Jan 1894 Monday - / You are right not to / trust letters to Phil - the / post brings them much / sooner - & I had long read / & resend your letter when he appeared / - glad of the rain of tears I am - / and if I could find a new way / of being kinder than ever,wouldn't I - / at any rate I will be very gentle in / all I say & write to you for many a day. / - I wonder you don't a little dislike me / these days & want not to see me, & / feel a little spite against me that I / am left - I should - but it isnt your way / and I think you are divinely made. / and the kindest heart that God could fashion / ? set beating the day you were born /no! have never known anyone like / you - and if tears would only come I / could sit on the ground and cry, at / the thought of you and all you are, / and your ways & looks, & the pain you / can suffer. So I will write to you /every day, & chatter all the rubbish I can / think of, & be very gentle to you for / months & years to come. and I am / so sorry for this hurt, & the pain of this / Goodbye - & it is unfair to you & not right / to let it come in this way - life is / very hard for you, & your feet are bleeding / with the thorns & the stones. / You need never say to me "dont tell this / or that" - I should neber tell to anyone / anything about you. I am very silent / about you - never invite any talk about you / and keep you hidden in my heart. / it is so little I can do for you - I who / would do so much if I could, am / so useless - though you are kind in this / as in everything & make much of my / friendship - & I suppose it is true that / I am of service to you - and I am / ? of that & happier in that than / of any other gift I have from heaven. / I am staiting to you now, to meet you / & Hal at the New Gallery - how sweet / you are to me to let me see you & help / you when you are hurt - why didnt you / send for me yesterday? - I would leave / all at any moment to be with you - it / is so pretty of you to turn to me, & yet / I can do no more than hold your / hand & look kindly - that seems so / little. / so I'll write all kinds of little / odds & ends of things that happen - & / would keep myself well out of the tale / only it would be tiresome to have to / think whether I was talking of myself / or not, so I will chatter away / To-day Aggie comes up to town, and / I have proposed to meet her tomorrow / at the New Gallery, at four or thereabouts / - will not leave you hurt or slighted / in the tiniest thing for having been ? / to me, when I sought your friendship, & not / you mine - & if I see any chance of / saying that to her or Frances I shall - / because it is silly & unreasonable - but / I would sooner think we are mistaken / than that they could be so unjust. besides / Aggie said she was glad we are such friends / Georgie goes to Rottingdean on Wednesday / & comes back on Friday - we have / settled not to sell the place yet awhile / - Phil doesnt want it sold & other things / can be done - only it is a costly place / to keep up for 10 few days use in the / year - will you come to it in the / Spring or in the Summer? will you? / & bless it - if you had once been there / I should want to keep it - the / little time at Beaumont has grown / so lovely to think of - & yet was I / happy there? I was in a way, & in / a way I was in pain. / 2 / and now I am back / from my escapade - / I went back to the / pictures - the same / ones, & looked longer at them - & / fell again into the hands of / the count - but this time did / not mind. but went even upstairs / where are more books & more / drawings - & lunched with him - / - he hath a famous appertite and / revelled and drank deep - but / his enthusiasm is pretty, & I / liked him to have come from / Vienna on purpose to see those / ancient dreams. I tried to / abate his indignation when / he was cross that pictures / are falsely assigned, but he / would endure no abatement / being of the nature of a / pedant, only more vivacious / than pedants mostly are - how he / Screamed and rent the air with / his appalling voice - & lowered it to / preposterous depths of indistinct tones / when he confided his unhappiness / & yelled again when his un- / happiness tired him, as it soon / did. Lanckoronski is fun / if one were in the humour for / him. but I felt absorbed & / away from him, & saw & heard / him behind a veil. / it is too dark to work - I / have read the first number, of D W Maurius story in Harper / with his skilful pretty drawings. I am always in the mood for / him & no one pleases me/ so well / as he does when he loves ? / music. also his artists are / like artists, & his studios are / real studios - terrible stuff / even the best novelists make / of studios & strange life / of them with its innocent / lawlessness - Will you read / it - there is a most loveable / melancholy in what he writes / to my thinking - & he would / not one half have expressed / himself in his satirical / drawings. I have so / little mind for satirists, / that I avoid them - & never / opened Juvenal after school / days. I am glad D W Maurius / is writing - and it is an / repartiment / to read a book without the / trick of literature, that is safe / only in the hand of a master. / Monsieur is almost hateful / to me - as Angela sais of / Crom, when he frightened her / in a game of wild beasts, "he / is more of a witch than a / horrid creature" But the / gifted race to which he belongs / so far as I know is the / underbred race - with all / its virtues & good nature / one has always to be on / guard for fear of some / impertinence or insolent / liberty - & that is a bore. / 3 / his talk less underbred / & lacked gentility / and I won't soon / forgive him. / but they all - the glen and all / high ? there, have no / sacred things, and drift into / the light, the most holy & / unholy things alike - but / in him there is a coarseness / hard to bear - & Rance used / much to complain of it - nor / has he spared you & me. / You whom he knows & only let / to reverence, & me whom / he does not know and / ought to respect. nevermind / and how you knew in / a moment / all the best work, and said / always the right & sweetest / things - it is worth a better / that I to take you to see / lovely pictures. and I dont / think you much need me, only / you like to please me. / and this letter will gallop / fast after you, - tonight I / have the young man coming / about the Chaucer work - he / has done a bad piece of / work & I must begin him / again - all over again - over & over & over / again, a treadmill of / work before I can get back / the thing that the world has / I believe almost lost - the / ? to make a beautiful / line - I shall magnify one / of his lines in very big & / show him where he begins to / go astray - like this / [drawing of two lines] and track / him through a / drawing and / enrich him of sin at every / print - & that for many many / evenings - but I believe he / is worth the trouble. / and now, the past is / past / and we will never speak of / it - nor more than I can help / will I ever think of it - and / I will by God's help be / an almost perfect friend to / you, till one of us goes - / me first I pray & hope with / a despairing voice I pray for / that & I hope it - me / first. & till then lean / on art & trust me - nothing / but good shall ever come / from me - God knoweth this / is so. / always Yours / E