Letters of Edward FitzGerald
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Edward FitzGerald >> Letters of Edward FitzGerald
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But it is very stupid to write all this to Italy, though it would have
done very well to have canvassed with you and Morton over our pipes in
Mornington Crescent. I suppose you never will come back to stay long in
England again: I have given you up to a warmer latitude. If you were
more within reach, I would make you go a trip with me to the West of
Ireland, whither I am not confident enough to go alone. Yet I wish to
see it.
_To Bernard Barton_.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN,
_September_ 2/41.
MY DEAR BARTON,
You must allow I am a good correspondent--this half year at least. This
is Septr. 2, a most horrible day for a Bazaar, judging at least by the
weather here. But you may be better off. I came to this house a week
ago to visit a male friend, who duly started to England the day before I
got here. I therefore found myself domiciled in a house filled with
ladies of divers ages--Edgeworth's wife, aged--say 28--his mother aged
74--his sister (the great Maria) aged 72--and another cousin or
something--all these people very pleasant and kind: the house pleasant:
the grounds ditto: a good library: . . . so here I am quite at home. But
surely I must go to England soon: it seems to me as if that must take
place soon: and so send me a letter directed to me at Mr. Watcham's,
Naseby, Thornby. Those places are in England. You may put Northampton
after Thornby if you like. I am going to look at the winding up of the
harvest there.
I am now writing in the Library here: and the great Authoress is as busy
as a bee making a catalogue of her books beside me, chattering away. We
are great friends. She is as lively, active, and cheerful as if she were
but twenty; really a very entertaining person. We talk about Walter
Scott whom she adores, and are merry all the day long. I have read about
thirty-two sets of novels since I have been here: it has rained nearly
all the time.
I long to hear how the Bazaar went off: and so I beg you to tell me all
about it. When I began this letter I thought I had something to say: but
I believe the truth was I had nothing to do. When you see my dear Major
{89} give him my love, and tell him I wish he were here to go to
Connemara with me: I have no heart to go alone. The discomfort of Irish
inns requires a companion in misery. This part of the country is poorer
than any I have yet seen: the people becoming more Spanish also in face
and dress. Have you read The Collegians? {90a}
I have now begun to sketch heads on the blotting paper on which my paper
rests--a sure sign, as Miss Edgeworth tells me, that I have said quite
enough. She is right. Good-bye. In so far as this country is Ireland I
am glad to be here: but inasmuch as it is not England I wish I were
there.
_To S. Laurence_.
NASEBY, _Septr_. 28/41.
MY DEAR LAURENCE,
. . . Do you know that I wanted you to come down by the railroad and see
me here: where there is nothing else to be seen but myself: which would
have been a comfort to you. I have been staying here three weeks alone,
smoking with farmers, looking at their lands, and taking long walks
alone: during which (as well as when I was in Ireland) I made such
sketches as will make you throw down your brush in despair. I wish you
would ask at Molteno's or Colnaghi's for a new Lithographic print of a
head of Dante, after a fresco by Giotto, lately discovered in some chapel
{90b} at Florence. It is the most wonderful head that ever was
seen--Dante at about twenty-seven years old: rather younger. The
Edgeworths had a print in Ireland: got by great interest in Florence
before the legitimate publication: but they told me it was to be abroad
in September. If you can get me a copy, pray do.
_To F. Tennyson_.
Imo piano. No. o. Strada del Obelisco.
NASEBY. [_Oct_. 1841.]
MY DEAR FREDERIC,
I am surprised you think my scanty letters are worth encouraging,
especially with such long and excellent answers as that I have just got
from you. It has found its way down here: and oddly enough does your
Italian scenery, painted, I believe, very faithfully upon my inner eye,
contrast with the British barrenness of the Field of Naseby. Yet here
was fought a battle of some interest to Englishmen: and I am persuading
farmers to weed well the corn that grows over those who died there. No,
no; in spite of your Vesuviuses and sunshine, I love my poor dear brave
barren ugly country. Talk of your Italians! why, they are extinguished
by the Austrians because they don't blaze enough of themselves to burn
the extinguisher. Only people who deserve despotism are forced to suffer
it. We have at last good weather: and the harvest is just drawing to a
close in this place. It is a bright brisk morning, and the loaded
waggons are rolling cheerfully past my window. But since I wrote what is
above a whole day has passed: I have eaten a bread dinner: taken a lonely
walk: made a sketch of Naseby (not the least like yours of Castellamare):
played for an hour on an old tub of a piano: and went out in my dressing-
gown to smoke a pipe with a tenant hard by. That tenant (whose name is
Love, by the bye) was out with his folks in the stack yard: getting in
all the corn they can, as the night looks rainy. So, disappointed of my
projected 'talk about runts' and turnips, I am come back--with a good
deal of animal spirits at my tongue's and fingers' ends. If I were
transported now into your room at Castellamare, I would wag my tongue far
beyond midnight with you. These fits of exultation are not very common
with me: as (after leaving off beef) my life has become of an even grey
paper character: needing no great excitement, and as pleased with Naseby
as Naples. . . .
