Rottingdean / Aug : 9 : 1885 My darling, / This is written on / your day, instead of for it - & / you know that in sending you / one letter of love and good / wishes for birthday and wedding - / day together, I don't send only / one allowance of love, but "doub- / le rations". I don't know where / you are now, and so shall send / this to Stanway to be forward- / ed - but wherever you are I / can only hope you have had / weather this past week as good / as ours. To day has crowned / all heavenly clearness - / I assure you it was as if / the sun himself had been cast / into the melting pot, and his / gold powered over the world once / for all. Margaret and I went / up on a green high above the / village between four and five o'clock / and looked round us for miles - / "to the uttermost far thing", and / felt it hard to come down again. / We go back to London tomorrow / where I hear it has been dull and / gray, until the 20th. when we / hope to return here with Edward / and the faithful "Cob." - / I've just finished re-reading / Silas Marner, almost at a sitting, / and have enjoyed it extremely, / having forgotten how very per- / fect a story it was. What a / delight it is to find a thing better / than you expect! All the poetical / justice is so beautifully done, and / the tenderness is heart-searching. / Edward gave me all George Eliot's / novels for a birthday gift, and I / mean to red them straight / through - so as to be quite penetrated / with her mind. I wonder if you / got your Auerbach's "Village / Stories" before you went away - / the Tauchnitz volume? How / much I enjoyed our dusty walk / in Richmond park, when we talk- / ed of it and other books. I sent / you the "Mother & Son" chapter / of Mr. Morris's new poem - "The / Pilgrims of Hope" - and think / you would be sure to like it. - / I have often thought of the / dear Aix les Baingers, and / and wonder how they like themselves / if it isn't too hot they could hard- / ly fail to love the place. - / What a funny episode my / lunching at St. James's Place / was - and o how I enjoyed the / pictures there, almost as if I / hadn't seen many before. That's / one of the good sides of the best / things - the way they have sud- / denly coming upon you as if they / were perfectly fresh and the first / of their kind one had seen. I think / new valves in our minds, or na- / tures, open at times, so that one can / take things in again as if we / were new made. I'm sorry to say / that doesn't happen to me as often / as it used to do - so that when it / does I'm all the more pleased, / as I was certainly was that day. / Did you find a house? I don't / think you would in so short a / time - though that's rather Irish, / for you'd find it when it appear- / ed in a moment, and what was / to hinder it from appearing, seeing / that it certainly is somewhere / at this moment, quietly waiting / for you? - Margaret has gone / to bed, leaving her love, and much / of it, for you, and asking me / to say that she remembered / both your days and thought of / you and loved you. She looks / decidedly better for her week down / here - her colour is good again, & / eyes clear, but she is not strong, / and we have done almost no walk- / ing. Mrs. Holiday and Winifred have / been with us, and we have had / much reading aloud - sometimes / indoors, sometimes out. "Out" al- / ways means the Downs with us, / our garden is so ludicrously small / that it could hardly be sat in, / but the blessed open downs are / not 5 minutes' walk from / the door, & there we encamp / and are as free as in the gar- / den. Last night the Postmistress / here, whom I like very much, / sent me such a lovely country / nosegay, of pinks and mari- / golds and snapdragons - / and all the green was rosemary, / which has scented the room / all day long, with pungent / aromatic whiffs. I can only / hope it grew in her garden, for / certainly she deserves to rule / in her home. You know the legend / - that if it flourishes anywhere / the woman of the house has the / upper hand? She is looking so well and bright now, and in the / Spring and Winter she was quite / out of health. She says she is / well now because she "has so / much work to do" - excellent / woman! The little village is / full of visitors I believe - / but in our little green lies at / the top of the High St. and / away from such excitement. / I would not wish to see a / duller coast than this - no / sand or shells and most uninteresting / shingle - it is chiefly as a fea- / ture in the landscape that the / sea is interesting here. I am thinking of doing a startling thing / of planting a poplar: I don't / think there is such a thing in / the place, and don't you know / how beautiful a contrast they / make to the cauliflower-like / trees? One of our two trees / in the garden being dead, I / have conceived the daring idea / of replacing it with a poplar. / The Black Lombardy is such / a fine one, and grows like / a weed. / Write when you can, dear, & / tell me what you are doing & / where you are. Heaven be with / you, and within you. Ever your loving / Georgie