Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes

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LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1901

_All rights reserved_

_First Edition_ 1894. _Reprinted_ 1901

{The "Little Grange," Woodbridge: p0.jpg}

LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD

_To E. B. Cowell_.

88 GT. PORTLAND ST., LONDON,
_Jan._ 13/59.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I have been here some five weeks: but before my Letter reaches you shall
probably have slid back into the Country somewhere. This is my old
Lodging, but new numbered. I have been almost alone here: having seen
even Spedding and Donne but two or three times. They are well and go on
as before. Spedding has got out the seventh volume of Bacon, I believe:
with Capital Prefaces to Henry VII., etc. But I have not yet seen it.
After vol. viii. (I think) there is to be a Pause: till Spedding has set
the Letters to his Mind. Then we shall see what he can make of his
Blackamoor. . . .

I am almost ashamed to write to you, so much have I forsaken Persian, and
even all good Books of late. There is no one now to 'prick the Sides of
my Intent'; Vaulting Ambition having long failed to do so! I took my
Omar from Fraser [? Parker], as I saw he didn't care for it; and also I
want to enlarge it to near as much again, of such Matter as he would not
dare to put in Fraser. If I print it, I shall do the impudence of
quoting your Account of Omar, and your Apology for his Freethinking: it
is not wholly my Apology, but you introduced him to me, and your excuse
extends to that which you have not ventured to quote, and I do. I like
your Apology extremely also, allowing its Point of View. I doubt you
will repent of ever having showed me the Book. I should like well to
have the Lithograph Copy of Omar which you tell of in your Note. My
Translation has its merit: but it misses a main one in Omar, which I will
leave you to find out. The Latin Versions, if they were corrected into
decent Latin, would be very much better. . . . I have forgotten to write
out for you a little Quatrain which Binning found written in Persepolis;
the Persian Tourists having the same propensity as English to write their
Names and Sentiments on their national Monuments. {2}

* * * * *

In the early part of 1859 his friend William Browne was terribly injured
by his horse falling upon him and lingered in great agony for several
weeks.

_To W. B. Donne_.

GOLDINGTON, BEDFORD.
_March_ 26 [1859].

MY DEAR DONNE,

Your folks told you on what Errand I left your house so abruptly. I was
not allowed to see W. B. the day I came: nor yesterday till 3 p.m.; when,
poor fellow, he tried to write a line to me, like a child's! and I went,
and saw, no longer the gay Lad, nor the healthy Man, I had known: but a
wreck of all that: a Face like Charles I. (after decapitation almost)
above the Clothes: and the poor shattered Body underneath lying as it had
lain eight weeks; such a case as the Doctor says he had never known.
Instead of the light utterance of other days too, came the slow painful
syllables in a far lower Key: and when the old familiar words, 'Old
Fellow--Fitz'--etc., came forth, so spoken, I broke down too in spite of
foregone Resolution.

They thought he'd die last Night: but this Morning he is a little better:
but no hope. He has spoken of me in the Night, and (if he wishes) I
shall go again, provided his Wife and Doctor approve. But it agitates
him: and Tears he could not wipe away came to his Eyes. The poor Wife
bears up wonderfully.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES.
_April_ 27 [1859]

MY DEAR COWELL,

Above is the Address you had better direct to in future. I have had a
great Loss. W. Browne was fallen upon and half crushed by his horse near
three months ago: and though the Doctors kept giving hopes while he lay
patiently for two months in a condition no one else could have borne for
a Fortnight, at last they could do no more, nor Nature neither: and he
sunk. I went to see him before he died--the comely spirited Boy I had
known first seven and twenty years ago lying all shattered and Death in
his Face and Voice. . . .

Well, this is so: and there is no more to be said about it. It is one of
the things that reconcile me to my own stupid Decline of Life--to the
crazy state of the world--Well--no more about it.

I sent you poor old Omar who has _his_ kind of Consolation for all these
Things. I doubt you will regret you ever introduced him to me. And yet
you would have me print the original, with many worse things than I have
translated. The Bird Epic might be finished at once: but 'cui bono?' No
one cares for such things: and there are doubtless so many better things
to care about. I hardly know why I print any of these things, which
nobody buys; and I scarce now see the few I give them to. But when one
has done one's best, and is sure that that best is better than so many
will take pains to do, though far from the best that _might be done_, one
likes to make an end of the matter by Print. I suppose very few People
have ever taken such Pains in Translation as I have: though certainly not
to be literal. But at all Cost, a Thing must _live_: with a transfusion
of one's own worse Life if one can't retain the Original's better. Better
a live Sparrow than a stuffed Eagle. I shall be very well pleased to see
the new MS. of Omar. I shall _one day_ (if I live) print the 'Birds,'
and a strange experiment on old Calderon's two great Plays; and then shut
up Shop in the Poetic Line. Adieu: Give my love to the Lady: and believe
me yours very truly E. F. G.

