ughts active and
troubled. I am drawing much, and have got a study of St. Ursula which
will give you pleasure; but the pain of being separate from my friends
and of knowing they miss me! I wonder if you will think you are making
me too vain, Susie. Such vanity is a very painful one, for I know that
you look out of the window on Sundays now, wistfully, for Joan's
handkerchief. This pain seems always at my heart, with the other which
is its own.

I am thankful, always, you like St. Ursula. _One_ quite fixed plan for
the last year of Fors, is that there shall be absolutely no abuse or
controversy in it, but things which will either give pleasure or help;
and some clear statements of principle, in language as temperate as
hitherto violent; to show, for one thing, that the violence was not
for want of self-command.

I'm going to have a good fling at the Bishops in next Fors to finish
with, and then for January!--only I mustn't be too good, Susie, or
something would happen to me. So I shall say naughty things still, but
in the mildest way.

I am very grateful to you for that comparison about my mind being as
crisp as a lettuce. I am _so_ thankful you can feel that still. I was
beginning to doubt, myself.

[Footnote 18: May 1870 and June 1872.]

* * * * *

ST. MARK'S DOVES.

VENICE, _2d December_ (1876).

I have been very dismal lately. I hope the next captain of St.
George's Company will be a merrier one and happier, in being of use. I
am inherently selfish, and don't enjoy being of use. And here I've no
Susies nor Kathleens nor Diddies, and I'm only doing lots of good, and
I'm very miserable. I've been going late to bed too. I picked myself
up last night and went to bed at nine, and feel cheerful enough to
ask Susie how she does, and send her love from St. Mark's doves.
They're really tiresome now, among one's feet in St. Mark's Place, and
I don't know what it will come to. In old times, when there were not
so many idlers about, the doves were used to brisk walkers, and moved
away a foot or two in front of one; but now everybody lounges, or
stands talking about the Government, and the doves won't stir till one
just touches them; and I who walk fast[19] am always expecting to tread
on them, and it's a nuisance.

If I only had time I would fain make friends with the sea-gulls, who
would be quite like angels if they would only stop on one's balcony.