Now am I not a Brute?

And yet it is very pretty, and—­strange to say—­the class to whom I believe it would be acceptable, is the class of whom I believe it is not (typically) true, and PERHAPS it is good for every class to have an ideal of its own circumstances before its eyes.  But I don’t think it is good for rich people’s children to grow up with the belief that twelve shillings a week, and cider and a pig, are the wisest and happiest earthly circumstances in which humanity with large families can be placed for their temporal and spiritual progress.  I don’t think it ever leads to a wish in the young Squire to exchange with Hodge for the good of his own soul, but I think it fosters a fixed conviction that Hodge has nothing to complain of, plus being placed at a particular advantage as to his eternal concerns.

Will you ever forgive me?  I like the descriptive parts so much, the “rival cocks at dawn”—­the “autumn’s mist and spring’s soft rain,” the team that “turn in their trace in the furrow’s face,” and the life-like descriptions in verse 4.  It is as true to one’s observation as it is graceful....

Your loving niece,
J.H.E.

TO A.E.

Ecclesfield. May 14, 1876.

[Sketch.] Do you remember Whitley Hall?  I used to be so fond of the place when I was a child, and no one lived there but an old woman—­old Esther Woodhouse—­with a face like an ideal witch—­at the lodge.  As you know I always hated writing down—­but long before I accomplished a tale on paper I wrote a novel in my head to Whitley Hall, and used to walk about in the wood there, by the pond—­to think it!

York. February 23, 1879.

...  Yesterday was sunny though cold, and I had a delicious drive to Escrick and Naburn.  Oh, it does send thrills of delight through me, when the hay-coloured hedge-grass begins to mix itself with green, and the hedges have a very brown-madderish tint in the sun, and all the trunks of all the old trees are far greener than the fields, and the earth is turned over, and the rooks hold Parliaments.

* * * * *

[York.] Easter Day, 1879.

...  I went to Church at S. John’s, Mr. Wilberforce’s Church; I had never been in it.  That window with S. Christopher, and those strange representations of the Trinity, and the five Master Yorkes kneeling all in blue on one side, and their four sisters on the other, is very wonderful.  One of the most wonderful.  How fascinating these dear old churches are!  Mr. Wilberforce has a fine voice, a most rich and flexible baritone, and sings ballads with a great deal of taste and expression.  I shall for ever love York and its marble-white walls and dear old churches, but “Benedetta sia ’l giorno e ’l mese e ’l anno,” when you set your face with your black poodle towards the island called Melita!  This north-east wind which still blows cruelly would have made you very ill, I think....