Letters of Edward FitzGerald

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While I think of it, why is the Sea {320} (in that Apologue of Attar once
quoted by Falconer) supposed to have lost God? Did the Persians agree
with something I remember in Plato about the Sea and all in it being of
an inferior Nature, in spite of Homer's 'divine Ocean, etc.' And here I
come to the end of my sheet, which you will hardly get through, I think.
I scarce dare to think of reading it over. But I will try.

24 PORTLAND TERRACE,
REGENT'S PARK.
_March_ 29, [1857].

MY DEAR COWELL,

I only posted my last long letter four days ago: and how far shall I get
with this? Like the other, I keep it in Sir W. Ouseley, and note down a
bit now and then. When the time for the Mail comes, the sheet shall go
whether full or not. I had a letter from your Mother telling me she had
heard from you--all well--but the Heats increasing. I suppose the
Crocuses we see even in these poor little Gardens hereabout would wither
in a Glance of your Sun. Now the black Trees in the Regent's Park
opposite are beginning to show green Buds; and Men come by with great
Baskets of Flowers; Primroses, Hepaticas, Crocuses, great Daisies, etc.,
calling as they go, 'Growing, Growing, Growing! All the Glory going!' So
my wife says she has heard them call: some old Street cry, no doubt, of
which we have so few now remaining. It will almost make you smell them
all the way from Calcutta. 'All the Glory going!' What has put me upon
beginning with this Sheet so soon is, that, (having done my Will for the
present with the Mantic--one reason being that I am afraid to meddle more
with N. Newton's tender MS., and another reason that I now lay by what I
have sketched out so as to happen on it again one day with fresh eyes)--I
say, this being shelved, I took up old Hafiz again, and began with him
where I left off in November at Brighton. And this morning came to an
ode we did together this time two years ago when you were at Spiers' in
Oxford. . . . How it brought all back to me! Oriel opposite, and the
Militia in Broad Street, and the old Canary-coloured Sofa and the Cocoa
or Tea on the Table! . . .

I should think Bramford begins to look pretty about this time, hey, Mr.
Cowell? And Mrs. Cowell? There is a house there constantly advertised
to let in the Papers. I think that one by the Mill; not the pleasant
place where _Trygaeus_ {322} looked forth on the Rail! 'The Days are
gone when Beauty bright, etc.' . . .

Spedding has been once here in near three months. His Bacon keeps coming
out: his part, the Letters, etc., of Bacon, is not come yet; so it
remains to be seen what he will do then: but I can't help thinking he has
let the Pot boil too long. Well, here is a great deal written to-day:
and I shall shut up the Sheet in Ouseley again. March 30. Another
reason for thinking the _mahi_ which supports the world to be only a
_myth_ of the simple Fish genus is that the stage next above him is
_Gau_, the Bull, as the Symbol of _Earth_. It seems to me one sees this
as it were pictured in those Assyrian Sculptures; just some waving lines
and a fish to represent Water, etc. And it hooks on, I think, to Max
Muller's Theory in that Essay {323a} of his. Saturday, April 4. Why, we
are creeping toward another Post day! another 25th when the 'Via
Marseilles' Letters go off! And I now renew this great Sheet, because in
returning to old Hafiz two or three days ago, I happened on a line which
you will confer with a Tetrastich of Omar's. . . . Donne has got the
Licenser's Post; given him in the handsomest way by Lord Bredalbane to
whom the Queen as handsomely committed it. The said Donne has written an
Article on Calderon in Fraser, {323b} in which he says very handsome
things of me, but is not accurate in what he says. I suppose it was he
wrote an Article in the Saturday Review some months ago to the same
effect; but I have not asked him. I find people like that Calderon book.
By the bye again, what is the passage I am to write out for you from the
Volume you gave me, the old Bramford Volume, 'E. B. Cowell, Bramford,
Aug. 20, 1849?' Tell me, and I will write it in my best style: I have
the Volume here in my room, and was looking into it only last night; at
that end of the Magico which we read together at Elmsett! I don't know
if I could translate it now that the '_aestus'_ caught from your sympathy
is gone! . . . April 5. In looking into the 'Secreto Agravio' I see an
Oriental superstition, which was likely enough however to be a poetical
fancy of any nation: I mean, the Sun turning Stone to Ruby, etc. Enter
Don Luis: 'Soy mercador, y trato en los Diamantes, que hoy son Piedras, y
rayos fueron antes de Sol, que perficiona e ilumina rustico Grano en la
abrasada Mina.' The Partridge in the Mantic tells something of the same;
he digs up and swallows Rubies which turn his Blood to Fire inside him
and sparkle out of his Eyes and Bill. This volume of Calderon is marked
by the Days on which you finished several Plays, all at Bramford!
Wednesday, April 8. I have been reading the 'Magico' over and
remembering other days; I saw us sitting at other tables reading it. Also
I am looking over old AEschylus--Agamemnon--with Blackie's Translation. .
. . Is it in Hafiz we have met the Proverb (about _pregnant_ Night)
which Clytemnestra also makes her Entry with [264, 5]? [Greek ttext]. I
think one sees that the Oriental borrowed this Fancy, which smacks of the
Grecian Personification of Mother Night. What an Epitaph for a Warrior
are those two Greek words by which the Chorus express all that returns to
Mycenae of the living Hero who went forth [435]--[Greek text]!

