LETTER XVI

Summary

Dr. Hughes's, Lower Canyon, Colorado, Dec. 4.

Once again here, in refined and cultured society, with harmonious voices about me, and dear sweet, loving children whose winning ways make this cabin a true English home. “England, with all thy faults, I love thee still!” I can truly say,

“Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see.

My heart, untravelled, fondly turns to thee.”

If it swerved a little in the Sandwich Islands, it is true to the Pole now! Surely one advantage of travelling is that, while it removes much prejudice against foreigners and their customs, it intensifies tenfold one's appreciation of the good at home, and, above all, of the quietness and purity of English domestic life. These reflections are forced upon me by the sweet child-voices about me, and by the exquisite consideration and tenderness which are the atmosphere (some would call it the hothouse atmosphere) of this house. But with the bare, hard life, and the bare, bleak mountains around, who could find fault with even a hothouse atmosphere, if it can nourish such a flower of Paradise as sacred human love?

The mercury is eleven degrees below zero, and I have to keep my ink on the stove to prevent it from freezing. The cold is intense — a clear, brilliant, stimulating cold, so dry that even in my threadbare flannel riding-dress I do not suffer from it. I must now take up my narrative of the nothings which have all the interest of somethings to me. We all got up before daybreak on Tuesday, and breakfasted at seven.