“Holmhurst, August 29, 1897.— ...With me, life has rippled on through several months, only I have been away for some days with the Lowthers to draw under Carlandi, and quite lately I have sorrowed bitterly at the early death of my dear Inverurie, kindest and most affectionate of young friends. I feel his being taken so much myself that I cannot bear even to think of what it must be to his nearest belongings; and yet—while absolutely free from all humbug—surely never was there any young man more simply and trustfully prepared for an early death.
“He cared less for ‘the world’ than any young fellow I have ever known, and was more in love with his family, his homes, and their surroundings.
‘Felix ille animi, divisque simillimus ipsis.
Quem non mordaci resplendens gloria fuco
Sollicitat, non fastosi mala gaudia luxus
Sed tacitos sinit ire dies et paupere cultu
Exegit innocuae tranquilla silentia vitae.’[581]
“Last week I was for three nights at Hurstmonceaux, actually—for the first time in thirty-seven years—at my old home of Lime. What a mixture of emotions it was; but within all is so changed, I could not recall my mother and Lea there; and the present inhabitants, the young Baron and Baroness von Roemer, were boundlessly good to me. Outside, there were many spots alive with old memories, especially in the garden, where my mother and I lived so much alone—our earthly Paradise. Did you know that the word Paradeisos means a garden?
“How I should like you to know the peculiar surroundings of Lime, different to those of any other place I have seen—the brown parched sun-dried uplands, the bosky ferny hollows, the reedy pools fragrant with mint, the eternal variety of pink lights and grey shadows on the soft downs beyond the wide Levels, which recall O’Hara’s lines—
‘Where the herds are slowly winding over leagues of waving grass,
And the wild cranes seek the sedges, and the wild swans homeward pass.’