Well; and I have had a Note from Garcin de Tassy whom I had asked if he
knew of any Copy of Omar Khayyam in all the Paris Libraries: he writes 'I
have made, by means of a Friend, etc.' But I shall enclose his Note to
amuse you. Now what I mean to do is, in return for his politeness to me,
to copy out as well as I can the Tetrastichs as you copied them for me,
and send them as a Present to De Tassy. Perhaps he will edit them. I
should not wish him to do so if there were any chance of your ever doing
it; but I don't think you will help on the old Pantheist, and De Tassy
really, after what he is doing for the Mantic, deserves to make the
acquaintance of this remarkable little Fellow. Indeed I think you will
be pleased that I should do this. Now for some more AEschylus. Friday,
April 17. I have been for the last five days with my Brother at
Twickenham; during which time I really copied out Omar Khayyam, in a way!
and shall to-day post it as a '_cadeau'_ to Garcin de Tassy in return for
his Courtesy to me. I am afraid, a bad return: for my MS. is but badly
written and it would perhaps more plague than profit an English 'savant'
to have such a present made him. But a Frenchman gets over all this very
lightly. Garcin de Tassy tells me he has printed four thousand lines of
the Mantic. And here is April running away and it will soon be time to
post you another Letter! When I once get into the Country I shall have
less to write you about than now; and that, you see, is not much.

Tuesday, April 21. Yours and your wife's dear good Letters put into my
hand as I sit in the sunshine in a little Balcony outside the Windows
looking upon the quite green hedge side of the Regent's Park. For Green
it is thus early, and such weather as I never remember before at this
Season. Well, your Letters, I say, were put into my hand as I was there
looking into AEschylus under an Umbrella, and waiting for Breakfast. My
wife cried a good deal over your wife's Letter, I think, I think so. Ah
me! I would not as yet read it, for I was already sad; but I shall
answer hers to me which I did read indeed with many thoughts: perhaps I
can write this post; at least I will clear off this letter to you, my
dear Cowell.

E. F. G.

_April_ 21.

MY DEAR LADY, I have told E. B. C. at the close of my long letter to him
how his and yours were put into my hand this morning. Well, as in
telling him that I finished that sheet of Paper, I will e'en take one
scrap more to thank you; and (since you have, I believe, some confidences
together) some things I have yet got to say to him shall be addressed to
you; and you can exercise your own Discretion as to telling him. One
thing tell him however, which my overflowing Sheet had not room for, and
was the very thing that most needed telling: viz. that he, a busy man,
must not feel bound to write me as long Letters in return. Who knows how
long I shall keep up any thing like to my own mark; for I daily grow
worse with the Letter-pen: and, beside his other employments, the Sun of
India will '_belaze'_ him (I doubt if the word be in Johnson). But
'vogue la Galere' while the wind blows! Again you may give him the
enclosed instead of a former Letter from the same G. de T. For is it not
odd he should not have time to read a dozen of those 150 Tetrastichs? I
pointed out such a dozen to him of the best, and told him if he liked
them I would try and get the rest better written for him than I could
write. I had also told him that the whole thing came from E. B. C. and I
now write to tell him I have no sort of intention of writing a paper in
the Journal Asiatique, nor I suppose E. B. C. neither. G. de Tassy is
very civil to me however. How much I might say about your Letter to me!
you will hardly comprehend how it is I almost turn my Eyes from it in
this Answer, and dally with other matter. You make me sad with old
Memories; yet, I don't mean quite disagreeably sad, but enough to make me
shrink recurring to them. I don't know whether to be comforted or not
when _you_ talk of India as a Land of Exile--. . .

