The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-03-01
"5 CHEyNE Row. Tuesday.

70 CHBYNE Row. Tuesday.
''How could you dear Mr. Earle, give my
friends at Seaforth the idea that | had eloped
with you2 Your card and mine left without one
word of explanation 1t is not every woman
who would have forgiven You as have done for
the sensation you produced in that imaginative
family Mr. Paulet wrote Off Immediately to
her brother in London to ask what on earth was
the meaning of it, she had never even heard
me speak of Mr.. Fundamentally, as ] had
never heard her speak of Mr.. FaTie myself when
[ saw her last, and my silence she said, made
the matter more suspicious II was a mercy
you did not, like poor Plattnauer in the con
fusion of parting, walk off with a whole pack of
my visiting cards, or you might have scattered
what shall l say2-rumors' to my disadvant-
age all over Scotland But, as have said, you
are forgiven
What of the wife? Have you made any steps
towards borrowing her yet-on trial-as ad-
vised9 Or you coming back to London to the
house l am to find you? That l don't recon-
mend for the moment. [ am just come back to
London myself, after having hung loose on ma
ture for five weeks to the great benefit of both
my soul and body, and find it too bad for
anything they say in Lancashire. My
husband and 1 parted at Leeds on Monday
gone week-he proceeded northward, l
southwark, and both of us reached our
destinations Friday. Since then 1 have
not seen one glimpse of the blue sky, nor spoken
one word to mortal, except my maid, and twice,
for ten minutes, to my brother-in-law! l believe
there is a man. or perhaps two, of my acquaint-
silence and the dismalness that have no power
to announce my return spend my life chiefly
in writing letters, smoking cigarittosi, and low
ing the devil out of a Yorkshire kitten as cred
liable an account of oneself as my husbands,
anyhow, who spends his life, he writes to me,
chiefly in sleeping and in drinking new milk
under various forms Very bilious work. that,
l should say but every one to his mind In
Derbyshire and Yorkshire / wrote no letters, and
that was the reason you got none; there | mere
ly pursued the picturesque under difficulties,
to the incalculable destruction of my raiment,
fragments of which are still fiuttering, l doubt
not on various stocks and stones; but also to the
great improvement of my complexion and gen
al agreeableneSS.
II have no news to tell you, except that the
omnibuses now take one to Charing Cross for
three-pence If that don't gladden. your heart,
know not what canl 1t may also give you a be-
nevolent satisfaction to hear that this Yorkshire
kitten is a great comfort to me. 1t splits and
strikes and springs like real little tiger; in
fact it was its tigerishness that first attracted
me. l doubt if | shall ever succeed in tanning
it, or if l should like it better if tanned. Nav,
it strikes me sometimes, suppose | learnt from
it to spit myself l have long felt the need of
some such concentrated form of uttering oneself.
In arguing with Carlyle for example, that sud
den, emphatic protest. something between the
hiss of a serpent and the bark of dog, might
command hearing from him when nothing else
could
81 have had the kindest of letters from st.
Thomas, all to myself, as the children say.
Pray don't be getting into any mischief if you
can help it! You may also write to me again. if
you like-not otherwise-and at all rates you
may believe me, without fiattering yourself,
Every sincerely your friend,
JANE CARLYLE"