Letters of Edward FitzGerald
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Edward FitzGerald >> Letters of Edward FitzGerald
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I have seen Thackeray three or four times. He is just the same. All the
world admires Vanity Fair; and the Author is courted by Dukes and
Duchesses, and wits of both sexes. I like Pendennis much; and Alfred
said he thought 'it was quite delicious: it seemed to him so _mature_,'
he said. You can imagine Alfred saying this over one's fire, spreading
his great hand out.
_To F. Tennyson_.
BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, _June_ 19, 1849.
MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,
I often think of you: often wish to write to you--often intend to do
so--determine to do so--but perhaps should not do so for a long time, but
that this sheet of thin paper happens to come under my fingers this 19th
of June 1849. You must not believe however that it is only chance that
puts me up to this exertion; I really should have written before but that
the reports we read of Italian and Florentine troubles put me in doubt
first whether you are still at Florence to receive my letter: and
secondly whether, if you be there, it would ever reach your hands. But I
will brace myself up even to that great act of Friendship, to write a
long letter with all probability of its miscarrying. Only look here; if
it ever does reach you, you must really write to me directly: to let me
know how you and yours are, for I am sincerely anxious to know this. I
saw great reports in the paper too some months back of Prince Albert
going to open Great Grimsby Docks. Were not such Docks to be made on
your land? and were you not to be a rich man if they were made? And have
you easily consented to forego being paid in money, and to accept in lieu
thereof a certain quantity of wholly valueless shares in said Docks,
which will lead you into expense, instead of enriching you? This is what
I suppose will be the case. For though you have a microscopic eye for
human character, you are to be diddled by any knave, or set of knaves, as
you well know.
Of my own affairs I have nothing agreeable to tell. . . . When I met you
in London, I was raising money for myself on my reversionary property:
and so I am still: and of course the lawyers continue to do so in the
most expensive way; a slow torture of the purse. But do not suppose I
want money: I get it, at a good price: nor do I fret myself about the
price: there will be quite enough (if public securities hold) for my life
under any dispensation the lawyers can inflict. As I grow older I want
less. I have not bought a book or a picture this year: have not been to
a concert, opera, or play: and, what is more, I don't care to go. Not
but if I meet you in London again I shall break out into shilling
concerts, etc., and shall be glad of the opportunity.
After you left London, I remained there nearly to the end of December;
saw a good deal of Alfred, etc. Since then I have been down here except
a fortnight's stay in London, from which I have just returned. I heard
Alfred had been seen flying through town to the Lushingtons: but I did
not see him. He is said to be still busy about that accursed Princess.
By the by, beg, borrow, steal, or buy Keats' Letters and Poems; most
wonderful bits of Poems, written off hand at a sitting, most of them: I
only wonder that they do not make a noise in the world. By the by again,
it is quite necessary _your_ poems should be printed; which Moxon, I am
sure, would do gladly. Except this book of Keats, we have had _no_
poetry lately, I believe; luckily, the ---, ---, ---, etc., are getting
older and past the age of conceiving--_wind_. Send your poems over to
Alfred to sort and arrange for you: he will do it: and you and he are the
only men alive whose poems I want to see in print. By the by, thirdly
and lastly, and in total contradiction to the last sentence, I am now
helping to edit some letters and poems of--Bernard Barton! Yes: the poor
fellow died suddenly of heart disease; leaving his daughter, a noble
woman, almost unprovided for: and we are getting up this volume by
subscription. If you were in England _you_ must subscribe: but as you
are not, you need only give us a share in the Great Grimsby Dock instead.
Now there are some more things I could tell you, but you see where my pen
has honestly got to in the paper. I remember you did not desire to hear
about my garden, which is now gorgeous with large red poppies, and lilac
irises--satisfactory colouring: and the trees murmur a continuous soft
_chorus to the solo which my soul discourses within_. If that be not
Poetry, I should like to know what is? and with it I may as well
conclude. I think I shall send this letter to your family at Cheltenham
to be forwarded to you:--they may possibly have later intelligence of you
than I have. Pray write to me if you get this; indeed you _must_; and
never come to England without letting me know of it.
_To George Crabbe_. {247}
TERRACE HOUSE, RICHMOND,
_October_ 22/49.
