I actually had the strength of mind to keep your letter unopened until J. came back from his wood-gathering. Then spying him from my balcony while he was still afar off, I cried in a loud voice. And he came up and we read it together and thanked God for you… You do such page 146 divine things! Your visit to Stratford, Hamlet in the Churchyard, the snapdragons, the gate of Anne's cottage, King Lear on the river—it all sounded perfect. In fact, one felt that if the truth were known William had gathered you the snap-dragon and you had leaned over the gate together.

What are you reading, Elizabeth? Is there something new which is very good? I have turned to Milton all last week. There are times when Milton seems the only food to me. He is a most blessed man.

“… Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Cleer Spring, or shadie Grove, or sunnie Hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song;”

But the more poetry one reads the more one longs to read! This afternoon J., lying on my furry rug, has been reading aloud Swinburne's Ave Atque Vale—which did not sound fearfully good. I suspect those green buds of sin and those gray fruits of shame. And try as one may, one can't see Baudelaire. Swinburne sits so very tight on the tomb. Then we read Hardy's poem to Swinburne, which J. adored. I, being an inferior being, was a little troubled by the picture of Sappho and Algernon meeting en plein mer (if one can say such a thing) and he begging her to tell him where her manuscript was. It seemed such a watery rendezvous. But we went on reading Hardy. How exquisite, how marvellous some of those poems are! They are almost intolerably near to one. I mean I always long to weep … that love and regret touched so lightly—that autumn tone, that feeling that “Beauty passes though rare, rare it be …”

But speaking of autumn, it is here. Yesterday, soft, silky, sweet-smelling summer kissed the geraniums, and waving the loveliest hand, went. To-day it is cold, solemn, with the first snow falling. Oh, Elizabeth, how I longed for you this morning on my balcony! The sun came through, a silver star. In the folds of the mountains page 147 little clouds glittered like Dorothy Wordsworth's sheep. And all that paysage across the valley was a new land. The colour is changed since you were here. The green is gold, a very deep gold like amber. On the high peaks snow was falling. And the Wind walking among the trees had a new voice. It was like land seen from a ship. It was like arriving in the harbour, and wondering, half frightened and yet longing, whether we would go ashore. But no, I can't describe it. Soon after all was grey and down came the white bees. The feeling in the house changed immediately. Ernestine became mysterious and blithe. The Faithful One ran up and down as though with cans of hot water. One felt the whisper had gone round that the pains had begun and the doctor had been sent for.

I am just at the beginning of a new story, which I may turn into a serial. Clement Shorter wants one. But he stipulates for 13 “curtains” and an adventure note! Thirteen curtains! And my stories haven't even a wisp of blind cord as a rule. I have never been able to manage curtains. I don't think I shall be able to see such a wholesale hanging through.

The knitting becomes almost frenzied at times. We may be sober in our lives, but we shall be garish in our shrouds and flamboyant in our coffins if this goes on. J. now mixes his wools thereby gaining what he calls a “superb astrachan effect.” Chi lo sa! I softly murmur over my needles. I find knitting turns me into an imbecile. It is the female tradition, I suppose.