may be the best of sisters to me. I am not so sure about letting you be an elder one; I am not going to be lectured when I'm naughty.

I've been so busy at wasps all day coming along, having got a nice [Pg 20] book about them. It tells me, too, of a delightful German doctor who kept tame hornets,—a whole nest in his study! They knew him perfectly, and would let him do anything with them, even pull bits off their nest to look in at it.

Wasps, too, my author says, are really much more amiable than bees, and never get angry without cause. All the same, they have a tiresome way of inspecting one, too closely, sometimes, I think.

I'm immensely struck with the Peak Cavern, but it was in twilight.

I'm going to stay here all to-morrow, the place is so entirely unspoiled. I've not seen such a primitive village, rock, or stream, this twenty years; Langdale is as sophisticated as Pall Mall in comparison.

WASP STINGS.

[Go to Table of Contents] Bolton Bridge, Saturday.

I never was more thankful than for your sweet note, being stopped here by bad weather again; the worst of posting is that one has to think of one's servant outside, and so lose a day.

It was bitter wind and snow this morning, too bad to send any human creature to sit idle in. Black enough still, and I more than usual, because it is just that point of distinction from brutes which I truly say is our only one, [14] of which I have now so little hold.

The bee Fors [15] will be got quickly into proof, but I must add a good deal to it. I can't get into good humor for natural history in this weather.

I've got a good book on wasps which says they are our chief [Pg 21] protectors against flies. In Cumberland the wet cold spring is so bad for the wasps that I partly think this may be so, and the terrible plague of flies in August might perhaps be checked by our teaching our little Agneses to keep wasps' nests instead of bees.

Yes, that is a pretty bit of mine about Hamlet, and I think I must surely be a little pathetic sometimes, in a doggish way.

"You're so dreadfully faithful!" said Arthur Severn to me, fretting over the way I was being ill-treated the other day by R.

Oh dear, I wish I were at Brantwood again, now, and could send you my wasp book! It is pathetic, and yet so dreadful,—the wasp bringing in the caterpillar for its young wasp, stinging each enough to paralyze but not to kill, and so laying them up in the cupboard.

I wonder how the clergymen's wives will feel after the next Fors or two! I've done a bit to-day which I think will go in with a shiver. Do you recollect the curious thrill there is—the cold tingle of the pang of a nice deep wasp sting?

Well, I'm not in a fit temper to write to Susie to-day, clearly.

BOLTON STRID.

[Go to Table of Contents]

I stopped here to see the Strid again—not seen these many years. It is curious that life is embittered to me, now, by its former pleasantness; while you have of these same places painful recollections, but you could enjoy them now with your whole heart.

Instead of the drive with the poor over-labored one horse through the long wet day, here, when I was a youth, my father and mother brought me, [16] and let me sketch in the Abbey and ramble in the woods as I chose, only demanding promise that I should not go near the Strid. [Pg 22] Pleasant drives, with, on the whole, well paid and pleased drivers, never with over-burdened cattle; cheerful dinner or tea waiting for me always, on my return from solitary rambles. Everything right and good for me, except only that they never put me through any trials to harden me, or give me decision of character, or make me feel how much they did for me.

But that error was a fearful one, and cost them and me, Heaven only knows how much. And now, I walk to Strid, and Abbey, and everywhere, with the ghosts of the past days haunting me, and other darker spirits of sorrow and remorse and wonder. Black spirits among the gray, all like a mist between me and the green woods. And I feel like a caterpillar,—stung just enough. Foul weather and mist enough, of quite a real kind besides. An hour's sunshine to-day, broken up speedily, and now veiled utterly.

Herne Hill, London,
11th February, 1875.

I have your sweet letter with news of Dr. John and his brother. I have been working on the book to-day very hard, after much interruption; it is two-thirds done now. So glad people are on tiptoe.

Paddocks are frogs, not toads in that grace. [17] And why should not people smile? Do you think that God does not like smiling graces? He only dislikes frowns. But you know when once habitual, the child would be told on a cold day to say "Cold as paddocks;" and everybody would know what was coming. Finally the deep under-meaning, that as the cold hand is lifted, so also the cold heart, and yet accepted, makes it one of the prettiest little hymns I know.

I cannot tell you how very apposite to my work these two feathers are. I am just going to dwell on the exquisite result of the division into [Pg 23] successive leaves, by which nature obtains the glittering look to set off her color; and you just send me two feathers which have it more in perfection than any I ever saw, and I think are more vivid in color.

How those boys must tease you! but you will be rewarded in the world that good Susies go to.

Herne Hill, 4th October (1875).

All your letter is delicious, but chiefest the last sentence where you say you like your Chaucer so much.—And you need never fear touching that wound of mine—It is never more—never less—without its pain. I like you to lay your pure—gentle hand on it.

But I am not despondent or beaten at all, and I'm at work on your peacock's feathers—and oh me, they should be put into some great arch of crystal where one could see them like a large rainbow—I use your dear little lens deep in and in—and can't exhaust their wonderfulness.

Hôtel Meurice, Paris,
26th August, '76.

I'm so very miserable just now that I can't write to you: but I don't want you to think that I am going so far away without wishing to be near you again. A fit of intense despondency coming on the top, or under the bottom, of already far-fallen fatigue leaves me helpless to-day, my