MY DEAR GEORGE,
Warren's analysis of my MS. is rather wonderful to me. Though not wholly
correct (as I think, and as I will expound to you one day) it seems to me
yet as exact as most of my friends who know me best could draw out from
their personal knowledge. Some of his guesses (though partly right) hit
upon traits of character I should conceive quite out of all possibility
of solution from mere handwriting. I can understand that a man should
guess at one's temperament, whether lively or slow; at one's habit of
thought, whether diffuse or logical; at one's Will, whether strong and
direct or feeble and timid. But whether one distrusts men, and yet
trusts friends? Half of this is true, at all events. Then I cannot
conceive how a man should see in handwriting such an accident as whether
one knew much of Books or men; and in this point it is very doubtful if
Warren is right. But, take it all in all, his analysis puzzles me much.
I have sent it to old Jem Spedding the Wise. You shall have it again.
If my Mother should remain at this place you must one day come and see
her and it with me. She would be very glad to receive you. Richmond and
all its environs are very beautiful, and very interesting; haunted by the
memory of Princes, Wits, and Beauties.
_To E. B. Cowell_.
BOULGE, _Saturday_, [1849].
MY DEAR COWELL,
How is it I have not heard from you these two months? Surely, I was the
last who wrote. I was told you had influenza, or cold: but I suppose
that is all over by this time. How goes on Sanscrit, Athenaeus, etc. I
am reading the sixth Book of Thucydides--the Sicilian expedition--very
interesting--indeed I like the old historian more and more and shall be
sorry when I have done with him. Do you remember the fine account of the
great armament setting off from the Piraeus for Sicily--B. 6, ch. 30,
etc? If not, read it now.
One day I mean to go and pay you another visit, perhaps soon. I heard
from Miss Barton you were reading, and even liking, the Princess--is this
so? I believe it is greatly admired in London coteries. I remain in the
same mind about [it]. I am told the Author means to republish it, with a
character of each speaker between each canto; which will make the matter
worse, I think; unless the speakers are all of the Tennyson family. For
there is no indication of any change of speaker in the cantos themselves.
What do you say to all this?
Can you tell me any passages in the Romans of the Augustan age, or rather
before, telling of decline in the people's morals, hardihood, especially
as regards the youth of the country?
Kind remembrances to Miladi, and I am yours ever,
E. FITZGERALD.
_To F. Tennyson_.
BEDFORD, _Dec._ 7/49.
MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,
Your note came to me to-day. I ought to have written to you long ago:
and indeed did half do a letter before the summer was half over: which
letter I mislaid. I shall be delighted indeed to have your photograph:
insufficient as a photograph is. You are one of the few men whose
portrait I would give a penny to have: and one day when you are in
England we must get it done by Laurence; half at your expense and half at
mine, I think. I wish you had sent over to me some of your poems which
you told me you were printing at Florence: and often I wish I was at
Florence to give you some of my self-satisfied advice on what you should
select. For though I do not pretend to write Poetry you know I have a
high notion of my judgment in it.
Well, I was at Boulge all the summer: came up thence five weeks ago:
stayed three weeks with my mother at Richmond; a week in London: and now
am come here to try and finish a money bargain with some lawyers which
you heard me beginning a year ago. They utterly failed in any part of
the transaction except bringing me in a large bill for service
unperformed. However, we are now upon another tack. . . .
In a week I go to London, where I hope to see Alfred. Oddly enough, I
had a note from him this very day on which I receive yours: he has, he
tells me, taken chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Moxon told me he was
about to publish another edition of his Princess, with interludes added
between the parts: and also that he was about to print, but (I think) not
to publish, those Elegiacs on Hallam. I saw poor old Thackeray in
London: getting very slowly better of a bilious fever that had almost
killed him. Some one told me that he was gone or going to the Water
Doctor at Malvern. People in general thought Pendennis got dull as it
got on; and I confess I thought so too: he would do well to take the
opportunity of his illness to discontinue it altogether. He told me last
June he himself was tired of it: must not his readers naturally tire too?
Do you see Dickens' David Copperfield? It is very good, I think: more
carefully written than his later works. But the melodramatic parts, as
usual, bad. Carlyle says he is a showman whom one gives a shilling to
once a month to see his raree-show, and then sends him about his
business.
I have been obliged to turn Author on the very smallest scale. My old
friend Bernard Barton chose to die in the early part of this year. . . .
We have made a Book out of his Letters and Poems, and published it by
subscription . . . and I have been obliged to contribute a little dapper
{251} Memoir, as well as to select bits of Letters, bits of Poems, etc.
