‘The world is too much with us, late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.’[20]
“I have been made very ill-tempered all day because Murray, during my absence in Spain, has published a second edition of my Oxfordshire Handbook, greatly altered, without consulting me, and it seems to me utterly spoilt and vulgarised. He is obliged by his contract to give me £40, but I would a great deal rather have seen the book uninjured and received nothing.”
To Miss Leycester (after a long visit from her at Holmhurst).
“Holmhurst, August 18, 1872.—There seems quite a chaos of things already to be said to the dear cousin who has so long shared our quiet life, and who has so much care for the simple interests of this little home. Much have I missed her—in her chair, with her crotchet; sitting on the terrace; and especially in the early morning walk yesterday, when the garden was in its richest beauty, all the crimson and blue flowers twinkling through a veil of dewdrops, and when ‘the gentleness of Heaven was on the sea,’ as Wordsworth would say. I am grieved to think of you in London, instead of in your country home.
“Our visit to Hurstmonceaux was thoroughly enjoyed by Mr. and Mrs. Pile.[21] For myself, I shall always feel such short visits produce such extreme tension of conflicting feelings that they are scarcely a pleasure. Most lovely was the drive for miles through Ashburnham beech and pine woods and by its old timber-yard. At Lime Cross we saw Mrs. Isted at her familiar window, and the dear woman sat there all the afternoon to have another glimpse on our return. We drove to the foot of the hill and walked up to the church. Our sacred spot looked most peaceful, its double hedge of fuchsia in full flower, and the turf as smooth as velvet. We had luncheon in the church porch, and then went to the castle, and back through the park uplands, high with fern, to Hurstmonceaux Place. How often, at Hurstmonceaux especially, I now feel the force of Wordsworth’s lines:
‘Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.’”
To Miss Wright.
“Holmhurst, Sept. 6, 1872.—If my many guests of the last weeks have liked their visits, I have most entirely enjoyed having them and the pleasant influx of new life and new ideas. Dear old Mrs. Robert Hare is now very happy here, and most grateful for the very small kindness I am able to show. I have pressed her to make a long visit, as it is a real delight to give so much pleasure, though humbling to think that, when one can do it so easily, one does not do it oftener. She is quite stone-deaf, so we sit opposite one another and correspond on a slate.[22] On Tuesday I fetched Marcus Hare from Battle. He also is intensely happy here; but his aunts, the Miss Stanleys, have written to refuse to see him again or allow him to visit them, because he has been to see the author of the ‘Memorials.’ I took him to Hurstmonceaux yesterday, and lovely was the first flush of autumn on our dear woods, while the castle looked most grand in the solemn stillness of its misty hollow. Next week I shall have George Sheffield here.”
