We are all assembled again, and very happy.
We have a very large number of pupils, as many as we could take in; but these are mainly under my sisters’ care, who enjoy the work, and thrive in it. I only teach the girls a few things, and rejoice in their bright young life. I give a few drawing lessons, and am managing my dear houses, which are getting into such excellent order as to be a great joy, and but little painful care. I am drawing again at last, too, to my great delight, and am able to see a good deal of my friends, and to bind up all the links of knowledge of the details of their lives, broken by my illness and absence. So it is a quiet, beautiful, thankful, busy, but not oppressed, life.
14, Nottingham Place,
March 7th, 1869.
To Miss Harris.
My dearest Mary,
I have had a most delightful week. The crowning day was last Sunday, when I dined at Ruskin’s. It was exceedingly interesting. I had been determined to ask him a little about Greek mythology, literature and art; and how, without knowledge of Greek, one might enter into some comprehension of all these; for I have lived long enough to remember the passionate revolt of our then young thinkers against the dead formal worship of all that had its origin in Greece; and now I am interested to notice the men, leading from weight of earnestness, tho’ educated in all the Gothic and Teuton sympathies, turning back to Greek thought, and even imagery, as if it contained nobler symbols of abiding truth than our northern legends. Yes, even to feel the influence of the Grecian wave myself. So we got into interesting talk. He told me that there was little translation of Greek which he knew or cared for; that he had done a little himself, which will be published with next Tuesday’s lecture; that Homer, even translated by Pope, taught one a good deal; that some tales by Cox (do you know them?) were intensely good; but (as I was pleased to know that I had instinctively felt), Morris’s Jason was the most helpful almost of all. He sketched for me most beautifully, a kind of plan of Greek mythology, saying that the deities who governed the elements were the primary ones; the earth the sustainer of man; the water governing the ebb and flow of his fortunes, the two fiery deities earthly and heavenly; and the goddess of the air the inspirer. He quoted curious parallel thoughts from the Bible; “the wind bloweth where it listeth.” He told me some strange things, too, about Minerva giving men strength from winged beings, and once, when enduing Menelaus with courage to fight Paris, giving it from a mosquito; whereas most gods give them strength from quadrupeds that are strong. Round these central deities are grouped many minor ones; Mercury, the cloud-compeller, often represented as a shepherd, guides the footsteps of men in life and death.
RUSKIN ON GREEK MYTHOLOGY
I asked him how far Virgil was too Roman to be trusted. He seemed very much pleased to find that I could read Virgil, and was fond of him; it seems that he is very fond. He said moreover that Latin was untranslateable—being so magnificent a language; whereas Greek, mainly depending for its interest on thought, could be perfectly well translated. I found that he and I agreed in liking the 2nd and 7th books best, he rather inclining to the Infernal Regions and the Fall of Troy. He told me that the exquisite tenderness between fathers and sons delighted him above all things in Virgil, and led one to the root of the main source of Roman greatness in its noblest time.
You will be sorry to hear that Miss Cons can only, at present, give one day and a half weekly to the work; and that Miss Sterling is so much interested in what she calls “linking my little affairs to whatever has life,” that she will not work except near us—nor of course could Miss Cons do more than this in so short a time.