When D—— was with me, we went to a fête in the North Camp Gardens, and I was talking to Lady Grant about the Chinnerys, and the "happy thought" struck her to introduce me to a Mr. Walkinshaw. They live somewhere in this country, and Mrs. Walkinshaw came up afterwards to ask if she might call on me, as they have a Chinnery collection (gathered in China), and Mr. Walkinshaw would show them to me!... I mean to collect all possible information on the subject, and either to write myself, or prime you to write an article on him some day!
To C.T. Gatty.
X Lines. August 20, 1873.
Dear Old Boy,
... I enjoyed your letter very much, and am so glad you keep "office hours." It is very good of you not to be angry with my good advice! "Experientia does it," as Mr. 'Aughton would say.... I break down about once in three months like clockwork—from sheer overwork. I certainly am never happy idle; but I have too often to sit in sackcloth in the depths of my heart—whilst everybody is beseeching me to be "idle"—from a consciousness that, not from doing nothing, but by doing B when I should have done A, and C when I should have done B, a kind of indolence at the critical moment, I have wasted my strength and time, not merely overworked myself. Also that on many things—drawing, languages, etc.—I have spent in my life a great deal of labour with little result, because it has not been consecutive and methodical. One would like one's own failures to be one's friends' stepping-stones. I may say too that I have an excuse which, thank God, you can't plead now—ill-health. It is not always easy, even for oneself, to judge when languor at the precise instant of recurring duty is spine-ache from brain work, and the sofa is the remedy,—or when it is what (in reference to an unpublished—indeed unwritten—story on this head) I call Boneless on the spine! MY back is apt to ache in any case!... I am trying to teach myself that if one has been working, one has not necessarily been working to good purpose, and that one may waste strength and forces of all sorts, as well as time!
Curious that you and D—— should both have quoted that saying of J.H. Newman to me in one week! I also will adopt it! Indeed "bit by bit" is the only way I feel equal to improve in anything, and I do think it is God's way of teaching and leading us all as a rule, and it is the principle on the face of all His creation—Gradual growth. The art of being happy was never difficult to me. I think I am permitted an unusual intensity of joy in common cheap pleasures and natural beauties—fresh air, colour, etc., etc., to compensate for some ill-health and deprivations.
Herewith comes my "Portrait by Spoker," and a copy of a Chinnery. The first-fruits of "regular" work at drawing an hour a day!!!
Farewell, Beloved.... Ever your very loving old sister,
Juliana Horatia Ewing.
To A.E.