You see where those Persepolitan Verses {5} come from. I wonder you were
not startled with the metre, though maimed a bit.

_To T. Carlyle_.

GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES.
_June_ 20/59.

DEAR CARLYLE,

Very soon after I called and saw Mrs. Carlyle I got a violent cold, which
(being neglected) flew to my Ears, and settled into such a Deafness I
couldn't hear the Postman knock nor the Omnibus roll. When I began
(after more than a Month) to begin recovering of this (though still so
deaf as to determine not to be a Bore to any one else) I heard from
Bedford that my poor W. Browne (who got you a Horse some fifteen years
ago) had been fallen on and crushed all through the middle Body by one of
his own: and I then kept expecting every Postman's knock was to announce
his Death. He kept on however in a shattered Condition which the Doctors
told me scarce any one else would have borne a Week; kept on for near two
Months, and then gave up his honest Ghost. I went to bid him Farewell:
and then came here (an Address you remember), only going to Lowestoft (on
the Sea) to entertain my old George Crabbe's two Daughters, who, now
living inland, are glad of a sight of the old German Sea, and also
perhaps of poor Me. I return to Lowestoft (for a few days only)
to-morrow, and shall perhaps see the Steam of your Ship passing the
Shore. I have always been wanting to sail to Scotland: but my old Fellow-
traveller is gone! His Accident was the more vexatious as quite
unnecessary--so to say--returning quietly from Hunting. But there's no
use talking of it. Your Destinies and Silences have settled it.

I really had wished to go and see Mrs. Carlyle again: I won't say you,
because I don't think in your heart you care to be disturbed; and I am
glad to believe that, with all your Pains, you are better than any of us,
I do think. You don't care what one thinks of your Books: you know I
love so many: I don't care so much for Frederick so far as he's gone: I
suppose you don't neither. I was thinking of you the other Day reading
in Aubrey's Wiltshire how he heard Cromwell one Day at Dinner (I think)
at Hampton Court say that Devonshire showed the best Farming of any Part
of England he had been in. Did you know all the Dawson Turner Letters?

I see Spedding directs your Letter: which is nearly all I see of his MS.:
though he would let me see enough of it if there were a good Turn to be
done.

Please to give my best Remembrances to Mrs. Carlyle, and believe me yours
sincerely,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

_To Mrs. Charles Allen_.

LOWESTOFT, _October_ 16/59.

MY DEAR MRS. ALLEN,

In passing through London a week ago I found a very kind letter from you
directed to my London Lodging. This will explain why it has not been
sooner answered. As I do not know _your_ Address, I take the Opportunity
of enclosing my Reply to John Allen, of whom I have not heard since May.

I have been in these Suffolk and Norfolk Parts ever since I left London
in March to see my poor Lad die in Bedford. The Lad I first met in the
Tenby Lodging house twenty-seven years ago--not sixteen then--and now
broken to pieces and scarce conscious, after two months such suffering as
the Doctor told me scarce any one would have borne for a Fortnight. They
never told him it was all over with him until [within] ten Days of Death:
though every one else seem'd to _know_ it must be so--and he did not wish
to die yet.

I won't write more of a Matter that you can have but little Interest in,
and that I am as well not thinking about. I came here partly to see his
Widow, and so (as I hope) to avoid having to go to Bedford for the
Present. She, though a wretchedly sickly woman, and within two months of
her confinement when he died, has somehow weathered it all beyond
Expectation. She has her children to attend to, and be her comfort in
turn: and though having lost what most she loved yet has something to
love still, and to be beloved by. There are worse Conditions than that.

I am not going to be long here: but hope to winter somewhere in Suffolk
(London very distasteful now)--But here again:--my good Hostess with whom
I have lodged in Suffolk is dead too: and I must wait till _that_
Household settles down a little.

If it ever gives you pleasure to write to me, it gives me real Pleasure
to hear of you: and I am sincerely grateful for your kind Remembrance of
me.

'Geldestone Hall--Beccles' or 'Farlingay Hall, Woodbridge,' are pretty
sure Addresses. Please to remember me kindly to your Husband and believe
me

Yours very sincerely,

EDWD FITZGERALD.

BATH HOUSE, LOWESTOFT.
_October_ 26 [1859].

