I tremble with pleasure when I
think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the
lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir
into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss
the pale purple of its plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for
me. Linnaeus fell on his knees and wept for joy when he saw for the
first time the long heath of some English upland made yellow with the
tawny aromatic brooms of the common furze; and I know that for me, to
whom flowers are part of desire, there are tears waiting in the petals of
some rose. It has always been so with me from my boyhood. There is not
a single colour hidden away in the chalice of a flower, or the curve of a
shell, to which, by some subtle sympathy with the very soul of things, my
nature does not answer. Like Gautier, I have always been one of those
'pour qui le monde visible existe.'

Still, I am conscious now that behind all this beauty, satisfying though
it may be, there is some spirit hidden of which the painted forms and
shapes are but modes of manifestation, and it is with this spirit that I
desire to become in harmony. I have grown tired of the articulate
utterances of men and things. The Mystical in Art, the Mystical in Life,
the Mystical in Nature this is what I am looking for. It is absolutely
necessary for me to find it somewhere.

All trials are trials for one's life, just as all sentences are sentences
of death; and three times have I been tried. The first time I left the
box to be arrested, the second time to be led back to the house of
detention, the third time to pass into a prison for two years. Society,
as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer;
but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have
clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence
I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may
walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my
footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in
great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.--_De Profundis_.

DOMESTICITY AT BERNEVAL

DIEPPE,

June 1st, 1897.

My Dear Robbie,--I propose to live at Berneval. I will _not_ live in
Paris, nor in Algiers, nor in Southern Italy. Surely a house for a year,
if I choose to continue there, at 32 pounds is absurdly cheap. I could
not live cheaper at a hotel. You are penny foolish, and pound foolish--a
dreadful state for my financier to be in. I told M. Bonnet that my
bankers were MM. Ross et Cie, banquiers celebres de Londres--and now you
suddenly show me that you have no place among the great financial people,
and are afraid of any investment over 31 pounds, 10s. It is merely the
extra ten shillings that baffles you. As regards people living on me,
and the extra bedrooms: dear boy, there is no one who would stay with me
but you, and you will pay your own bill at the hotel for meals; and as
for your room, the charge will be nominally 2 francs 50 centimes a night,
but there will be lots of extras such as _bougie, bain_ and hot water,
and all cigarettes smoked in the bedrooms are charged extra. And if any
one does not take the extras, of course he is charged more:--

Bain, 25 C.

Pas de bain, 50 C.