Letters of Edward FitzGerald
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Edward FitzGerald >> Letters of Edward FitzGerald
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Edgeworth, whom I think you remember at Cambridge, is come to live in
town: and I see him often at the Museum. The want of books chiefly drove
him from Italy: besides that he tells me he likes a constant change of
scenes and ideas, and would be always about if he could. He is a very
original man I think, and throws out much to be chewed and digested: but
he is deficient in some elements that must combine to govern my love and
admiration. He has much imagination of head, but none of heart: perhaps
these are absurd distinctions: but I am no hand at these definitions. His
great study is metaphysics: and Kant is his idol. He is rather without
company in London, and I wish much to introduce him to such men as I
know: but most of your Apostolic party who could best exchange ideas with
him are not in town. He is full of his subjects, and only wants
opponents to tilt at. . . .
The life of Coleridge {32} is indeed an unsatisfactory thing: I believe
that everybody thinks so. You seem to think that it is purposely
unsatisfactory, or rather dissatisfactory: but it seems to me to proceed
from a kind of enervation in De Quincey. However, I don't know how he
supports himself in other writings. . . .
To fill up my letter I send you a sonnet of C. Lamb's, out of his Album
Verses--please to like it--'Leisure.'
_To John Allen_.
MANCHESTER, _May_ 23, 1835.
DEAR ALLEN,
I think that the fatal two months have elapsed, by which a letter shall
become due to me from you. Ask Mrs. Allen if this is not so. Mind, I
don't speak this upbraidingly, because I know that you didn't know where
I was. I will tell you all about this by degrees. In the first place, I
staid at Mirehouse till the beginning of May, and then, going homeward,
spent a week at Ambleside, which, perhaps you don't know, is on the
shores of Winandermere. It was very pleasant there: though it was to be
wished that the weather had been a little better. I have scarce done
anything since I saw you but abuse the weather: but these four last days
have made amends for all: and are, I hope, the beginning of summer at
last. Alfred Tennyson staid with me at Ambleside: Spedding was forced to
go home, till the last two days of my stay there. I will say no more of
Tennyson than that the more I have seen of him, the more cause I have to
think him great. His little humours and grumpinesses were so droll, that
I was always laughing: and was often put in mind (strange to say) of my
little unknown friend, Undine--I must however say, further, that I felt
what Charles Lamb describes, a sense of depression at times from the
overshadowing of a so much more lofty intellect than my own: this (though
it may seem vain to say so) I never experienced before, though I have
often been with much greater intellects: but I could not be mistaken in
the universality of his mind; and perhaps I have received some benefit in
the now more distinct consciousness of my dwarfishness. I think that you
should keep all this to yourself, my dear Allen: I mean, that it is only
to you that I would write so freely about myself. You know most of my
secrets, and I am not afraid of entrusting even my vanities to so true a
man. . . .
Pray, do not forget to say how the Freestone party are. My heart jumped
to them, when I read in a guide book at Ambleside, that from Scawfell (a
mountain in Westmoreland) you could see Snowdon. Perhaps you will not
see the chain of ideas: but I suppose there was one, else I don't know
how it was that I tumbled, as it were, from the very summit of Scawfell,
upon the threshold of Freestone. The mind soon traverses Wales. I have
not been reading very much--(as if you ever expected that I did!)--but I
mean, not very much for me--some Dante, by the aid of a Dictionary: and
some Milton--and some Wordsworth--and some Selections from Jeremy Taylor,
Barrow, etc., compiled by Basil Montagu--of course you know the book: it
is published by Pickering. I do not think that it is very well done: but
it has served to delight, and, I think, to instruct me much. Do you know
South? He must be very great, I think. It seems to me that our old
Divines will hereafter be considered our Classics--(in Prose, I mean)--I
am not aware that any other nations have such books. A single selection
from Jeremy Taylor is fine: but it requires a skilful hand to put many
detached bits from him together: for a common editor only picks out the
flowery, metaphorical, morsels: and so rather cloys: and gives quite a
wrong estimate of the Author, to those who had no previous acquaintance
with him: for, rich as Taylor's illustrations, and grotesque as his
images, are, no one keeps a grander proportion: he never huddles
illustration upon the matter so as to overlay it, nor crowds images too
thick together: which these Selections might make one unacquainted with
him to suppose. This is always the fault of Selections: but Taylor is
particularly liable to injury on this score. What a man he is! He has
such a knowledge of the nature of man, and such powers of expressing its
properties, that I sometimes feel as if he had had some exact counterpart
of my own individual character under his eye, when he lays open the
depths of the heart, or traces some sin to its root. The eye of his
portrait expresses this keen intuition: and I think I should less like to
have stood with a lie on my tongue before him, than before any other I
know of. . . .