I am reading Schlegel's lectures on the History of Literature: a nice
just book: as also the comedies of Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar: the
latter very delightful: as also D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, a
good book. When I am tired of one I take up the other: when tired of
all, I take up my pipe, or sit down and recollect some of Fidelio on the
pianoforte. Ah Master Tennyson, we in England have our pleasures too. As
to Alfred, I have heard nothing of him since May: except that some one
saw him going to a packet which he believed was going to Rotterdam. . . .
When shall you and I go to an Opera again, or hear one of Beethoven's
Symphonies together? You are lost to England, I calculate: and I am
given over to turnips and inanity. So runs the world away. Well, if I
never see you again, I am very very glad I _have_ seen you: and got the
idea of a noble fellow all ways into my head. Does this seem like humbug
to you? But it is not. And that fine fellow Morton too. Pray write
when you can to me: and when my stars shine so happily about my head as
they do at this minute, when my blood feels like champagne, I will answer
you. . .
When you go to Florence, get to see a fresco portrait of Dante by Giotto:
newly discovered in some chapel there. Edgeworth saw it, and has brought
home a print which is (he says) a tolerable copy. It is a most awful
head: Dante, when about twenty-five years old. The likeness to the
common portraits of him when old is quite evident. All his great poem
seems in it: like the flower in the bud. I read the last cantos of the
Paradiso over and over again. I forget if you like him: but, if I
understand you at all, you must. Farewell!
P.S. Just heard from Edgeworth that Alfred is in London 'busy preparing
for the press'!!!
_To Bernard Barton_.
LONDON, _November_ 27/41.
DEAR BARTON,
I am afraid you were disappointed last night at finding no picture by the
Shannon. {93} Mayhap you had asked Mr C[hurchyard] to come and give his
judgment upon it over toasted cheese. But the truth is, the picture has
just been varnished with mastick varnish, which is apt to chill with the
cold at this season of the year: and so I thought it best to keep it by
me till its conveyance should be safer. I hope that on Monday you will
get it. But I must tell you that, besides the reason of the varnish, I
have had a sneaking desire to keep the picture by me, and not to lose it
from my eyes just yet. I am in love with it. I washed it myself very
carefully with only sweet salad oil: perfectly innocuous as you may
imagine: and that, with the new lining, and the varnishing, has at least
made the difference between a dirty and a clean beauty. And now, whoever
it may be painted by, I pronounce it a very beautiful picture: tender,
graceful, full of repose. I sit looking at it in my room and like it
more and more. All this is independent of its paternity. But if I am
asked about that, I should only answer on my own judgment (not a good one
in such a matter, as I have told you) that it is decidedly by
Gainsborough, and in his best way of conception. My argument would be of
the Johnsonian kind: if it is not by G., who the devil is it by? There
are some perhaps feeble touches here and there in the tree in the centre,
though not in those autumnal leaves that shoot into the sky to the right:
but who painted that clump of thick solemn trees to the left of the
picture:--the light of evening rising like a low fire between their
boles? The cattle too in the water, how they stand! The picture must be
an original of somebody's: and if not of Gainsborough's--whose? It is
better painted far than the Market Cart in the National Gallery: but not
better, only equal (in a sketchy way) to the beautiful evening Watering
Place.
Now I have raised your expectations too high. But when you have looked
at the picture some time, you will agree with me. I say all this in
sober honesty, for upon my word, whether it be by Gainsborough or not, it
is a kind of pang to me to part from the picture: I believe I should like
it all the better for its being a little fatherless bastard which I have
picked up in the streets, and made clean and comfortable. Yet, if your
friend tells you it is by G. I shall be glad you should possess it. Any
how, never part with it but to me.
