Letters of Edward FitzGerald
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Edward FitzGerald >> Letters of Edward FitzGerald
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All the world has been, as I suppose you have read, crazy about Jenny
Lind: and they are now giving her 400 pounds to sing at a Concert. What
a frightful waste of money! I did not go to hear her: partly out of
contradiction perhaps; and partly because I could not make out that she
was a great singer, like my old Pasta. Now I will go and listen to any
pretty singer whom I can get to hear easily and unexpensively: but I will
not pay and squeeze much for any canary in the world. Perhaps Lind is a
nightingale: but I want something more than that. Spedding's cool blood
was moved to hire stalls several times at an advanced rate: the
Lushingtons (your sister told me) were enraptured: and certainly people
rushed up madly from Suffolk to hear her but once and then die. I rather
doubted the value of this general appreciation. But one cause of my not
hearing her was that I was not in London for more than a fortnight all
the Spring: and she came out but at the close of my fortnight. . . .
. . . You are wrong, as usual, about Moore and Eastlake: all the world
say that Moore had much the best of the controversy, and Eastlake only
remains cock of the walk because he is held up by authority. I do not
pretend to judge which of the two is right in art: but I am sure that
Moore argues most logically, and sets out upon finer principles; and if
two shoemakers quarrelled about the making of a shoe, I should be
disposed to side with him who argued best on the matter, though my eyes
and other senses could not help me to a verdict. Moore takes his stand
on high ground, and appeals to Titian, Michel Angelo, and Reynolds.
Eastlake is always shifting about, and appealing to Sir Robert Peel,
Etty, and the Picture-dealers. {225} Now farewell. Write when you can
to Boulge.
_To S. Laurence_.
[1847.]
DEAR LAURENCE,
. . . I assure you I am deeply obliged to you for the great trouble you
have taken, and the kindness you have shewn about the portrait. In spite
of all our objections (yours amongst the number) it is very like, and
perhaps only misses of being quite like by that much more than
hairbreadth difference, which one would be foolish to expect to see
adequated. Perhaps those painters are right who set out with rather
idealising the likeness of those we love; for we do so ourselves probably
when we look at them. And as art must miss the last delicacy of nature,
it may be well to lean toward a better than our eyes can affirm.
This is all wrong. Truth is the ticket; but those who like strongly, in
this as in other cases, love to be a little blind, or to see too much.
One fancies that no face can be too delicate and handsome to be the
depository of a noble spirit: and if we are not as good physiognomists as
we are metaphysicians (that is, intimate with any one particular mind)
our outward eyes will very likely be at variance with our inward, or
rather be influenced by them. Very instructive all this!
I wish you would come to me to-night for an hour at ten: I don't know if
any one else will be here.
_To T. Carlyle_.
ALDERMAN BROWNE'S, BEDFORD.
[20 _Septr_. 1847.]
DEAR CARLYLE,
I was very glad of your letter: especially as regards that part in it
about the Derbyshire villages. In many other parts of England (not to
mention my own Suffolk) you would find the same substantial goodness
among the people, resulting (as you say) from the funded virtues of many
good humble men gone by. I hope you will continue to teach us all, as
you have done, to make some use and profit of all this: at least, not to
let what good remains to die away under penury and neglect. I also hope
you will have some mercy now, and in future, on the 'Hebrew rags' which
are grown offensive to you; considering that it was these rags that
really did bind together those virtues which have transmitted down to us
all the good you noticed in Derbyshire. If the old creed was so
commendably effective in the Generals and Counsellors of two hundred
years ago, I think we may be well content to let it work still among the
ploughmen and weavers of to-day; and even to suffer some absurdities in
the Form, if the Spirit does well upon the whole. Even poor Exeter Hall
ought, I think, to be borne with; it is at least better than the wretched
Oxford business. When I was in Dorsetshire some weeks ago, and saw
chancels done up in sky-blue and gold, with niches, candles, an _Altar_,
rails to keep off the profane laity, and the parson (like your Reverend
Mr. Hitch {227}) _intoning_ with his back to the people, I thought the
Exeter Hall war-cry of 'The Bible--the whole Bible--and nothing but the
Bible' a good cry: I wanted Oliver and his dragoons to march in and put
an end to it all. Yet our Established Parsons (when quiet and in their
senses) make good country gentlemen, and magistrates; and I am glad to
secure one man of means and education in each parish of England: the
people can always resort to Wesley, Bunyan, and Baxter, if they want
stronger food than the old Liturgy, and the orthodox Discourse. I think
you will not read what I have written: or be very bored with it. But it
is written now.
