June 28, 1889.
An old friend has been staying with us, a very interesting man for
many reasons, but principally for the fact that he combines two
sets of qualities that are rarely found together. He has strong
artistic instincts; he would like, I think, to have been a painter;
he has a deep love of nature, woodland places and quiet fields; he
loves old and beautiful buildings with a tenderness that makes it a
real misery to him to think of their destruction, and even their
renovation; and he has, too, the poetic passion for flowers; he is
happiest in his garden. But beside all this, he has the Puritan
virtues strongly developed; he loves work, and duty, and simplicity
of life, with all his heart; he is an almost rigid judge of conduct
and character, and sometimes flashes out in a half Pharisaical
scorn against meanness, selfishness, and weakness. He is naturally
a pure Ruskinian; he would like to destroy railways and machinery
and manufactories; he would like working-men to enjoy their work,
and dance together on the village green in the evenings; but he is
not a faddist at all, and has the healthiest and simplest power of
enjoyment. His severity has mellowed with age, while his love of
beauty has, I think, increased; he does not care for argument, and
is apt to say pathetically that he knows that his fellow-disputant
is right, but that he cannot change his opinions, and does not
desire to.
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