lxviii INTRODUCTION

Or, again, from Lucerne:-

“Rosie, pet, and Rosie, puss,

See, the moonlight’s on the Reuss:

O’er the Alps the clouds lie loose,

Tossed about in silver tangles,

In and out through all the angles,

Some obtuse and some acute;

Lakelet waves, though crisped, are mute

Only seen by moving spangles.

But, underneath, the Porter wrangles

With English wight who German mangles

And all the bells break out in jangles;

For here in old Lucerne the times

Of night and day are taught with chimes

And moralled in metallic rhymes,

And divers sorts of tingle-tangles,-

Hark, the watch-tower answers sprightly,

Saying, if I hear it rightly,

’Good night, Liffey; bad night, Reuss-

Good night, Rosie, Posie, Puss.’”

The child of thirteen and the man who petted her were “half a life asunder”; but the child treasured his letters, and told him so, prettily enough for a maiden of older years:-

“I got your letter,” she wrote (in a letter which he copied out for his father and mother to see), “just as I was going out riding. So I could only give it one peep, and then tucked it into my riding-habit pocket and pinned it down, so that it could be talking to me while I was riding. I had to shut up my mouth so tight when I met Mama, for she would have taken it and read it if I’d told her, and it wouldn’t have gone on riding with me. As it was, we ran rather a chance of me and pocket and letter and all being suddenly lodged in a stubble field, for Swallow (that’s Emily’s animal that I always ride now) was in such tremendous spirits about having your handwriting on his back that he took to kicking and jumping in such a way, till I felt like a Stormy Petrel riding a great wave, so you may imagine I could not spare a hand to unpin my dear pocket, and had to wait in patience, till Swallow had done ‘flying, flying South,’ and we were safe home again.”

Did child of thirteen ever write a sweeter letter? Could guide, philosopher, and friend, such as Ruskin was, have ever seen rosebud opening with richer promise? All the lovely fancies, all the “vital

[Version 0.04: March 2008]