And I wish you were here, not for your own sake, for it is dull enough. No Sun, no Ship, a perpetual drizzle; and to me the melancholy of another Aldbro’ of years gone by. Out of that window there ‘le petit’ Churchyard sketched Thorpe headland under an angry Sunset of Oct. 55 which heralded a memorable Gale that washed up a poor Woman with a Babe in her arms: and old Mitford had them buried with an inscribed Stone in the old Churchyard, peopled with dead ‘Mariners’; and Inscription and Stone are now gone. Yesterday I got out in a Boat, drizzly as it was: but to-day there is too much Sea to put off. I am to be home by the week’s end, if not before. The melancholy of Slaughden last night, with the same Sloops sticking sidelong in the mud as sixty years ago! And I the venerable Remembrancer.
I ought to have acknowledged the receipt of your Paris map, which is excellent; so that, eyes permitting, I can follow my Sévigné about from her Rue St. Catherine over the Seine to the Faubourg St. Germain quite distinctly. These cold East winds, however, coming so suddenly after the heat, put those Eyes of mine in a pickle, so as I am obliged to let them lie fallow, looking only at the blessed Green of the Trees before my Window, or on my Quarterdeck. [293] My two Nieces are with me, so that I leave all the house to them, except my one Room downstairs, which serves for Parlour, Bedroom and all. And it does very well for me; reminding me of my former Cabin life in my little Ship ‘d’autrefois.’ . . .
Do not you forget (as you will) to tell Mr. Millais one day of the pretty Subject I told you; little Keats standing sentry before his sick Mother’s Door with a drawn sword; in his Shirt it might be, with some Rembrandtish Light and Shade. The Story is to be found at the beginning of Lord Houghton’s Life.
Also, for any Painter you know of what they call the ‘Genre’ School:
Sévigné and the ‘de Villars’ looking through the keyhole at Mignard painting Madame de Fontevrauld (Rochechouart) while the Abbé Têtu talks to her (Letter of Sept. 6, 1675). It might be done in two
compartments, with the wall slipt between, so as to show both Parties, as one has seen on the Stage.
To C. E. Norton.
Woodbridge. Nov. 3, 1880.
My dear Norton,