I am taking a deep bath of other people's thoughts, and all doings of my own seem a long way off me. But my bath will be sorely interrupted soon by the miserable details of removal from one house to another. Happily Mr. Owen Jones has undertaken the ornamentation of the drawing-room, and will prescribe all about chairs, etc. I think, after all, I like a clean kitchen better than any other room.
We are far on in correcting the proofs of the new edition of "Goethe," and are about to begin the printing of the "Aristotle," which is to appear at Christmas or Easter.
Journal, 1863.
Nov. 5.—We moved into our new house—The Priory, 21 North Bank, Regent's Park.
Nov. 14.—We are now nearly in order, only wanting a few details of furniture to finish our equipment for a new stage in our life's journey. I long very much to have done thinking of upholstery, and to get again a consciousness that there are better things than that to reconcile one with life.
Letter to Mrs. Bray, 14th Nov. 1863.
At last we are in our new home, with only a few details still left to arrange. Such fringing away of precious life, in thinking of carpets and tables, is an affliction to me, and seems like a nightmare from which I shall find it bliss to awake into my old world of care for things quite apart from upholstery.
Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 28th Nov. 1863.
I have kissed your letter in sign of my joy at getting it. But the cold draughts of your Florentine room came across my joy rather harshly. I know you have good reasons for what you do, yet I cannot help saying, Why do you stay at Florence, the city of draughts rather than of flowers?
Mr. Congreve's suffering during the journey and your suffering in watching him saddens me as I think of it. For a long while to come I suppose human energy will be greatly taken up with resignation rather than action. I wish my feeling for you could travel by some helpful vibrations good for pains.