I beg you to give my best remembrances to your lady, who may be always
sure that in all I wish of well for you, she is included: so that I take
less care to make mention of her separately. . . .
WHERSTEAD, _July_ 4, 1835.
DEAR ALLEN,
. . . My brother John's wife, always delicate, has had an attack this
year, which she can never get over: and while we are all living in this
house cheerfully, she lives in separate rooms, can scarcely speak to us,
or see us: and bears upon her cheek the marks of death. She has shewn
great Christian dignity all through her sickness: was the only cheerful
person when they supposed she could not live: and is now very composed
and happy. You say sometimes how like things are to dreams: or, as I
think, to the shifting scenes of a play. So does this place seem to me.
All our family, except my mother, are collected here: all my brothers and
sisters, with their wives, husbands, and children: sitting at different
occupations, or wandering about the grounds and gardens, discoursing each
their separate concerns, but all united into one whole. The weather is
delightful: and when I see them passing to and fro, and hear their
voices, it is like scenes of a play. I came here only yesterday. I have
much to tell you of: I mean, much in my small way: I will keep all till I
see you, for I don't know with what to begin in a letter. . . .
Edgeworth introduced me to his wife and sister-in-law, who are very
handsome Spanish ladies, seemingly of excellent sense. The wife is the
gentler, and more feminine: and the sister more regularly handsome, and
vivacious. I think that he is a very remarkable man: and I like him more
the more I see of him.
What you say of Tennyson and Wordsworth is not, I think, wholly just. I
don't think that a man can turn himself so directly to the service of
morality, unless naturally inclined: I think Wordsworth's is a natural
bias that way. Besides, one must have labourers of different kinds in
the vineyard of morality, which I certainly look up to as the chief
object of our cultivation: Wordsworth is first in the craft: but Tennyson
does no little by raising and filling the brain with noble images and
thoughts, which, if they do not direct us to our duty, purify and cleanse
us from mean and vicious objects, and so prepare and fit us for the
reception of the higher philosophy. A man might forsake a drunken party
to read Byron's Corsair: and Byron's Corsair for Shelley's Alastor: and
the Alastor for the Dream of Fair Women or the Palace of Art: and then I
won't say that he would forsake these two last for anything of
Wordsworth's, but his mind would be sufficiently refined and
spiritualised to admit Wordsworth, and profit by him: and he might keep
all the former imaginations as so many pictures, or pieces of music, in
his mind. But I think that you will see Tennyson acquire all that at
present you miss: when he has _felt_ life, he will not die fruitless of
instruction to man as he is. But I dislike this kind of criticism,
especially in a letter. I don't know any one who has thought out any
thing so little as I have. I don't see to any end, and should keep
silent till I have got a little more, and that little better arranged.
I am sorry that all this page is filled with this botheration, when I
have a thousand truer and better things that I want to talk to you about.
I will write to you again soon. If you please to write (but consider it
no call upon you, for the letter I have just got from you is a stock that
will last me in comfort this long while) I shall be at Wherstead all
July--after that I know not where, but probably in Suffolk. Farewell, my
best of fellows: there is no use saying how much I wish that all your
sorrow will be turned to hope, and all your hope to joy. As far as we
men can judge, you are worthy of all earthly happiness.
* * * * *
At the end of July, 1835, FitzGerald writes from Wherstead to Thackeray,
who was then in Paris studying art:
'My Father is determined to inhabit an empty house of his about
fourteen miles off: {38} and we are very sorry to leave this really
beautiful place. The other house has no great merit. So there is
nothing now but packing up sofas, and pictures, and so on. I rather
think that I shall be hanging about this part of the world all the
winter: for my two sisters are about to inhabit this new house alone,
and I cannot but wish to add my company to them now and then. . . .
