Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes

E >> Edward FitzGerald >> Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

I bought Mr. Ticknor's Memoirs in an Edition published, I hope with due
Licence, by Sampson Low. What a just, sincere, kindly, modest Man he
too! With more shrewd perception of the many fine folks he mixed with
than he cared to indulge in or set down on Paper, I fancy: judging from
some sketchy touches of Macaulay, Talfourd, Bulwer, etc. His account of
his Lord Fitzwilliam's is surely very creditable to English Nobility.
Macaulay's Memoirs were less interesting to me; though I quite believe in
him as a brave, honest, affectionate man, as well (of course) as a very
powerful one. It is wonderful how he, