Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/354

ÆT. 42] anything of the kind was far from the poet's mind. On the day that Swinburne's letter was written, he wrote himself to Mrs. Morris from Kelmscott:

"It began to rain again before I got to Lechlade, at first to my infinite disappointment: however, when I got here and had had my lunch, and, as it were, made myself free of the river by an insane attempt to fish, I began to feel very comfortable, and took out my work and looked at it. The floods are already very high, and as it is certainly going to rain for the next 24 hours, I expect to see something curious. I don't think I shall come back before Saturday, as I really hope to do a pile of work here. I am rather short of victuals, as the booby Judd (female) only got me 1 lb. of bacon instead of 3, as I ordered her: however, there will be enough, I daresay, till we can send into Lechlade: there is also one tin of kangaroo meat. My hands are still somewhat stiff with my work on the river—Lord! how cold it was—wind E. or thereabouts. I am obliged to write by candlelight though 'tis only 4 o'clock.

"Best love to my one daughter—wouldn't she have liked to have been out on the flooded river with me, the wind right in one's teeth and the eddies going like a Japanese tea-tray: I must say it was delightful: almost as good as Iceland on a small scale: please the pigs, I will have a sail on the floods to-morrow."

The birthday letter, which he never omitted to send to his mother, has in it this year a mention of another source of relief to him, the resignation of his Directorship of the Devon Great Consols Company.

"Dearest mother," he writes, "I send you my best love and many happy returns of the day: item I send you a flower-pot and saucer from some samples that they have just sent us from India, and which are still