I must tell you my friend Laurence still persists it is not by
Gainsborough: but I have thrown him quite overboard. Oh the comfort of
independent self confidence! Said Laurence also observed that
Gainsborough was the Goldsmith of Painters: which is perhaps true. I
should like to know if he would know an original of Goldsmith, if I read
something to him. He is a nice fellow this Laurence by the way.
Our prospect of going down to Suffolk this year is much on the wane: the
Doctor has desired that Lusia should remain in town. Though I should
like much to see you and others, yet I am on the whole glad that my
sisters should stay here, where they are likely to be better off. I
shall stay with them, as I am of use. I may however run down one day to
give you a look. I wish you would enquire and let me know how Mr. Jenney
{96} is: he was not well when my Father was in Suffolk. Only _don't ask
himself_: he hates that. And now farewell. This is a long letter: but
look at it by way of notice when the picture comes to you. If it does
not come on Monday don't be angry: but it probably will.
BRIGHTON, _Dec_. 29, 1841.
MY DEAR BARTON,
The account you give of my old Squire 'that he is in a poorish way' does
not satisfy me: and I want you to ask Mr. Jones the surgeon, whom you
know, and who used to attend on the Squire,--to ask him, I say, how that
Squire is. He has been ill for the last two or three winters, and may
not be worse now than before. He is one of our oldest friends: and
though he and I have not very much in common, he is a part of my country
of England, and involved in the very idea of the quiet fields of Suffolk.
He is the owner of old Bredfield House in which I was born--and the
seeing him cross the stiles between Hasketon and Bredfield, and riding
with his hounds over the lawn, is among the scenes in that novel called
The Past which dwell most in my memory. What is the difference between
what has been, and what never has been, _none_? At the same time this
Squire, so hardy, is indignant at the idea of being ill or laid up: so
one must inquire of him by some roundabout means. . . .
We had a large party here last night: Horace Smith came: like his brother
James, but better looking: and said to be very agreeable. Do you [know]
that he gives a dreadful account of Mrs. Southey: that meek and Christian
poetess: he says, she's a devil in temper. He told my mother so: had you
heard of this? I don't believe it yet: one ought not so soon, ought one?
Goodbye.
_To W. B. Donne_.
MONDAY.
MY DEAR DONNE,
Thompson tells me you are writing a Roman History. But you have not been
asked to Lecture at the Ipswich Mechanics' Institution, as I have--'any
subject except controversial Divinity, and party Politics.' In the
meantime I have begun Livy: I have read one book, and can't help looking
at the four thick octavos that remain--
Oh beate Sesti,
Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam. {97}
But it is very stately reading. As to old Niebuhr, it is mean to attack
old legends that can't defend themselves. And what does it signify in
the least if they are true or not? Whoever _actively_ believed that
Romulus was suckled by a wolf? But I have found in Horace a proper motto
for those lumbering Germans:
Quis Parthum paveat? quis gelidum Scythen?
Quis Germania quos horrida parturit
Foetus? {98}
_To Bernard Barton_.
[GELDESTONE, _Jan_. 1842.]
MY DEAR SIR,
You tell my Father you mean to write a Poem about my invisibility--and
somehow it seems strange to myself that I have been so long absent from
Woodbridge. It was a toss up (as boys say--and perhaps Gods) whether I
should go now:--the toss has decided I should not. On the contrary I am
going to see Donne at Mattishall: a visit, which having put off a
fortnight ago, I am now determined to pay. But if I do not see you
before I go to London, I shall assuredly be down again by the latter part
of February: when toasted cheese and ale shall again unite our souls. You
need not however expect that I can return to such familiar intercourse as
once (in former days) passed between us. New honours in society have
devolved upon me the necessity of a more dignified deportment. A letter
has been sent from the Secretary of the Ipswich Mechanics' Institution
asking me to Lecture--any subject but Party Politics or Controversial
Divinity. On my politely declining, another, a fuller, and a more
pressing, letter was sent urging me to comply with their demand: I
answered to the same effect, but with accelerated dignity. I am now
awaiting the third request in confidence: if you see no symptoms of its
being mooted, perhaps you will kindly propose it. I have prepared an
answer. Donne is mad with envy. He consoles himself with having got a
Roman History to write for Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia. {99} What a
pity it is that only Lying Histories are readable. I am afraid Donne
will stick to what is considered the Truth too much.
This is a day like May: I and the children have been scrambling up and
down the sides of a pit till our legs ache.
_Jan_. 24/42.