DEAR MRS. ALLEN,

I must thank you for your so kind Letter, and kind Invitation. But if I
was but five Days with my old College Friend after twelve years' Promise,
and then didn't go just on to Teignmouth to see my Sister, and her
Family, I must not talk of going elsewhere--even to Prees--where John is
always good enough to be asking me: even in a Letter To day received.

By the way, Last Saturday at Norwich while I was gazing into a Shop, a
Woman's Voice said, 'How d' ye do, Mr. FitzGerald?' I looked up: a young
Woman too, whom (of course) I didn't know. 'You don't remember me,
Andalusia Allen that was!' Now Mrs. Day. I had not seen her since '52,
a Girl of, I suppose, twelve, playing some Character in a Family Play.
John's Letter too tells me of his son going to College.

But Tenby--I don't remember a pleasanter Place. I can now hear the Band
on the Steamer as it left the little Pier for Bristol, the Steamer that
brought me and the poor Boy now in his Grave to that Boardinghouse. It
was such weather as now howls about this Lodging when one of those poor
starved Players was drowned on the Sands, and was carried past our
Windows after Dinner: I often remember the dull Trot of Men up the windy
Street, and our running to the Window, and the dead Head, hair, and
Shoulders hurried past. That was Tragedy, poor Fellow, whatever Parts he
had played before.

I think you remember me with Kindness because accidentally associated
with your old Freestone in those pleasant Days, that also were among the
last of your Sister's Life. Her too I can see, with her China-rose
complexion: in the Lilac Gown she wore.

I keep on here from Week to week, partly because no other Place offers:
but I almost doubt if I shall be here beyond next week. Not in this
Lodging anyhow: which is wretchedly 'rafty' and cold; lets the Rain in
when it Rains: and the Dust of the Shore when it drives: as both have
been doing by turns all Yesterday and To day. I was cursing all this as
I was shivering here by myself last Night: and in the Morning I hear of
three Wrecks off the Sands, and indeed meet five shipwreckt Men with a
Troop of Sailors as I walk out before Breakfast. Oh Dear!

Please remember me to your 'Gude Man' and believe me yours truly,

E. F. G.

Pray do excuse all this Blotting: my Paper _won't_ dry To day.

_To W. H. Thompson_.

10 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT.
_Nov._ 27, 1859.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

After a Fortnight's Visit to my Sister's (where I caught Cold which flew
at once to my Ears, and there hangs) I returned hither, as the nearest
Place to go to, and here shall be till Christmas at all Events. I wish
to avoid London this winter: and indeed seem almost to have done with it,
except for a Day's Business or Sightseeing every now and then. Often
should I like to roam about old Cambridge, and hear St. Mary's Chimes at
Midnight--but--but! This Place of course is dull enough: but here's the
Old Sea (a dirty Dutch one, to be sure) and Sands, and Sailors, a very
fine Race of Men, far superior to those in Regent Street. Also the
Dutchmen (an ugly set whom I can't help liking for old Neighbours) come
over in their broad Bottoms and take in Water at a Creek along the Shore.
But I believe the East winds get very fierce after Christmas, when the
Sea has cooled down. You won't come here, to be sure: or I should be
very glad to smoke a Cigar, and have a Chat: and would take care to have
a Fire in your Bedroom this time: a Negligence I was very sorry for in
London.

I read, or was told, they wouldn't let old Alfred's Bust into your
Trinity. They are right, I think, to let no one in there (as it should
be in Westminster Abbey) till a Hundred Years are past; when, after too
much Admiration (perhaps) and then a Reaction of undue Dis-esteem, Men
have settled into some steady Opinion on the subject: supposing always
that the Hero survives so long, which of itself goes so far to decide the
Question. No doubt A. T. will do _that_.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

10 MARINE TERRACE,
LOWESTOFT.
_Febr._ 23/60.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

'Me voila ici' still! having weathered it out so long. No bad Place, I
assure you, though you who are accustomed to Pall Mall, Clubs, etc.,
wouldn't like it. Mudie finds one out easily: and the London Library
too: and altogether I can't complain of not getting such drowsy Books as
I want. Hakluyt lasted a long while: then came Captain Cook, whom I
hadn't read since I was a Boy, and whom I was very glad to see again. But
he soon evaporates in his large Type Quartos. I can hardly manage
Emerson Tennent's Ceylon: a very dry Catalogue Raisonnee of the Place. A
little Essay of De Quincey's gave me a better Idea of it (as I suppose)
in some twenty or thirty pages. Anyhow, I prefer Lowestoft, considering
the Snakes, Sand-leaches, Mosquitos, etc. I suppose Russell's Indian
Diary is over-coloured: but I feel sure it's true in the Main: and he has
the Art to make one feel in the thick of it; quite enough in the Thick,
however. Sir C. Napier came here to try and get the Beachmen to enlist
in the Naval Reserve. Not one would go: they won't give up their
Independence: and so really half starve here during Winter. Then Spring
comes and they go and catch the Herrings which, if left alone, would
multiply by Millions by Autumn: and so kill their Golden Goose. They are
a strange set of Fellows. I think a Law ought to be made against their
Spring Fishing: more important, for their own sakes, than Game Laws.