I am going to-day into the neighbourhood of Kimbolton: but shall be back
here by the end of the week: and shall not leave Bedford till next Monday
certainly. I may then go to Naseby for three days: but this depends. I
would go and hunt up some of the Peterboro' churchmen for you; but that
my enquiries would either be useless, or precipitate the burning of other
records. I hope your excursion will do you good. Thank you for your
account of Spedding: I had written however to himself, and from himself
ascertained that he was out of the worst. But Spedding's life is a very
ticklish one.
_To E. B. Cowell_.
[1847]
DEAR COWELL,
. . . I am only got half way in the third book of Thucydides: but I go on
with pleasure; with as much pleasure as I used to read a novel. I have
also again taken up my Homer. That is a noble and affecting passage
where Diomed and Glaucus, being about to fight, recognize each other as
old family friends, exchange arms, and vow to avoid each other henceforth
in the fray. (N.B. and this in the tenth year of the war!) After this
comes, you know, the meeting of Hector and Andromache, which we read
together; altogether a truly Epic canto indeed.
Yet, as I often think, it is not the poetical imagination, but bare
Science that every day more and more unrolls a greater Epic than the
Iliad; the history of the World, the infinitudes of Space and Time! I
never take up a book of Geology or Astronomy but this strikes me. And
when we think that Man must go on to discover in the same plodding way,
one fancies that the Poet of to-day may as well fold his hands, or turn
them to dig and delve, considering how soon the march of discovery will
distance all his imaginations, [and] dissolve the language in which they
are uttered. Martial, as you say, lives now, after two thousand years; a
space that seems long to us whose lives are so brief; but a moment, the
twinkling of an eye, if compared (not to Eternity alone) but to the ages
which it is now known the world must have existed, and (unless for some
external violence) must continue to exist. Lyell in his book about
America, says that the falls of Niagara, if (as seems certain) they have
worked their way back southwards for seven miles, must have taken over
35,000 years to do so, at the rate of something over a foot a year!
Sometimes they fall back on a stratum that crumbles away from behind them
more easily: but then again they have to roll over rock that yields to
them scarcely more perceptibly than the anvil to the serpent. And those
very soft strata which the Cataract now erodes contain evidences of a
race of animals, and of the action of seas washing over them, long before
Niagara came to have a distinct current; and the rocks were compounded
ages and ages before those strata! So that, as Lyell says, the Geologist
looking at Niagara forgets even the roar of its waters in the
contemplation of the awful processes of time that it suggests. It is not
only that this vision of Time must wither the Poet's hope of immortality;
but it is in itself more wonderful than all the conceptions of Dante and
Milton.
As to your friend Pliny, I don't think that Time can use his usual irony
on that saying about Martial. {230a} Pliny evidently only suggests that
'at non erunt aeterna quae scripsit' as a question of his correspondent;
to which he himself replies 'Non erunt _fortasse_.' Your Greek
quotations are very graceful. I should like to read Busbequius. {230b}
Do _you_ think Tacitus _affected_ in style, as people now say he is?
* * * * *
In the Notes to his edition of Selden's Table Talk, published in 1847,
Mr. Singer says, 'Part of the following Illustrations were kindly
communicated to the Editor by a gentleman to whom his best thanks are
due, and whom it would have afforded him great pleasure to be allowed to
name.' It might have been said with truth that the 'greater part' of the
illustrations were contributed by the same anonymous benefactor, who was,
I have very little doubt, FitzGerald himself. I have in my possession a
copy of the Table Talk which he gave me about 1871 or 1872, with
annotations in his own handwriting, and these are almost literally
reproduced in the Notes to Singer's Edition. Of this copy FitzGerald
wrote to me, 'What notes I have appended are worth nothing, I suspect;
though I remember that the advice of the present Chancellor {231} was
asked in some cases.'
_To E. B. Cowell_.
GELDESTONE, _Jan_. 13/48.
MY DEAR COWELL,
. . . I suppose you have seen Carlyle's thirty-five Cromwell letters in
Fraser. I see the Athenaeum is picking holes with them too: and I
certainly had a misgiving that Squire of Yarmouth must have pieced out
the erosions of 'the vermin' by one or two hotheaded guesses of his own.
But I am sure, both from the general matter of the letters, and from
Squire's own bodily presence, that he did not forge them. Carlyle has
made a bungle of the whole business; and is fairly twitted by the
Athenaeum for talking so loud about his veneration for Cromwell, etc.,
and yet not stirring himself to travel a hundred miles to see and save
such memorials as he talks of.