All that was wanted is accomplished: many people subscribed. Some of B.
B.'s letters are pleasant, I think, and when you come to England I will
give you this little book of incredibly small value. I have heard no
music but two concerts at Jullien's a fortnight ago; very dull, I
thought: no beautiful new Waltzes and Polkas which I love. It is a
strange thing to go to the Casinos and see the coarse whores and
apprentices in bespattered morning dresses, pea-jackets, and bonnets,
twirl round clumsily and indecently to the divine airs played in the
Gallery; 'the music yearning like a God in pain' indeed. I should like
to hear some of your Florentine Concerts; and I do wish you to believe
that I do constantly wish myself with you: that, if I ever went anywhere,
I would assuredly go to visit the Villa Gondi. I wish you to believe
this, which I know to be true, though I am probably further than ever
from accomplishing my desire. Farewell: I shall hope to find out your
Consul and your portrait in London: though you do not give me very good
directions where I am to find them. And I will let you know soon whether
I have found the portrait, and how I like it.
_To John Allen_.
BEDFORD, _Dec._ 13/49.
MY DEAR OLD ALLEN,
. . . I am glad you like the Book. {252a} You are partly right as to
what I say about the Poems. For though I really do think some of the
Poems very pretty, yet I think they belong to a class which the world no
longer wants. Notwithstanding this, one is sure the world will not be
the worse for them: they are a kind of elder Nursery rhymes; pleasing to
younger people of good affections. {252b} The letters, some of them, I
like very much: but I had some curiosity to know how others would like
them.
_To W. B. Donne_.
19 CHARLOTTE ST., FITZROY SQUARE,
LONDON.
[18 _Jan_. 1850.]
DEAR DONNE,
. . . After I left Richmond, whence I last wrote to you, I went to
Bedford, where I was for five weeks: then returned to spend Christmas at
Richmond: and now dawdle here hoping to get some accursed lawyers to
raise me some money on what remains of my reversion. This they _can_ do,
and _will_ do, in time: but, as usual, find it their interest to delay as
much as possible.
I found A. Tennyson in chambers at Lincoln's Inn: and recreated myself
with a sight of his fine old mug, and got out of him all his dear old
stories, and many new ones. He is re-publishing his Poems, the Princess
with songs interposed. I cannot say I thought them like the old vintage
of his earlier days, though perhaps better than other people's. But,
even to you, such opinions appear blasphemies. A. T. is now gone on a
visit into Leicestershire: and I miss him greatly. Carlyle I have not
seen; but I read an excellent bit of his in the Examiner, about Ireland.
Thackeray is well again, except not quite strong yet. Spedding is not
yet returned: and I doubt will not return before I have left London.
I have been but to one play; to see the Hypocrite, and Tom Taylor's
burlesque {254a} at the Strand Theatre. It was dreadfully cold in the
pit: and I thought dull. Farren almost unintelligible: Mrs. Glover good
in a disagreeable part. {254b} Diogenes has very good Aristophanic hits
in it, as perhaps you know: but its action was rather slow, I thought:
and I was so cold I could not sit it half through.
_To F. Tennyson_.
[Written from Bramford? E. F. G. was staying at this time with the
Cowells.]
Direct to BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_March_ 7/50.
MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,
. . . I saw Alfred in London--pretty well, I thought. He has written
songs to be stuck between the cantos of the Princess, none of them of the
old champagne flavour, as I think. But I am in a minority about the
Princess, I believe. If you print any poems, I especially desire you
will transmit them to me. I wish I was with you to consider about these:
for though I cannot write poems, you know I consider that I have the old
woman's faculty of judging of them: yes, much better than much cleverer
and wiser men; I pretend to no Genius, but to Taste: which, according to
my aphorism, is the feminine of Genius. . . .
. . . Please to answer me directly. I constantly think of you: and, as I
have often sincerely told you, with a kind of love which I feel towards
but two or three friends. Are you coming to England? How goes on
Grimsby! Doesn't the state of Europe sicken you? Above all, let me have
any poems you print: you are now the only man I expect verse from; such
gloomy grand stuff as you write. Thackeray, to be sure, can write good
ballads, half serious. His Pendennis is very stupid, I think: Dickens'
Copperfield on the whole, very good. He always lights one up somehow.