'My dear boy, God bless thee a thousand times over! When are we to
see thee? How long are you going to be at Paris? What have you been
doing? The drawing you sent me was very pretty. So you don't like
Raphael! Well, I am his inveterate admirer: and say, with as little
affectation as I can, that his worst scrap fills my head more than all
Rubens and Paul Veronese together--"the mind, the mind, Master
Shallow!" You think this cant, I dare say: but I say it truly,
indeed. Raphael's are the only pictures that cannot be described: no
one can get words to describe their perfection. Next to him, I
retreat to the Gothic imagination, and love the mysteries of old
chairs, Sir Rogers, etc. in which thou, my dear boy, art and shalt be
a Raphael. To depict the true old English gentleman, is as great a
work as to depict a Saint John, and I think in my heart I would rather
have the former than the latter. There are plenty of pictures in
London--some good Water-colours by Lewis--Spanish things. Two or
three very vulgar portraits by Wilkie, at the Exhibition: and a big
one of Columbus, half good, and half bad. There is always a spice of
vulgarity about Wilkie. There is an Eastlake, but I missed it. Etty
has boats full of naked backs as usual: but what they mean, I didn't
stop to enquire. He has one picture, however, of the Bridge of Sighs
in Venice, which is sublime: though I believe nobody saw it, or
thought about it but myself.'
About the same time that FitzGerald went to Boulge, George Crabbe, the
Poet's eldest son and biographer, was appointed to the Vicarage of the
adjoining parish of Bredfield, and a friendship sprang up between them
which was only terminated by Mr. Crabbe's death in 1857.
_To John Allen_.
BOULGE HALL, WOODBRIDGE,
_October_ 31, 1835.
DEAR ALLEN,
I don't know what has come over me of late, that I have not written to
you, nor any body else for several months. I am sure it is not from any
decrease of affection towards you. I now begin a letter merely on the
score of wanting one from you: to let me know how you are; and Mrs. Allen
too, especially. I hope to hear good news of her. Many things may have
happened to you since I saw you: you may be a Bishop, for anything I
know. I have been in Suffolk ever since I saw you. We are come to
settle at this place: and I have been enjoying capital health in my old
native air. I meant to have come to London for the winter: but my
sisters are here, and I do not like to leave them. This parish is a very
small one: it scarce contains fifty people: but that next to it,
Bredfield, has more than four hundred: and some very poor indeed. We
hope to be of some use: but the new Poor Laws have begun to be set afoot,
and we don't know who is to stop in his cottage, or who is to go to the
Workhouse. How much depends upon the issue of this measure! I am no
politician: but I fear that no political measure will ever adjust matters
well between rich and poor. . . .
I have just read Southey's Life of Cowper; that is to say, the first
Volume. It is not a book to be read by every man at the fall of the
leaf. It is a fearful book. Have you read it? Southey hits hard at
Newton in the dark; which will give offence to many people: but I
perfectly agree with him. At the same time, I think that Newton was a
man of great power. Did you ever read his life by himself? Pray do, if
you have not. His journal to his wife, written at sea, contains some of
the most beautiful things I ever read: fine feeling in very fine English.
. . .
Pray do write to me: a few lines soon are better than a three-decker a
month hence: for I really want to know where and how you are: and so be a
good boy for once in your life. Ever yours lovingly,
E. F. G.
_To W. B. Donne_.
LONDON, _March_ [21], 1836.
DEAR DONNE,
. . . As to the sponsorship, I was sure that you and Mrs. Donne would
receive my apology as I meant it. Indeed I wish with you that people
would speak their minds more sincerely than it is the custom to do; and
recoin some of the every day compliments into a simpler form: but this is
voted a stale subject, I believe. Anyhow, I will not preach to you who
do not err: not to mention that I cannot by any means set up myself as
any model of this virtue: whatever you may say to the contrary.
I have consulted my friend John Allen concerning your ancestor's sermons:
he says that the book is scarce. . . . I think that you should be
possessed of him by all means, considering that you are his descendant.
Allen read much of him at the Museum, and has always spoken very highly
of him. As to doctrine, I believe Jeremy Taylor has never been quite
blameless; but then he wrote many folios instead of Donne's one: and I
cannot help agreeing with Bayle that one of the disadvantages of much
writing is, that a man is likely to contradict himself. If he does not
_positively_ do so, he may _seem_ to do so, by using different
expressions for the same thing, which expressions many readers may
construe diversely: and this is especially likely to be the case with so
copious and metaphorical a writer as Jeremy.