Wednesday, April 22. Now this morning comes a second Letter from Garcin
de Tassy saying that his first note about Omar Khayyam was 'in haste':
that he has read some of the Tetrastichs which he finds not very
difficult; some difficulties which are probably errors of the 'copist';
and he proposes his writing an Article in the Journal Asiatique on it in
which he will 'honourably mention' E. B. C. and E. F. G. I now write to
deprecate all this: {328} putting it on the ground (and a fair one) that
we do not yet know enough of the matter: that I do not wish E. B. C. to
be made answerable for errors which E. F. G. (the '_copist'_) may have
made: and that E. F. G. neither merits nor desires any honourable mention
as a Persian Scholar: being none. Tell E. B. C. that I have used his
name with all caution, referring De Tassy to Vararuchi, etc. But these
Frenchmen are so self-content and superficial, one never knows how they
will take up anything. To turn to other matters--we are talking of
leaving this place almost directly. . . . I often wonder if I shall ever
see you both again! Well, for the present, Adieu, Adieu, Adieu!

LONDON, _May_ 7/57.

MY DEAR COWELL,

Owing partly to my own Stupidity, and partly to a change in the India
Post days, my last two letters (to you and wife) which were quite ready
by the Marseilles Post of April 25th will not get off till the
Southampton Mail of this May 10. Your letter of March 21 reached me
three days ago. Write only when you have Leisure and Inclination, and
only as much as those two good things are good for: I will do the same. I
will at once say (in reply to a kind offer you make to have Hatifi's
'Haft Paikar' copied for me) that it will [be] best to wait till you have
read it; you know me well enough to know whether it will hit my taste.
However, if it be but a very short poem, no harm would be done by a Copy:
but do let me be at the Charges of such things. I will ask for Hatifi's
Laili: but I didn't (as you know) take much to what little I saw. As to
any copies Allen might have had, I believe there is no good asking for
them: for, only yesterday going to put into Madden's hands Mr. Newton's
MS. of the Mantic, I saw Allen's house _kharab_. There had been a Fire
there, Madden told me, which had destroyed stock, etc., but I could not
make much out of the matter, Madden putting on a Face of foolish mystery.
You can imagine it? We talked of you, as you may imagine also: and I
believe in that he is not foolish. Well, and to-day I have a note from
the great De Tassy which announces, 'My dear Sir, Definitively I have
written a little Paper upon Omar with some Quotations taken here and
there at random, avoiding only the too badly sounding _rubayat_. I have
read that paper before the Persian Ambassador and suite, at a meeting of
the Oriental Society of which I am Vice President, the Duc de
Dondeauville being president. The Ambassador has been much pleased of my
quotations.' So you see I have done the part of an ill Subject in
helping France to ingratiate herself with Persia when England might have
had the start! I suppose it probable _Ferukh Khan_ himself had never
read or perhaps heard of Omar. I think I told you in my last that I had
desired De Tassy to say nothing about you in any Paper he should write;
since I cannot have you answerable for any blunders I may have made in my
Copy, nor may you care to be named with Omar at all. I hope the
Frenchman will attend to my desire; and I dare say he will, as he will
then have all credit to himself. He says he can't make out the metre of
the _rubayat_ at all--never could--though 'I am enough skilful in
scanning the Persian verses as you have seen' (Qy?) 'in my Prosody of the
languages of Musulman Countries, etc.' So much for De Tassy. No; but
something more yet: and better, for he tells me his Print of the Mantic
is finisht, 'in proofs,' and will be out in about a Month: and he will
send me one. Now, my dear Cowell, can't I send one to you? Yes, we must
manage that somehow.

Well, I have not turned over Johnson's Dictionary for the last month,
having got hold of AEschylus. I think I want to turn his Trilogy into
what shall be readable English Verse; a thing I have always thought of,
but was frightened at the Chorus. So I am now; I can't think them so
fine as People talk of: they are terribly maimed; and all such Lyrics
require a better Poet than I am to set forth in English. But the better
Poets won't do it; and I cannot find one readable translation. I shall
(if I make one) make a very free one; not for Scholars, but for those who
are ignorant of Greek, and who (so far as I have seen) have never been
induced to learn it by any Translations yet made of these Plays. I think
I shall become a bore, of the Bowring order, by all this Translation: but
it amuses me without any labour, and I really think I have the faculty of
making some things readable which others have hitherto left unreadable.
But don't be alarmed with the anticipation of another sudden volume of
Translations; for I only sketch out the matter, then put it away; and
coming on it one day with fresh eyes trim it up with some natural impulse
that I think gives a natural air to all. So I have put away the Mantic.
When I die, what a farrago of such things will be found! Enough of such
matter. . . .