There is a new volume of posthumous poems by Ebenezer Elliott: with fine
things in it. I don't find myself growing old about Poetry; on the
contrary. I wish I could take twenty years off Alfred's shoulders, and
set him up in his youthful glory: . . . He is the same magnanimous,
kindly, delightful fellow as ever; uttering by far the finest prose
sayings of any one.
_To John Allen_.
BOULGE: _March_ 9/50.
MY DEAR ALLEN,
. . . I have now been home about three weeks, and, as you say, one sees
indications of lovely spring about. I have read but very little of late;
indeed my eyes have not been in superfine order. I caught a glimpse of
the second volume of Southey's Life and Letters; interesting enough. I
have also bought Emerson's 'Representative Men,' a shilling book of
Bohn's: with very good scattered thoughts in it: but scarcely leaving any
large impression with one, or establishing a theory. So at least it has
seemed to me: but I have not read very carefully. I have also bought a
little posthumous volume of Ebenezer Elliott: which is sure to have fine
things in it.
I believe I love poetry almost as much as ever: but then I have been
suffered to doze all these years in the enjoyment of old childish habits
and sympathies, without being called on to more active and serious duties
of life. I have not put away childish things, though a man. But, at the
same time, this visionary inactivity is better than the mischievous
activity of so many I see about me; not better than the useful and
virtuous activity of a few others: John Allen among the number.
_To F. Tennyson_.
PORTLAND COFFEE HOUSE, LONDON.
_April_ 17/50.
MY DEAR FREDERIC,
You tell me to write soon: and this letter is begun, at least, on the day
yours reaches me. This is partly owing to my having to wait an hour here
in the Coffee room of the Portland Hotel: whither your letter has been
forwarded to me from Boulge. I am come up for one week: once more to
haggle with Lawyers; once more to try and settle my own affairs as well
as those of others for a time. . . .
I don't think of drowning myself yet: and what I wrote to you was a sort
of safety escape for my poor flame . . . It is only idle and well-to-do
people who kill themselves; it is ennui that is hopeless: great pain of
mind and body 'still, still, on hope relies': the very old, the very
wretched, the most incurably diseased never put themselves to rest. It
really gives me pain to hear you or any one else call me a philosopher,
or any good thing of the sort. I am none, never was; and, if I pretended
to be so, was a hypocrite. Some things, as wealth, rank, respectability,
I don't care a straw about; but no one can resent the toothache more, nor
fifty other little ills beside that flesh is heir to. But let us leave
all this.
I am come to London; but I do not go to Operas or Plays: and have scarce
time (and, it must be said, scarce inclination) to hunt up many friends.
Dear old Alfred is out of town; Spedding is my sheet-anchor, the truly
wise and fine fellow: I am going to his rooms this very evening: and
there I believe Thackeray, Venables, etc., are to be. I hope not a large
assembly: for I get shyer and shyer even of those I knew. Thackeray is
in such a great world that I am afraid of him; he gets tired of me: and
we are content to regard each other at a distance. You, Alfred,
Spedding, and Allen, are the only men I ever care to see again. If ever
I leave this country I will go and see you at Florence or elsewhere; but
my plans are at present unsettled. I have refused to be Godfather to all
who have ever asked me; but I declare it will give me sincere pleasure to
officiate for your Child. I got your photograph at last: it is a beastly
thing: not a bit like: why did you not send your Poems, which are like
you; and reflect your dear old face well? As you know I admire your
poems, the only poems by a living writer I do admire, except Alfred's,
you should not hesitate. I can have no doubt whatever they ought to be
published in England: I believe Moxon would publish them: and I believe
you would make some money by them. But don't send them to Alfred to
revise or select: only for this reason, that you would both of you be a
little annoyed by gossip about how much share each of you had in them.
Your poems can want no other hand than your own to meddle with them,
except in respect of the choice of them to make a volume which would
please generally: a little of the vulgar faculty of popular tact is all
that needs to be added to you, as I think. You will know I do not say
this presumptuously: since I think the power of writing one fine line
transcends all the 'Able-Editor' ability in the ably-edited Universe.
Do you see Carlyle's 'Latter Day Pamphlets'? They make the world laugh,
and his friends rather sorry for him. But that is because people will
still look for practical measures from him: one must be content with him
as a great satirist who can make us feel when we are wrong though he
cannot set us right. There is a bottom of truth in Carlyle's wildest
rhapsodies. I have no news to tell you of books or music, for I scarce
see or hear any. And moreover I must be up, and leave the mahogany
coffee-room table on which I write so badly: and be off to Lincoln's Inn.