According to the principles contained in page 1 of this letter I will
tell you that I thought the second volume of Southey {42} rather dull.
But then I have only read it once; and I think that one is naturally
impatient of all matter that does not absolutely touch Cowper: I mean, at
the first reading; when one wants to know all about him. I dare say that
afterwards I shall relish all the other relative matter, and contemporary
history, which seems indeed well done. I am glad that you are so content
with the book. We were all talking the other night of Basil Montagu's
new Life of Bacon--have you read it? It is said to be very elaborate and
tedious. A good life of Bacon is much wanted. But perhaps it is as
difficult to find a proper historian for him as for anyone that ever
lived. But enough of grave matters. I have been very little to the
Play: Vandenhoff's Iago I did not see: for indeed what I saw of him in
other characters did not constrain me to the theatre to see his Iago. . .
Spedding is just now furnishing chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields: so that
we may look on him as a fixture in London. He and I went to dine with
Tennant at Blackheath last Thursday: there we met Edgeworth, who has got
a large house at Eltham, and is lying in wait for pupils: I am afraid he
will not find many. We passed a very delightful evening. Tennant is
making interest for a school at Cambridge: {43a} but I do not know if he
is likely to succeed. And now I have told all the news I know, except
that I hear that Sterling {43b} is very ill with an attack on his chest,
which keeps him from preaching: and that Trench has been in London.
Neither of these men do I know, but I hear of them.
_To John Allen_.
[GELDESTONE HALL],
_January_ 1, 1837.
DEAR ALLEN,
A merry new year to you and yours. How have you been since I saw you? .
. .
If you can find an old copy of Taylor's Holy Living and Dying cheap and
clean at the same time, pray buy it for me. It is for my old friend Mrs.
Schutz: and she would not allow me to give it her: so that I give you her
directions. . . .
I am very deep in my Aristophanes, and find the Edition I bought quite
sufficient for my wants. One requires a translation of him less than of
any of the Greeks I have read, because his construction is so clear and
beautiful. Only his long words, and local allusions, make him difficult,
so far as I have seen. He has made me laugh heartily, and wonder: but as
to your calling him greater than Aeschylus or Sophocles, I do not agree
with you. I have read nothing else. What a nice quiet speech Charles
Kemble made on quitting the stage: almost the best I can remember on such
an occasion. Did Spedding hear him? My dear Allen, I should often wish
to see you and him of an evening as heretofore at this season in London:
but I don't see any likelihood of my coming till February at nearest. We
live here the usual quiet country life: and now that the snow is so deep
we are rather at a loss for exercise. It is very hard work toiling along
the roads, and besides so blinding to the eyes. I take a spade, and
scuppet {44} away the snow from the footpaths. . . .
Write to me at Boulge Hall, Woodbridge; for I think that the snows will
be passable, and my sisters arrived there, before you write. There's an
insinuation for you. Make my remembrances to Mrs. Allen: and believe me
Yours ever most affectionately,
E. FITZGERALD.
[BOULGE HALL],
_Tuesday_, _January_ 10, 1837.
MY DEAR ALLEN,
Another letter in so short a time will surprise you. My old Lady will be
glad of a new edition of Jeremy Taylor, beside the old one. I remember
you once gave me a very nice large duodecimo one: are these to be had,
and cheap? It must have a good type, to suit old eyes. When you are
possessed of these and the other books I begged you to ask for (except
the Bacon which is for myself) do me one favour more: which is to book
them per Coach at the White Horse, Piccadilly, directed to Mrs. Schutz,
Gillingham Hall, Beccles. I should not have troubled you again, but that
she, poor lady, is anxious to possess the books soon, as she never looks
forward to living through a year: and she finds that Jeremy Taylor sounds
a good note of preparation for that last hour which she looks upon as
drawing nigh. I myself think she will live much longer: as she is
wonderfully healthy for her time of life--seventy-six. {45} Sometimes I
talk to her about you: and she loves you by report. You never grudge any
trouble for your friends: but as this is a little act of kindness for an
old and noble lady, I shall apologize no more for it. I will pay you all
you disburse when I come to London.
I was made glad and sad last night in looking over some of your letters
to me, ever since my stay at Tenby. I wonder within myself if we are
changed since then. Do you remember that day when we sat upon that rock
that runs out into the sea, and looked down into the clear water below? I
must go to Tenby one of these days, and walk that old walk to Freestone.