I laid out half a crown on your Fraser {13}: and liked much of it very
much: especially the Beginning about the Advantage the Novelist has over
the Play-writer. A little too much always about Miss Austen, whom yet I
think quite capital in a Circle I have found quite unendurable to walk
in. Thackeray's first Number was famous, I thought: his own little
Roundabout Paper so pleasant: but the Second Number, I say, lets the
Cockney in already: about Hogarth: Lewes is vulgar: and I don't think one
can care much for Thackeray's Novel. He is always talking so of himself,
too. I have been very glad to find I could take to a Novel again, in
Trollope's Barchester Towers, etc.: not perfect, like Miss Austen: but
then so much wider Scope: and perfect enough to make me feel I know the
People though caricatured or carelessly drawn. I doubt if you can read
my writing here: or whether it will be worth your Pains to do so. If you
can, or can not, one Day write me a Line, which I will read. I suppose
when the Fields and Hedges begin to grow green I shall move a little
further inland to be among them.

_To Mrs. Charles Allen_.

FARLINGAY: WOODBRIDGE,
_June_ 2/60.

DEAR MRS. ALLEN,

Your kind Note has reacht me here after a Fortnight's abode at my old
Lodgings in London. In London I have not been for more than a year,
unless passing through it in September, and have no thought of going up
at present. I don't think you were there last Spring, were you? Or
perhaps I was gone before you arrived, as I generally used to get off as
soon as it began to fill, and the Country to become amiable. Here at
last we have the 'May' coming out: there it is on some Thorns before my
Windows, and the Tower of Woodbridge Church beyond: and beyond that some
low Hills that stretch with Furze and Broom to the Seaside, about ten
miles off.

I am of course glad of so good a Report of John Allen. I have long been
thinking of writing to him: among other things to give his Wife a Drawing
Laurence made of him for me some four and twenty years ago: in full
Canonicals--very serious--I think a capital Likeness on the whole, and
one that I take pleasure to look at. But I think his Wife and Children
have more title to it: and one never can tell what will become of one's
Things when one's dead. This same Drawing is now in London (I hope: for,
if not, it's lost) and you should see it if you had a mind. For you
don't seem to find your way to Frees any more than I do: I should go if
there weren't a large Family. Mrs. John is always very kind to me. I do
think it is very kind of you too to remember and write to me: at any rate
I do answer Letters, which many better Men don't.

Please to remember me to your Husband: and believe me unforgetful of the
Good old Days, and of you, and yours,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

FARLINGAY: WOODBRIDGE,
_Septr._ 9/60.

MY DEAR MRS. ALLEN,

It is very kind of you to write to me. Ah! how I can fancy the
Stillness, and the Colour, of your pretty Tenby!--now eight and twenty
years since seen! But I can't summon Resolution to go to it: and daily
get worse and worse at moving any where, a common Fate as we grow older.

Your Note came in an Enclosure from your Cousin John, who seems to
flourish with Wife and Children. It is Children who keep alive one's
Interest in Life: that is to say, if one happens to like one's Children.

I have had to stay with me the two sons of my poor Friend killed last
year: he whom I first made Acquaintance with at your very Tenby. As I
haven't found Courage to go to their Country, their Mother would have
them come here, and I took them to _our_ Seaside; not a beautiful Coast
like yours--no Rocks, no Sands, and few Trees--but yet liked because
remembered by me as long as I can remember. Anyhow, there are Ships,
Boats, and Sailors: and the Boys were well pleased with all that. The
place we went to is _called Aldborough_: _spelt_ Aldeburgh: and is the
Birth place of the Poet Crabbe, who also has _Daguerrotyped_ much of the
Character of the Place in his Poems. You send me some Lines about the
Sea: what if I return you four of his?

Still as I gaze upon the Sea I find
Its waves an Image of my restless mind:
_Here_ Thought on Thought: _there_ Wave on Wave succeeds,
Their Produce--idle Thought and idle Weeds!