Friday, June 5! What an interval since the last sentence! And why?
Because I have been moving about nearly ever since till yesterday, and my
Letter, thus far written, was packt up in a Box sent down hither, namely,
Gorlestone Cliffs, Great Yarmouth. Instead of the Regent's Park, and
Regent Street, here before my windows are the Vessels going in and out of
this River: and Sailors walking about with fur caps and their brown hands
in their Breeches Pockets. Within hail almost lives George Borrow who
has lately published, and given me, two new Volumes of Lavengro called
'Romany Rye,' with some excellent things, and some very bad (as I have
made bold to write to him--how shall I face him!). You would not like
the Book at all, I think. But I must now tell you an odd thing, which
will also be a sad thing to you. I left London last Tuesday fortnight
for Bedfordshire, meaning to touch at Hertford in passing; but as usual,
bungled between two Railroads and got to Bedford, and not to Hertford, on
the Tuesday Evening. To that latter place I had wanted to go, as well to
see it, as to see N. Newton, who had made one or two bungled efforts to
see me in London. So, when I got to Bedford, I wrote him a line to say
how it was I had missed him. On the very Saturday immediately after, I
received a Hertford Paper announcing the sudden Death of N. Newton on the
very Tuesday on which I had set out to see him! He had been quite well
till the Saturday preceding: had then caught some illness (I suppose some
infectious fever) which had been visiting some in his house; died on the
Tuesday, and was buried on the Thursday after! What will Austin do
without him? He had written to me about your Hafiz saying he had got
several subjects for Illustration, and I meant to have had a talk with
him on the matter. What should be done? I dare not undertake any great
responsibility in meddling in such a matter even if asked to do so, which
is not likely to be unless on your part; for I find my taste so very
different from the Public that what I think good would probably be very
unprofitable.

When in Bedfordshire I put away almost all Books except Omar Khayyam!,
which I could not help looking over in a Paddock covered with Buttercups
and brushed by a delicious Breeze, while a dainty racing Filly of W.
Browne's came startling up to wonder and snuff about me. 'Tempus est quo
Orientis Aura mundus renovatur, Quo de fonte pluviali dulcis Imber
reseratur; _Musi-manus_ undecumque ramos insuper splendescit;
Jesu-spiritusque Salutaris terram pervagatur.' Which is to be read as
Monkish Latin, like 'Dies Irae,' etc., retaining the Italian value of the
Vowels, not the Classical. You will think me a perfectly Aristophanic
Old Man when I tell you how many of Omar I could not help running into
such bad Latin. I should not confide such follies but to you who won't
think them so, and who will be pleased at least with my still harping on
our old Studies. You would be sorry, too, to think that Omar breathes a
sort of Consolation to me! Poor Fellow; I think of him, and Oliver
Basselin, and Anacreon; lighter Shadows among the Shades, perhaps, over
which Lucretius presides so grimly. Thursday, June 11. Your letter of
April is come to hand, very welcome; and I am expecting the MS. Omar
which I have written about to London. And now with respect to your
proposed Fraser Paper on Omar. You see a few lines back I talk of some
lazy Latin Versions of his Tetrastichs, giving one clumsy example. Now I
shall rub up a few more of those I have sketched in the same manner, in
order to see if you approve, if not of the thing done, yet of

(_letter breaks off abruptly at the end of the page_.)

June 23. I begin another Letter because I am looking into the Omar MS.
you have sent me, and shall perhaps make some notes and enquiries as I go
on. I had not intended to do so till I had looked all over and tried to
make out what I could of it; since it is both pleasant to oneself to find
out for oneself if possible, and also saves trouble to one's friends. But
yet it will keep me talking with you as I go along: and if I find I say
silly things or clear up difficulties for myself before I close my Letter
(which has a month to be open in!) why, I can cancel or amend, so as you
will see the whole Process of Blunder. I think this MS. furnishes some
opportunities for one's critical faculties, and so is a good exercise for
them, if one wanted such! First however I must tell you how much ill
poor Crabbe has been: a sort of Paralysis, I suppose, in two little fits,
which made him think he was sure to die: but Dr. Beck at present says he
may live many years with care. Of this also I shall be able to tell you
more before I wind up. The brave old Fellow! he was quite content to
depart, and had his Daughter up to give her his Keys, and tell her where
the different wines were laid! I must also tell you that Borrow is
greatly delighted with your MS. of Omar which I showed him: delighted at
the terseness so unusual in Oriental Verse. But his Eyes are apt to
cloud: and his wife has been obliged, he tells me, to carry off even the
little Omar out of reach of them for a while. . . .

