Watch the face so wan!
Day by day she groweth weaker,
Soon she will be gone.
Apropos of children—Nesta’s Lobbie said a rather nice thing the other day. There was a wonderful sunset and she went out into the garden to see it. Then she said—“Mother, I can’t think how God made the sky. I can understand His making nuts”—here she rubbed her thumb and finger together as though moulding something—“and even flowers. But the sky—no!”—Your grateful
V.
XCII
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
My Dear Verena, you have hurt me this time. I never thought you had it in you to do so, but you have. You tell me to tell you something “candidly.” Now, when have I ever done anything else?
As for the Church, I don’t think this the best time to give it spires. It is not architecturally that it needs help, and I never thought so with more conviction than when, at a State banquet the other night, to which I was bidden, I saw a Bishop in purple evening dress. He looked an astonishingly long way from Bethlehem.
As for the cinema scheme, it is ingenious and might serve; but I think I should wait a little until the present fermentation subsides. You would never get a Picture Palace manager to put it on now, when every one is thoughtless and lavish with money and only excitement is popular. I remember seeing an Italian cinema audience go wild over a film about Mameli, who wrote their national song and joined Garibaldi; but that was just before a war—with Turkey—and not after. Before a war you can do wonders with people; but after—no. It is then that the big men are needed.