Adieu: please to remember me to your Husband: and believe me yours ever
very sincerely,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

_To George Crabbe_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE,
_Decr._ 28/60.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . I forgot to tell you I really ran to London three weeks ago: by the
morning Express, and was too glad to rush back by the Evening Ditto. I
went up for a Business I of course did not accomplish: did not call on,
or see, a Friend: couldn't get into the National Gallery: and didn't care
a straw for Holman Hunt's Picture. No doubt, there is Thought and Care
in it: but what an outcome of several Years and sold for several
Thousands! What Man with the Elements of a Great Painter could come out
with such a costive Thing after so long waiting! Think of the Acres of
Canvas Titian or Reynolds would have covered with grand Outlines and deep
Colours in the Time it has taken to niggle this Miniature! The Christ
seemed to me only a wayward Boy: the Jews, Jews no doubt: the Temple I
dare say very correct in its Detail: but think of even Rembrandt's Woman
in Adultery at the National Gallery; a much smaller Picture, but how much
vaster in Space and Feeling! Hunt's Picture stifled me with its
Littleness. I think Ruskin must see what his System has led to.

I have just got Lady Waterford's 'Babes in the Wood,' which are well
enough, pretty in Colour: only, why has she made so bad a Portrait of one
of her chief Performers, whose Likeness is so easily got at, the Robin
Redbreast? This Lady Waterford was at Gillingham this Summer: and my
Sister Eleanor said (as Thackeray had done) she was something almost to
worship for unaffected Dignity.

MARKET-HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_Whit-Monday_ [_May_ 20, 1861].

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . I take pleasure in my new little Boat: and last week went with her
to Aldbro'; and she '_behaved_' very well both going and returning;
though, to be sure, there was not much to try her Temper. I am so glad
of this fine Whit-Monday, when so many Holiday-makers will enjoy
_their_selves, and so many others make a little money by their Enjoyment.
Our 'Rifles' are going to march to Grundisburgh, _manuring_ and
_skrimmaging_ as they go, and also (as the Captain {18} hopes)
recruiting. He is a right good little Fellow, I do believe. It is a
shame the Gentry hereabout are so indifferent in the Matter: they
subscribe next to nothing: and give absolutely nothing in the way of
Entertainment or Attention to the Corps. But we are split up into the
pettiest possible Squirarchy, who want to make the utmost of their little
territory: cut down all the Trees, level all the old Violet Banks, and
stop up all the Footways they can. The old pleasant way from Hasketon to
Bredfield is now a Desert. I was walking it yesterday and had the
pleasure of breaking down and through some Bushes and Hurdles put to
block up a fallen Stile. I thought what your Father would have said of
it all. And really it is the sad ugliness of our once pleasant Fields
that half drives me to the Water where the Power of the Squirarchy stops!

_To E. B. Cowell_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE:
_May_ 22/61.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I receive two Books, via Geldestone, from you: Khold-i-barin (including a
Lecture of your own) and 'Promises of Christianity': I think directed in
your Wife's hand. The Lecture was, I doubt not, very well adapted to its
purpose: the other two Publications I must look at by and bye. I can't
tell you how indolent I have become about Books: some Travels and
Biographies from Mudie are nearly all I read now. Then, I have only been
in London some dozen hours these two years past: my last Expedition was
this winter for five hours: when I ran home here like a beaten Dog. So I
have little to tell you of Friends as of Books. Spedding hammers away at
his Bacon (impudently forestalled by H. Dixon's Book). Carlyle is not so
up to work as of old (I hear). Indeed, he wrote me he was ill last
Summer, and obliged to cut Frederick and be off to Scotland and Idleness:
the Doctors warned him of Congestion of Brain: a warning he scorned. But
what more likely? The last account I had of Alfred Tennyson from Mrs. A.
was a good one. Frederic T. is settled at Jersey. I cannot make up my
mind to go to see any of these good, noble men: I only hope they believe
I do not forget, or cease to regard them.

My chief Amusement in Life is Boating, on River and Sea. The Country
about here is the Cemetery of so many of my oldest Friends: and the petty
race of Squires who have succeeded only use the Earth for an
_Investment_: cut down every old Tree: level every Violet Bank: and make
the old Country of my Youth hideous to me in my Decline. There are fewer
Birds to be heard, as fewer Trees for them to resort to. So I get to the
Water: where Friends are not buried nor Pathways stopt up: but all is, as
the Poets say, as Creation's Dawn beheld. I am happiest going in my
little Boat round the Coast to Aldbro', with some Bottled Porter and some
Bread and Cheese, and some good rough Soul who works the Boat and chews
his Tobacco in peace. An Aldbro' Sailor talking of my Boat said--'She go
like a Wiolin, she do!' What a pretty Conceit, is it not? As the Bow
slides over the Strings in a liquid Tune. Another man was talking
yesterday of a great Storm: 'and, in a moment, all as calm as a Clock.'

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