell _you_ much, because your sympathy is so refined and so tender and true. Cannot I be a sort of second mother to you? I am sure the first one was often praying for blessings for you, and in this, at least, I resemble her. Am I tiresome writing all this? It just came, and you said I was to write what did. We have had some nice rain, but followed not by warmth, but a cruel _east_ wind. * * * * *
Once in America in the month of June, a mower hung up his coat under a shed near a barn: two or three days passed before he had occasion to put it on again. Thrusting his arm up the sleeve he found it completely filled with something, and on pulling out the mass he found it to be the nest of a wren completely finished and lined with feathers. What a pity that all the labor of the little pair had been in vain! Great was the distress of the birds, who vehemently and angrily scolded him for destroying their house; happily it was an empty one, without either eggs or young birds. * * * * *
I soon found that I had undertaken what was no easy task, for he required feeding so early in a morning that I was obliged to take him and his bread crumbs into my bedroom, and jump up to feed him as soon as he began to chirp, which he did in very good time. Then in the daytime I did not dare to have him in the sitting-room with me, because my sleek favorites, the cats, would soon have devoured him, so I carried him up into an attic, and as he required feeding very often in the day, you may imagine that I had quite enough of exercise in running up and down stairs. But I was not going to neglect the helpless thing after once undertaking to nurse him, and I had the pleasure of seeing him thrive well upon his diet of dry-bread crumbs and a little scrap of raw meat occasionally; this last delicacy, you know, was a sort of imitation of worms! Very soon my birdie knew my step, and though he never exactly said so, I am sure he thought it had "musick in't," for as soon as I touched the handle of the door he set up a shriek of joy! The bird that we nurse is the bird that we love, and I soon loved Dick. And the love was not all on one side, for my bonnie bird would sit upon my finger uttering complacent little chirps, and when I sang to him in a low voice he would gently peck my hair. As he grew on and wanted to use his limbs, I put him into a large wicker bonnet-basket, having taken out the lining; it made him a large cheerful airy cage. Of course I had a perch put across it, and he had plenty of white sand and a pan of water; sometimes I set his bath on the floor of the room, and he delighted in bathing until he looked half-drowned; then what shaking of his feathers, what _preening_ and arranging there was! And how happy and clean and comfortable he looked when his toilet was completed! You may be sure that I took him some of the first ripe currants and strawberries, for blackbirds like fruit, and so do boys! When he was fledged I let him out in the room, and so he could exercise his wings. It is a curious fact that if I went up to him with my bonnet on he did not know me at all, but was in a state of great alarm. Blackbirds are wild birds, and do not bear being kept in a cage, not even so well as some other birds do; and as this bird grew up he was not so tame, and was rather restless. I knew that, though I loved him so much, I ought not to keep him shut up against his will. He was carried down into the garden while the raspberries were ripe, and allowed to fly away; and I have never seen him since. Do you wonder that my eyes filled with tears when he left? [THE END] _ |
||