God bless you, my dear fellow. I ask a man of business here in the room
about Grimsby: he says, 'Well, all these railways are troublesome; but
the Grimsby one is one of the best: railway property must look up a
little: and so will Grimsby.'
_To W. B. Donne_.
BOULGE: Friday [4 _Oct_. 1850].
MY DEAR DONNE,
I have been some while intending to send you a few lines, to report my
continued existence, to thank you for the Papers, which I and my dear old
Crabbe read and mark, and to tell you I was much pleased with Laurence's
sketch of you, which he exhibited to me in a transitory way some weeks
ago. Has he been to Bury again? To Sir H. Bunbury's?
I am packing up my mind by degrees to move away from here on a round of
visits: and will give you a look at Bury if you like it. I am really
frightened that it is a whole year since I have seen you: and we but two
hours asunder! I know it is not want of will on my part: though you may
wonder what other want detains me; but you will believe me when I say it
is not want of will. You are too busy to come here: where indeed is
nothing to come for. I wished for Charles last Monday: for people came
to shoot the three brace of pheasants inhabiting these woods: had I
remembered the first of October, I would have let him know. Otherwise, I
am afraid to invite the young, whom I cannot entertain.
H. Groome came over and dined with me on Wednesday: and Crabbe came to
meet him; but the latter had no hearty smoker to keep him in countenance,
and was not quite comfortable. H. Groome improves: his poetical and
etymological ambitions begin to pale away before years that bring the
philosophic mind, and before a rising family.
I liked your Articles on Pepys much. How go on the Norfolk worthies? I
see by your review that you are now ripe to write them at your ease:
which means (in a work of that kind) successfully.
_To F. Tennyson_.
[BOULGE], _Decr_. 31/50.
MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,
If you knew how glad I am to hear from you, you would write to me
oftener. You see I make a quick return whenever I get an epistle from
you. I should indeed have begun to indite before, but I had not a scrap
of serviceable paper in the house: and I am only this minute returned
from a wet walk to Woodbridge bringing home the sheet on which I am now
writing, along with the rest of a half-quire, which may be filled to you,
if we both live. I now count the number of sheets: there are nine. I do
not think we average more than three letters a year each. Shall both of
us, or either, live three years more, beginning with the year that opens
to-morrow? I somehow believe _not_: which I say not as a doleful thing
(indeed you may look at it as a very ludicrous one). Well, we shall see.
I am all for the short and merry life. Last night I began the sixth Book
of Lucretius in bed. You laugh grimly again? I have not looked into it
for more than a year, and I took it up by mistake for one of Swift's
dirty volumes; and, having got into bed with it, did not care to get out
to change it.
The delightful lady . . . is going to leave this neighbourhood and carry
her young Husband {261} to Oxford, there to get him some Oriental
Professorship one day. He is a delightful fellow, and, _I_ say, will, if
he live, be the best Scholar in England. Not that I think Oxford will be
so helpful to his studies as his counting house at Ipswich was. However,
being married he cannot at all events become Fellow, and, as so many do,
dissolve all the promise of Scholarship in Sloth, Gluttony, and sham
Dignity. I shall miss them both more than I can say, and must take to
Lucretius! to comfort me. I have entirely given up the _Genteel_ Society
here about; and scarce ever go anywhere but to the neighbouring Parson,
{262a} with whom I discuss Paley's Theology, and the Gorham Question. I
am going to him to-night, by the help of a Lantern, in order to light out
the Old Year with a Cigar. For he is a great Smoker, and a very fine
fellow in all ways.
I have not seen any one you know since I last wrote; nor heard from any
one: except dear old Spedding, who really came down and spent two days
with us, me and that Scholar and his Wife in their Village, {262b} in
their delightful little house, in their pleasant fields by the River
side. Old Spedding was delicious there; always leaving a mark, I say, in
all places one has been at with him, a sort of Platonic perfume. For has
he not all the beauty of the Platonic Socrates, with some personal Beauty
to boot? He explained to us one day about the laws of reflection in
water: and I said then one never could look at the willow whose branches
furnished the text without thinking of him. How beastly this reads! As
if he gave us a lecture! But you know the man, how quietly it all came
out; only because I petulantly denied his plain assertion. For I really
often cross him only to draw him out; and vain as I may be, he is one of
those that I am well content to make shine at my own expense.
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