I do not want you to make a care and
trouble of me; I feel it a privilege to _try_ even to copy anything from
your hand, and am willing to bide my time. It is shocking to think of
your summer's work being burned up; no money can compensate for such a
loss--I hate to think of it. I have had your landscape framed, and it is
the finest thing in the house.

_Nov. 9th._--I have your apple-blossoms ready to mail with this. I found
the subject very difficult, and at one time thought I should have to
give it up; but your directions are so clear and to the point that I
have succeeded in getting a picture we all think pretty, though wanting
in the tender grace of yours.

The picture, which is a gentle blaze of beauty, has just reached me. We
have had burglars in the house, and one of my songs of praise is that
they did not take the little gem I got from you last summer. Glad you
are a _woman_ and not all artist.

_To Mrs. Condict, Nov. 24, 1877_

As to the running fern, I paint it the color of black walnut, and round
placques it looks like carving. Emerald green I hate, but it is a
popular color, and A. was obliged to put it into the flower pictures
she painted on portfolios. I am glad you are still interested in your
painting. I have just finished the second reading of Miss Smiley's book,
and marked passages which I am sure you will like. I will mail my copy
to you. As to joy--"the fruits of the Spirit" come naturally to those in
the Spirit, and joy is one. But we may make an idol of our joy, and so
have to part with it. There may come a period when God says, virtually,
to the soul, "You clung to Me when I smiled upon and caressed you; let
Me see how you will behave when I smile and speak comfortably no more."
Fenelon says, "To be constantly in a state of enjoyment that takes away
the feeling of the cross, and to live in a fervor of devotion that keeps
Paradise constantly open--this is not dying upon the cross and becoming
nothing." [21]

When I look at the subject at a distance, as it were, remembering that
this life is mere preparation for the next, it seems _likely_ that we
shall have religious as well as other discipline; if we ascend the mount
of Transfiguration it is not that we may _dwell_ there, though it is
natural to wish we could. And the fact is, no matter what professions
of rapture people make, if they believe in Christ and love Him as they
ought to do, what they have enjoyed will be nothing when compared wit