June 27. Geldestone Hall. I brought back my two Nieces here yesterday:
and to-day am sitting as of old in my accustomed Bedroom, looking out on
a Landscape which your Eyes would drink. It is said there has not been
such a Flush of Verdure for years: and they are making hay on the Lawn
before the house, so as one wakes to the tune of the Mower's
Scythe-whetting, and with the old Perfume blowing in at open windows. . .
.

July 1. June over! A thing I think of with Omar-like sorrow. And the
Roses here are blowing--and going--as abundantly as even in Persia. I am
still at Geldestone, and still looking at Omar by an open window which
gives over a Greener Landscape than yours. To-morrow my eldest Nephew,
Walter Kerrich, whom I first took to school, is to be married in the
Bermudas to a young Widow. He has chosen his chosen sister Andalusia's
Birthday to be married on; and so we are to keep that double Festival. .
. .

_Extract from Letter begun_ 3 _July_, 1857.

Monday, July 13. This day year was the last I spent with you at
Rushmere! We dined in the Evening at your Uncle's in Ipswich, walking
home at night together. The night before (yesterday year) you all went
to Mr. Maude's Church, and I was so sorry afterward I had not gone with
you too; for the last time, as your wife said. One of my manifold
stupidities, all avenged in a Lump now! I think I shall close this
letter to-morrow: which will be the Anniversary of my departure from
Rushmere. I went from you, you know, to old Crabbe's. Is he too to be
wiped away by a yet more irrecoverable exile than India? By to-morrow I
shall have finisht my first Physiognomy of Omar, whom I decidedly prefer
to any Persian I have yet seen, unless perhaps Salaman. . . .

Tuesday, July 14. Here is the Anniversary of our Adieu at Rushmere. And
I have been (rather hastily) getting to an end of my first survey of the
Calcutta Omar, by way of counterpart to our joint survey of the Ouseley
MS. then. I suppose we spoke of it this day year; probably had a final
look at it together before I went off, in some Gig, I think, to Crabbe's.
We hear rather better Report of him, if the being likely to live a while
longer is better. I shall finish my Letter to-day; only leaving it open
to add any very particular word. I must repeat I am sure this Calcutta
Omar is, in the same proportion with the Ouseley, by as good a hand as
the Ouseley: by as good a hand, if not Omar's; which I think you seemed
to doubt if it was, in one of your Letters. . . .

Have I previously asked you to observe 486, of which I send a poor Sir W.
Jones' sort of Parody which came into my mind walking in the Garden here;
where the Rose is blowing as in Persia? And with this poor little Envoy
my Letter shall end. I will not stop to make the Verse better.

I long for wine! oh Saki of my Soul,
Prepare thy Song and fill the morning Bowl;
For this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Takes many a Sultan with it as it goes.

_To Mrs. Charles Allen_. {337}

GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES.
_August_ 15/57.

MY DEAR MRS. ALLEN,

One should be very much gratified at being remembered so long with _any_
kindness: and how much more gratified with so kind Remembrances as yours!
I may safely say that I too remember you and my Freestone days of five
and twenty years ago with a particular regard; I have been telling my
Nieces at the Breakfast Table this morning, after I read your letter, how
I remembered you sitting in the '_Schoolroom_'--too much sheltered with
Trees--with a large Watch open before you--your Sister too, with her
light hair and China-rose Complexion--too delicate!--your Father, your
Mother, your Brother--of whom (your Brother) I caught a glimpse in London
two years ago. And all the _Place_ at Freestone--I can walk about it as
I lie awake here, and see the very yellow flowers in the fields, and hear
that distant sound of explosion in some distant Quarry. The coast at
Bosherston one could never forget once seen, even if it had no domestic
kindness to frame its Memory in. I might have profited more of those
good Days than I did; but it is not my Talent to take the Tide at its
flow; and so all goes to worse than waste!

But it is ungracious to talk of oneself--except so far as shall answer
some points you touch on. It would in many respects be very delightful
to me to walk again with you over those old Places; in other respects
sad:--but the pleasure would have the upper hand if one had not again to
leave it all and plunge back again. I dare not go to Wales now.

I owe to Tenby the chance acquaintance of another Person who now from
that hour remains one of my very best Friends. A Lad--then just 16--whom
I met on board the Packet from Bristol: and next morning at the Boarding
House--apt then to appear with a little _chalk_ on the edge of his Cheek
from a touch of the Billiard Table Cue--and now a man of 40--Farmer,
Magistrate, Militia Officer--Father of a Family--of more use in a week
than I in my Life long. You too have six sons, your Letter tells me.
They may do worse than do as well as he I have spoken of, though he too
has sown some wild oats, and paid for doing so.

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