rtainly at present, very unwell, and
a mere trouble to my Joanies and Susies and all who care for me. But
I'm painting another bit of moss which I think Susie will enjoy, and
hope for better times.

Did you see the white cloud that stayed quiet for three hours this
morning over the Old Man's summit? It was one of the few remains of
the heaven one used to see. The heaven one had a Father in, not a
raging enemy.

I send you Rogers' "Italy," that is no more. I do think you'll have
pleasure in it.

* * * * *

I've been made so miserable by a paper of Sir J. Lubbock's on flowers
and insects, that I must come and whine to you. He says, and really as
if he knew it, that insects, chiefly bees, entirely originate flowers;
that all scent, color, pretty form, is owing to bees; that flowers
which insects don't take care of, have no scent, color, nor honey.

It seems to me, that it is likelier that the flowers which have no
scent, color, nor honey, don't get any attention from the bees.

But the man really knows so much about it, and has tried so many
pretty experiments, that he makes me miserable.

So I'm afraid you're miserable too. Write to tell me about it all.

It is very lovely of you to send me so sweet a note when I have not
been near you since the tenth century. But it is all I can do to get
my men and my moor looked after; they have both the instinct of doing
what I don't want, the moment my back's turned; and then there has not
been light enough to know a hawk from a hand-saw, or a crow from a
ptarmigan, or a moor from a meadow. But how much better your eyes must
be when you can write such lovely notes!

I don't understand how the strange cat came to love you so quickly,
after one dinner and a rest by the fire! I should have thought an
ill-treated and outcast animal would have regarded everything as a
trap, for a month at least,--dined in tremors, warmed itself with its
back to the fire, watching the door, and jumped up the chimney if you
stepped on the rug.

If you only knew the good your peacock's feathers have done me, and if
you could only see the clever drawing I'm making of one from the blue
breast! You know what lovely little fern or equisetum stalks of
sapphire the filaments are; they beat me so, but they're coming nice.

* * * * *

That is so intensely true what you say about Turner's work being like
nature's in its slowness and tenderness