DEAR BARTON,
You mistake. The Poacher was bought in his shell--for 3 pounds--did I
not name that price? As you desire a packing case, I will order one to
day: and I hope you will have him down on Wednesday, just when your Bank
work is over, and you will be glad of such good company. One of my
friends thought the picture must have been an anticipation of Bill Sykes:
put a cap and feathers on his head and you make him Iago, Richard the
Third, or any other aristocratic villain. I really think the picture is
a very good one of its kind: and one that you will like. {100a}
I am going to get my large Constable very lightly framed, and shall bring
it down into Suffolk with me to shew you and others. I like it more and
more.
. . . There is something poetical, and almost heroic, in this Expedition
to the Niger--the motives lofty and Christian--the issue so disastrous.
Do you remember in A. Cunningham's Scottish Songs {100b} one called 'The
Darien Song'? It begins
We will go, maidens, go,
To the primrose {100c} woods and mourn, etc.
Look for it. It applies to this business. Some Scotch young folks went
out to colonize Darien, and never came back.
Oh there were white hands wav'd,
And many a parting hail,
As their vessel stemm'd the tide,
And stretch'd her snowy sail.
I remember reading this at Aldbro', and the sound of the sea hangs about
it always, as upon the lips of a shell.
Farewell for the present. We shall soon be down amongst you.
P.S. I think Northcote drew this picture from life: and I have no doubt
there is some story attached to it. The subject may have been some great
malefactor. You know that painters like to draw such at times. Northcote
could not have painted so well but from life.
_To F. Tennyson_.
LONDON, _February_ 6, 1842.
DEAR FREDERIC,
These fast-following letters of mine seem intended to refute a charge
made against me by Morton: that I had only so much impulse of
correspondence as resulted from the receipt of a friend's letter. Is it
very frivolous to write all these letters, on no business whatsoever?
What I think is, that one will soon be going into the country, where one
hears no music, and sees no pictures, and so one will have nothing to
write about. I mean to take down a Thucydides, to feed on: like a whole
Parmesan. But at present here I am in London: last night I went to see
Acis and Galatea brought out, with Handel's music, and Stanfield's
scenery: really the best done thing I have seen for many a year. As I
sat alone (alone in spirit) in the pit, I wished for you: and now Sunday
is over: I have been to church: I have dined at Portland Place: {102} and
now I come home to my lodgings: light my pipe: and will whisper something
over to Italy. You talk of your Naples: and that one cannot understand
Theocritus without having been on those shores. I tell you, you can't
understand Macready without coming to London and seeing his revival of
Acis and Galatea. You enter Drury Lane at a quarter to seven: the pit is
already nearly full: but you find a seat, and a very pleasant one. Box
doors open and shut: ladies take off their shawls and seat themselves:
gentlemen twist their side curls: the musicians come up from under the
stage one by one: 'tis just upon seven: Macready is very punctual: Mr. T.
Cooke is in his place with his marshal's baton in his hand: he lifts it
up: and off they set with old Handel's noble overture. As it is playing,
the red velvet curtain (which Macready has substituted, not wisely, for
the old green one) draws apart: and you see a rich drop scene, all
festooned and arabesqued with River Gods, Nymphs, and their emblems; and
in the centre a delightful, large, good copy of Poussin's great landscape
(of which I used to have a print in my rooms) where the Cyclops is seen
seated on a mountain, looking over the sea-shore. The overture ends, the
drop scene rises, and there is the sea-shore, a long curling bay: the sea
heaving under the moon, and breaking upon the beach, and rolling the surf
down--the stage! This is really capitally done. But enough of
description. The choruses were well sung, well acted, well dressed, and
well grouped; and the whole thing creditable and pleasant. Do you know
the music? It is of Handel's best: and as classical as any man who wore
a full-bottomed wig could write. I think Handel never gets out of his
wig: that is, out of his age: his Hallelujah chorus is a chorus not of
angels, but of well-fed earthly choristers, ranged tier above tier in a
Gothic cathedral, with princes for audience, and their military trumpets
flourishing over the full volume of the organ. Handel's gods are like
Homer's, and his sublime never reaches beyond the region of the clouds.
