His advice was followed; and she knew what she would choose. I was having her trained for a violinist (for her gifts were several) and her master was proud of her at twelve years old. But at fourteen she came to us one day and said: “Father, I hope you won’t mind: I’ve sold my violin. I know now that I want to draw—and no one can serve two masters so I’ve put away the temptation.”
Joe was generally the centre around whom the children mustered in those good days, and many an extra ten minutes did he beg off their bedtime in the summer twilight or by the big Christmas logs. He used to tell them that he hated going to bed himself, and nothing was more true.
“If I didn’t know that your mother always gives me cotton sheets,” he would say on a winter’s night, “I would never go. I’ve no fancy for a country trip every time I turn round in bed.”
But indeed he needed no such excuse for sitting up late when he had a congenial audience. He had a wonderful capacity for sound sleep when the time came—a capacity equalled, as he expressed it, for “enjoying” laziness; because, of exercise—save in the pursuit of bird or fish—he would have none; but most of his life he sat up late and his most welcome form of rest was always in talk.
In this relaxation he was even more than matched in argumentativeness by the husband of another most hospitable hostess, to whom he addresses the following letter after a long visit when she had housed us in a homeless interval. I may add that our host was an etymologist, and would confront Joe with a dictionary in support of his own view of a disputed word; also that he was an eminent amateur musician and a vehement Wagnerian.
“My Dear ——,
It seems to me that you and your husband ought to be told that you are excellent hosts—and yet I don’t want the thing to get about. At first I thought that I would declare loudly to all whom I met how pleasant a thing it was to stay in your house; and then I thought I wouldn’t.
When one has discovered a really charming place where one can live with exclusive regard to one’s own selfish indulgence, it is perhaps hardly wise to noise it abroad. Some of the snuggest corners in Europe have been ruined by such imprudent chatter; and I feel that I should never forgive myself if I were to be the means of making it generally known that your house is so delightful. But I think after all that I can trust you!
You are not the sort of person to gossip about such a thing; and when I tell you that what I am going to say is confidential, I simply mean that I would not, for the present at any rate, mention the subject to your daughter; young people are fanciful, and she might misinterpret my meaning—besides why shouldn’t she find it out for herself? No, let this be for you and your husband’s ear alone! And even for you it must be in some sense a barren secret; you cannot stay with yourselves! If you could I should recommend nothing so strongly as a few weeks’ visit to your charming home. It would do your husband all the good in the world—get him out of himself, so to speak—while it would make you a different woman. Not that I think that in any way desirable; I simply avail myself of a phrase that is always applied to me when a change is recommended.