BOULGE, _Wednesday_.
[_Jan._ 25, 1848.]
MY DEAR COWELL,
I liked your paper on the Mesnavi {232} very much; both your criticism
and your Mosaic legend. That I may not seem to give you careless and
undistinguishing praise, I will tell you that I could not quite hook on
the latter part of Moses to the former; did you leave out any necessary
link of the chain in the hiatus you made? or is the inconsequence only in
my brains? So much for the legend: and I must reprehend you for one tiny
bit of Cockney about Memory's rosary at the end of your article, which,
but for that, I liked so much.
So judges Fitz-Dennis; who, you must know by this time, has the judgment
of Moliere's old woman, and the captiousness of Dennis. Ten years ago I
might have been vext to see you striding along in Sanscrit and Persian so
fast; reading so much; remembering all; writing about it so well. But
now I am glad to see any man do any thing well; and I know that it is my
vocation to stand and wait, and know within myself whether it is done
well.
I have just finished, all but the last three chapters, the fourth Book of
Thucydides, and it is now no task to me to go on. This fourth book is
the most interesting I have read; containing all that blockade of Pylos;
that first great thumping of the Athenians at Oropus, after which they
for ever dreaded the Theban troops. And it came upon me 'come stella in
ciel,' when, in the account of the taking of Amphipolis, {233}
Thucydides, [Greek text], comes with seven ships to the rescue! Fancy
old Hallam sticking to his gun at a Martello tower! This was the way to
write well; and this was the way to make literature respectable. Oh,
Alfred Tennyson, could you but have the luck to be put to such
employment! No man would do it better; a more heroic figure to head the
defenders of his country could not be.
_To S. Laurence_.
BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE,
[30 _Jan_. 1848.]
MY DEAR LAURENCE,
How are you--how are you getting on? A voice from the tombs thus
addresses you; respect the dead, and answer. Barton is well; that is, I
left him well on Friday: but he was just going off to attend a Quaker's
funeral in the snow: whether he has survived that, I don't know.
To-morrow is his Birth-day: and I am going (if he be alive) to help him
to celebrate it. His portrait has been hung (under my directions) over
the mantel-piece in his sitting room, with a broad margin of some red
stuff behind it, to set it off. You may turn up your nose at all this;
but let me tell you it is considered one of the happiest contrivances
ever adopted in Woodbridge. Nineteen people out of twenty like the
portrait much; the twentieth, you may be sure, is a man of no taste at
all.
I hear you were for a long time in Cumberland. Did you paint a
waterfall--or old Wordsworth--or Skiddaw, or any of the beauties? Did
you see anything so inviting to the pencil as the river Deben? When are
you coming to see us again? Churchyard relies on your coming; but then
he is a very sanguine man, and, though a lawyer, wonderfully confident in
the promises of men. How are all your family? You see I have asked you
some questions; so you must answer them; and believe me yours truly,
E. FITZGERALD.
_To John Allen_.
BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE,
_March_ 2/48.
MY DEAR ALLEN,
. . . Every year I have less and less desire to go to London: and now you
are not there I have one reason the less for going there. I want to
settle myself in some town--for good--for life! A pleasant country town,
a cathedral town perhaps! What sort of a place is Lichfield?
I say nothing about French Revolutions, which are too big for a little
letter. I think we shall all be in a war before the year; I know not how
else the French can keep peace at home but by quarrelling abroad. But
'come what come may.'
My old friend Major Moor died rather suddenly last Saturday: {235} and
this next Saturday is to be buried in the Church to which he used to take
me when I was a boy. He has not left a better man behind him.
BOULGE, _Friday_.
MY DEAR ALLEN,
. . . I suppose by a 'Minster Pool' in Lichfield you mean a select
coterie of Prebends, Canons, etc. These would never trouble me. I
should much prefer the society of the Doctor, the Lawyer (if tolerably
honest) and the singing men. I love a small Cathedral town; and the
dignified respectability of the Church potentates is a part of the
pleasure. I sometimes think of Salisbury: and have altogether long had
an idea of settling at forty years old. Perhaps it will be at
Woodbridge, after all!
_To F. Tennyson_.
BOULGE, _May_ 4, 1848.