How well I remember what a quiet delight it was to walk out and meet you,
when you were coming to stay a week with me once at my lodgings. . . .
And now, Sir, when you next go to the British Museum, look for a Poet
named Vaughan. Do you know him? I read some fine sacred poems of his in
a Collection of John Mitford's: he selects them from a book of Vaughan's
called 'Silex Scintillans,' 1621. He seems to have great fancy and
fervour and some deep thought. Yet many of the things are in the tricksy
spirit of that time: but there is a little Poem beginning 'They are all
gone into a World of Light,' etc., which shews him to be capable of much.
Again farewell, my dear Allen: give my best remembrances to Mrs. Allen,
who must think that I write to you as if you were still a Bachelor.
Indeed, I think you had best burn this letter suddenly, after you have
read my commissions. [Greek text]. There--I believe I can construe that
passage as well as Porson.
BOULGE HALL, WOODBRIDGE.
[1837.]
MY DEAR ALLEN,
Another commission in so short a time is rather too bad: but I know not
to whom I can apply but to yourself: for our bookseller here could not
get me what I want, seeing that I don't exactly know myself. The book I
want is an Athenaeus, but the edition I know not: and therefore I apply
to you who know my taste. . . .
There is a small Cottage of my Father's close to the Lawn gates, where I
shall fit up a room most probably. The garden I have already begun to
work in. . . . Sometimes when I have sat dreaming about my own comforts
I have thought to myself 'If Allen ever would come and stay with me some
days at my Cottage if I live there'--but I think you would not: 'could
not' you will say, and perhaps truly. . . .
I am reading Plutarch's Lives, which is one of the most delightful books
I ever read. He must have been a Gentleman. My Aristophanes is nearly
drained: that is, for the present first reading: for he will never be
dry, apply as often as I may. My sisters are reading to me Lyell's
Geology of an Evening: there is an admirable chapter illustrative of
human error and prejudice retarding the truth, which will apply to all
sciences, I believe: and, if people would consider it, would be more
valuable than the geological knowledge, though that is very valuable, I
am sure. You see my reading is so small that I can soon enumerate all my
books: and here you have them. . . .
[BOULGE HALL, WOODBRIDGE,
21 _April_, 1837.]
DEAR ALLEN,
Have you done with my Doctor? If you have, will you send him to me here:
Boulge Hall, Woodbridge, per Shannon Coach? You may book it at the Boar
and Castle, Oxford Street, close by Hanway Passage. This is not far out
of your beat. Perhaps I should not have sent for this book (it is
Bernard Barton the Quaker who asks to read it) but that it gives me an
excuse also to talk a little to you. Ah! I wish you were here to walk
with me now that the warm weather is come at last. Things have been
delayed but to be more welcome, and to burst forth twice as thick and
beautiful. This is boasting however, and counting of the chickens before
they are hatched: the East winds may again plunge us back into winter:
but the sunshine of this morning fills one's pores with jollity, as if
one had taken laughing gas. Then my house is getting on: the books are
up in the bookshelves and do my heart good: then Stothard's Canterbury
Pilgrims are over the fireplace: Shakespeare in a recess: how I wish you
were here for a day or two! My sister is very well and cheerful and we
have kept house very pleasantly together. My brother John's wife is, I
fear, declining very fast: it is very probable that I shall have to go
and see her before long: though this is a visit I should gladly be
spared. They say that her mind is in a very beautiful state of
peacefulness. She _may_ rally in the summer: but the odds are much
against her. We shall lose a perfect Lady, in the complete sense of the
word, when she dies.
I have been doing very little since I have been here: having accomplished
only a few Idylls of Theocritus, which harmonize with this opening of the
fine weather. Is all this poor occupation for a man who has a soul to
account for? You think so certainly. My dear Allen, you, with your
accustomed humility, asked me if I did not think you changed when I was
last in London: never did I see man less so: indeed you stand on too sure
a footing to change, I am persuaded. But you will not thank me for
telling you these things: but I wish you to believe that I rejoice as
much as ever in the thought of you, and feel confident that you will ever
be to me the same best of friends that you ever have been. I owe more to
you than to all others put together. I am sure, for myself, that the
main difference in our opinions (considered so destructive to friendship
by so many pious men) is a difference in the Understanding, not in the
Heart: and though you may not agree entirely in this, I am confident that
it will never separate you from me.
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