Therefore I think that his great marches, triumphal pieces, and
coronation anthems, are his finest works. There is a little bit of
Auber's, at the end of the Bayadere when the God resumes his divinity and
retires into the sky, which has more of pure light and mystical solemnity
than anything I know of Handel's: but then this is only a scrap: and
Auber could not breathe in that atmosphere long: whereas old Handel's
coursers, with necks with thunder clothed and long resounding pace, never
tire. Beethoven thought more deeply also: but I don't know if he could
sustain himself so well. I suppose you will resent this praise of
Beethoven: but you must be tired of the whole matter, written as it is in
this vile hand: and so here is an end of it. . . . And now I am going to
put on my night-cap: for my paper is nearly ended, and the iron tongue of
St. Paul's, as reported by an East wind, has told twelve. This is the
last news from the city. So Good night. I suppose the violets will be
going off in the Papal dominions by the time this letter reaches you: my
country cousins are making much of a few aconites. Love to Morton.
P.S. I hope these foolish letters don't cost you and Morton much: I
always pay 1_s._ 7_d._ for them here: which ought to carry such levities
to Hindostan without further charge.
_To Bernard Barton_.
LONDON, _February_ 21/42.
I have just got home a new coat for my Constable: which coat cost 33
shillings: just the same price as I gave for a Chesterfield wrapper (as
it is called) for myself some weeks ago. People told me I was not
improved by my Chesterfield wrapper: and I am vext to see how little my
Constable is improved by his coat of Cloth of Gold. But I have been told
what is the use of a frame lately: only as it requires nice explanation I
shall leave it till I see you. Don't you wish me to buy that little
Evening piece I told you of? worth a dozen of your Paul Veroneses put
together.
When I rate you (as you call it) about shewing my verses, letters, etc.,
you know in what spirit I rate you: thanking you all the time for your
generous intention of praising me. It would be very hard, and not
desirable, to make you understand why my Mama need not have heard the
verses: but it is a very little matter: so no more of it. As to my doing
anything else in that way, I know that I could write volume after volume
as well as others of the mob of gentlemen who write with ease: but I
think unless a man can do better, he had best not do at all; I have not
the strong inward call, nor cruel-sweet pangs of parturition, that prove
the birth of anything bigger than a mouse. With you the case is
different, who have so long been a follower of the Muse, and who have had
a kindly, sober, English, wholesome, religious spirit within you that has
communicated kindred warmth to many honest souls. Such a creature as
Augusta--John's wife--a true Lady, was very fond of your poems: and I
think that is no mean praise: a very good assurance that you have not
written in vain. I am a man of taste, of whom there are hundreds born
every year: only that less easy circumstances than mine at present are
compel them to one calling: that calling perhaps a mechanical one, which
overlies all their other, and naturally perhaps more energetic impulses.
As to an occasional copy of verses, there are few men who have leisure to
read, and are possessed of any music in their souls, who are not capable
of versifying on some ten or twelve occasions during their natural lives:
at a proper conjunction of the stars. There is no harm in taking
advantage of such occasions.
This letter-writing fit (one must suppose) can but happen once in one's
life: though I hope you and I shall live to have many a little bargain
for pictures. But I hold communion with Suffolk through you. In this
big London all full of intellect and pleasure and business I feel
pleasure in dipping down into the country, and rubbing my hand over the
cool dew upon the pastures, as it were. I know very few people here: and
care for fewer; I believe I should like to live in a small house just
outside a pleasant English town all the days of my life, making myself
useful in a humble way, reading my books, and playing a rubber of whist
at night. But England cannot expect long such a reign of inward quiet as
to suffer men to dwell so easily to themselves. But Time will tell us:
Come what come may,
Time and the Hour runs through the roughest day. {106}
It is hard to give you so long a letter, so dull an one, and written in
so cramped a hand, to read in this hardworking part of your week. But
you can read a bit at odd times, you know: or none at all. Anyhow 'tis
time to have done. I am going to walk with Lusia. So farewell
P.S. I always direct to you as 'Mr. Barton' because I know not if
Quakers ought to endure Squiredom. How I long to shew you my Constable!
Pray let me know how Mr. Jenney is. I think that we shall get down to
Suffolk the end of next week.
LONDON, _Febr_. 25/42.
MY DEAR BARTON,
Your reason for liking your Paul Veronese (what an impudence to talk so
to a man who has just purchased a real Titian!) does not quite disprove
my theory. You like the picture because you like the verses you once
made upon it: you associate the picture (naturally enough) with them: and
so shall I in future, because I like the verses too. But then you ask
further, what made you write the verses if you were not moved by the
picture imprimis? Why you know the poetic faculty does wonders, as
Shakespeare tells us, in imagining the forms of things unseen, etc., and
so you made a merit where there was none: and have liked that merit ever
since. But I will not disturb you any further in your enjoyment: if you
have a vision of your own, why should I undo it?
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