MY DEAR FREDERIC,
When you talk of two idle men not taking the trouble to keep up a little
intercourse by letters, you do not, in conscience, reflect upon me; who,
you know, am very active in answering almost by return of post. It is
some six months since you must have got my last letter, full of most
instructive advice concerning my namesake; of whom, and of which, you say
nothing. How much has he borrowed of you? Is he now living on the top
of your hospitable roof? Do you think him the most ill-used of men? I
see great advertisements in the papers about your great Grimsby Railway.
. . . Does it pay? does it pay all but you? who live only on the fine
promises of the lawyers and directors engaged in it? You know England
has had a famous winter of it for commercial troubles: my family has not
escaped the agitation: I even now doubt if I must not give up my daily
two-pennyworth of cream and take to milk: and give up my Spectator and
Athenaeum. I don't trouble myself much about all this: for, unless the
kingdom goes to pieces by national bankruptcy, I shall probably have
enough to live on: and, luckily, every year I want less. What do you
think of my not going up to London this year; to see exhibitions, to hear
operas, and so on? Indeed I do not think I shall go: and I have no great
desire to go. I hear of nothing new in any way worth going up for. I
have never yet heard the famous Jenny Lind, whom all the world raves
about. Spedding is especially mad about her, I understand: and, after
that, is it not best for weaker vessels to keep out of her way? Night
after night is that bald head seen in one particular position in the
Opera house, in a stall; the miserable man has forgot Bacon and
philosophy, and goes after strange women. There is no doubt this lady is
a wonderful singer; but I will not go into hot crowds till another Pasta
comes; I have heard no one since her worth being crushed for. And to
perform in one's head one of Handel's choruses is better than most of the
Exeter Hall performances. I went to hear Mendelssohn's Elijah last
spring: and found it wasn't at all worth the trouble. Though very good
music it is not original: Haydn much better. I think the day of
Oratorios is gone, like the day for painting Holy Families, etc. But we
cannot get tired of what has been done in Oratorios more than we can get
tired of Raffaelle. Mendelssohn is really original and beautiful in
_romantic_ music: witness his Midsummer Night's Dream, and Fingal's Cave.
I had a note from Alfred three months ago. He was then in London: but is
now in Ireland, I think, adding to his new poem, the Princess. Have you
seen it? I am considered a great heretic for abusing it; it seems to me
a wretched waste of power at a time of life when a man ought to be doing
his best; and I almost feel hopeless about Alfred now. I mean, about his
doing what he was born to do. . . . On the other hand, Thackeray is
progressing greatly in his line: he publishes a Novel in numbers--Vanity
Fair--which began dull, I thought: but gets better every number, and has
some very fine things indeed in it. He is become a great man I am told:
goes to Holland House, and Devonshire House: and for some reason or
other, will not write a word to me. But I am sure this is not because he
is asked to Holland House. Dickens has fallen off in his last novel,
{238} just completed; but there are wonderful things in it too. Do you
ever get a glimpse of any of these things?
As to public affairs, they are so wonderful that one does not know where
to begin. If England maintains her own this year, she must have the
elements of long lasting in her. I think People begin to wish we had no
more to do with Ireland: but the Whigs will never listen to a doctrine
which was never heard of in Holland House. I am glad Italy is free: and
surely there is nothing for her now but a Republic. It is well to stand
by old kings who have done well by us: but it is too late in the day to
_begin_ Royalty.
If anything could tempt me so far as Italy, it would certainly be your
presence in Florence. But I boggle about going twenty miles, and _cui
bono_? deadens me more and more.
July 2. All that precedes was written six weeks ago, when I was obliged
to go up to London on business. . . . I saw Alfred, and the rest of the
scavans. Thackeray is a great man: goes to Devonshire House, etc.: and
_his_ book (which is capital) is read by the Great: and will, I hope, do
them good. I heard but little music: the glorious Acis and Galatea; and
the redoubtable Jenny Lind, for the first time. I was disappointed in
her: but am told this is all my fault. As to naming her in the same
Olympiad with great old Pasta, I am sure that is ridiculous. The
Exhibition is like most others you have seen; worse perhaps. There is an
'Aaron' and a 'John the Baptist' by Etty far worse than the Saracen's
Head on Ludgate Hill. Moore is turned Picture dealer: and that high
Roman virtue in which he indulged is likely to suffer a Picture-dealer's
change, I think. Carlyle writes in the Examiner about Ireland: raves and
foams, but has nothing to propose. Spedding prospers with Bacon. Alfred
seemed to me in fair plight: much dining out: and his last Poem is well
liked I believe. Morton is still at Lisbon, I believe also: but I have
not written to him, nor heard from him. And now, my dear Frederic, I
must shut up. Do not neglect to write to me sometimes. Alfred said you
ought to be in England about your Grimsby Land.
