. I always think of him as a
great natural force in a human frame.

_So_ nice all you say of the "Ethics"! And I'm a monster of
ingratitude, as bad as the Dragon of Wantley. Don't like Dr. Brown's
friend's book at all. It's neither Scotch nor English, nor fish nor
flesh, and it's tiresome.

I'm in the worst humor I've been in this month, which is saying much;
and have been writing the wickedest "Fors" I ever wrote, which is
saying more; you will be _so_ angry.

* * * * *

I'm so very glad you will mark the bits you like, but are there not a
good many here and there that you _don't_ like?--I mean that sound
hard or ironical. Please don't mind them. They're partly because I
never count on readers who will really care for the prettiest things,
and it gets me into a bad habit of expressing contempt which is not
indeed any natural part of my mind.

It pleases me especially that you have read "The Queen of the Air." As
far as I know, myself, of my books, it is the most useful and careful
piece I have done. But that again--did it not shock you to have a
heathen goddess so much believed in? (I've believed in English ones
long ago). If you can really forgive me for "The Queen of the Air,"
there are all sorts of things I shall come begging you to read some
day.

* * * * *

_21st July._

I'm always looking at the Thwaite, and thinking how nice it is that
you are there. I think it's a little nice, too, that _I'm_ within
sight of you, for if I hadn't broken, I don't know how many not
exactly promises, but nearly, to be back at Oxford by this time, I
might have been dragged from Oxford to London, from London to France,
from France who knows where? But I'm here, and settled to produce, as
soon as possible, the following works--

1. New number of "Love's Meinie," on the Stormy Petrel.
2. New ditto of "Proserpina," on sap, pith, and bark.
3. New ditto of "Deucalion," on clouds.
4. New "Fors," on new varieties of young ladies.
5. Two new numbers of "Our Fathers," on Brunehaut, and
Bertha her niece, and St. Augustine and St. Benedict.
6. Index and epilogue to four Oxford lectures.
7. Report and account of St. George's Guild.

And I've had to turn everything out of every shelf in the house, for
mildew and moths.

And I want to paint a little bank of strawberry leaves.

And