You were kind enough to get _Judith Crowhurst_ published for me, and it has had what is called a ‘success,’ but I doubt if it will do any good. People devour books but, when they have finished one, they never ask themselves what is to be done. It is immediately followed by another on a different subject, and reading becomes nothing but a pastime or a narcotic. _Judith_ may be admired, but it is by those who will not undergo the fatigue of a penny journey in an omnibus to see their own Judith, perhaps nearly related to them, and will excuse themselves because she is not entertaining. I was asked the other day if I was not proud of some of the reviews. Good God! I would rather have been Alice Ayres, {148} and have died as she died, than have been famous as the author of the _Divine Comedy_, _Paradise Lost_, or _Hamlet_. She is now forgotten and sleeps in an obscure grave in some London cemetery. No! there will be nothing more. I have said all I had to say. CLEARING-UP AFTER A STORM IN JANUARY A WESTERLY storm of great strength had been blowing all day, shaking the walls of the house and making us fear for the chimneys. About four o’clock, although the wind continued very high, the clouds broke, and moved in a slow, majestic procession obliquely from the north-west to the south-east. Here and there small apertures revealed the undimmed heaven behind. Immense, rounded projections reared themselves from the main body, and flying, ragged fragments, apparently at a lower level, fled beside and before them. These fragments of lesser density showed innumerable tints of bluish grey from the darkest up to one which differed but little from the pure sky-blue surrounding them. Just after the sun set a rosy flush of light spread almost instantaneously up to the zenith and in an instant had gone. Low down in the west was a long, broadish bar of orange light, crossed by the black pines on the hill half a mile away. Their stems and the outline of each piece of foliage were as distinct as if they were but a hundred yards distant. Half the length of the field in front of me lay a small pool full to its grassy margin. It reflected with such singular fidelity the light and colour above it that it seemed itself to be an original source of light and colour. Of all the sights to be seen in this part of the world none are more strangely and suggestively beautiful than the little patches of rain or spring water in the twilight on the moorland or meadows. Presently the wind rose again, and a rain-squall followed. It passed, and the stars began to come out, and Orion showed himself above the eastern woods. He seemed as if he were marching through the moonlit scud which drove against him. How urgent all the business of this afternoon and evening has been, and yet what it meant who could say? I was like a poor man’s child who, looking out from the cottage window, beholds with amazement a