_To E. B. Cowell_.
[? 1848.]
MY DEAR COWELL,
. . . I do not know that I praised Xenophon's imagination in recording
such things as Alcibiades at Lampsacus; {240} all I meant to say was that
the history was not dull which does record such facts, if it be for the
imagination of others to quicken them. . . . As to Sophocles, I will not
give up my old Titan. Is there not an infusion of Xenophon in Sophocles,
as compared to AEschylus,--a dilution? Sophocles is doubtless the better
artist, the more complete; but are we to expect anything but glimpses and
ruins of the divinest? Sophocles is a pure Greek temple; but AEschylus
is a rugged mountain, lashed by seas, and riven by thunderbolts: and
which is the most wonderful, and appalling? Or if one will have AEschylus
too a work of man, I say he is like a Gothic Cathedral, which the Germans
say did arise from the genius of man aspiring up to the immeasurable, and
reaching after the infinite in complexity and gloom, according as
Christianity elevated and widened men's minds. A dozen lines of AEschylus
have a more Almighty power on me than all Sophocles' plays; though I
would perhaps rather save Sophocles, as the consummation of Greek art,
than AEschylus' twelve lines, if it came to a choice which must be lost.
Besides these AEschyluses _trouble_ us with their grandeur and gloom; but
Sophocles is always soothing, complete, and satisfactory.
_To W. B. Donne_.
BOULGE, _Decr_. 27, [1848.]
MY DEAR DONNE,
You have sent me two or three kind messages through Barton. I hear you
come into Suffolk the middle of January. My movements are as yet
uncertain; the lawyers may call me back to London very suddenly: but
should I be here at the time of your advent, you must really contrive to
come here, to this Cottage, for a day or two. I have yet beds, tables,
and chairs for two: I think Gurdon is also looking out for you.
I only returned home a few days ago, to spend Christmas with Barton:
whose turkey I accordingly partook of. He seems only pretty well: is
altered during the last year: less spirits, less strength; but quite
amiable still.
I saw many of my friends in London, Carlyle and Tennyson among them; but
most and best of all, Spedding. I have stolen his noble book {241} away
from him; noble, in spite (I believe, but am not sure) of some
_adikology_ in the second volume: some special pleadings for his idol:
amica Veritas, sed magis, etc. But I suppose you will think this the
intolerance of a weak stomach.
I also went to plays and concerts which I could scarce afford: but I
thought I would have a Carnival before entering on a year of reductions.
I have been trying to hurry on, and bully, Lawyers: have done a very
little good with much trouble; and cannot manage to fret much though I am
told there is great cause for fretting.
Farewell for the present: come and see me if we be near Woodbridge at the
same time: remember me to all who do remember me: and believe me yours as
ever,
E. F. G.
_To S. Laurence_.
BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE,
_Febr_: 9/49.
MY DEAR LAURENCE,
Roe promised me six copies of his Tennyson. {242} Do you know anything
of them? Why I ask is, that, in case they should be at your house, I may
have an opportunity of having them brought down here one day. And I have
promised them nearly all to people hereabout.
Barton is out of health; some affection of the heart, I think, that will
never leave him, never let him be what he was when you saw him. He is
forced to be very abstemious . . . but he bears his illness quite as a
man; and looks very demurely to the necessary end of all life. {243}
Churchyard is pretty well; has had a bad cough for three months. I
suppose we are all growing older: though I have been well this winter,
and was unwell all last. I forget if you saw Crabbe (I mean the Father)
when you were down here.
You may tell Mr. Hullah, if you like, that in spite of his contempt for
my music, I was very much pleased, with a duett of his I chanced to
see--'O that we two were maying'--and which I bought and have forced two
ladies here to take pains to learn. They would sing nicely if they had
voices and were taught.
_Fragment of Letter to J. Allen_.
I see a good deal of Alfred, who lives not far off me: and he is still
the same noble and droll fellow he used to be. A lithograph has been
made from Laurence's portrait of him; _my_ portrait: and six copies are
given to me. I reserve one for you; how can I send it to you?
Laurence has for months been studying the Venetian secret of colour in
company with Geldart; and at last they have discovered it, they say. I
have seen some of Laurence's portraits done on his new system; they seem
to be really much better up to a certain point of progress: but I think
he is apt, by a bad choice of colours, to spoil the effect which an
improved system of laying on the colours should ensure. But he has only
lately begun on his new system, of which he is quite confident; and
perhaps all will come right by and by.
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