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xxx "I think you wrote in a self-depreciative mood. One gets them sometimes, at least I do, berating myself, and scarifying my mental epidermis till it is quite tender. But, e7itre nous, I never find myself any better for the process. I believe that the law of tonics is reversed in morals, and it is not the bitter things that invigorate. This morning I sat out on the rocks watching the tide come in ; it was wonderfully pleasant. The mighty river in the distance, and the gentle tender little ripple close by, while the waves were shaded purple and green, and the distant clouds looked, as distant clouds somehow always do look, home-like." "Your letter arrived opportunely in the midst of our first winter fog — one of those black mornings when, by the help of letters and a fire, one can hug oneself in cat-like content ; but without such accessories would find the world ' flat, stale, and unprofitable.' " "Well, it is nice to have been young, but I like being old best ; one does not fit into the world at first somehow, and tender flesh will wince at getting its corners rubbed off." "If he objects to the thing itself as not natural, I hope to get and to deserve that censure much more by-and-by : it is one of my few deep convictions that the supernatural is natural, that in the moral world, as in the physical, lightnings, volcanoes, avalanches, are as truly natural as fish-ponds and croquet -grounds. Nature includes all. Art should include all, only let each artist take the department that suits him. The supernatural needs a man's strength and depth ; the exceptionally natural is the ground 1 mean to take and work, God helping me. Now you have my confession of faith artistic. Only you and I well know the chasm between the endeavour and the result. It would be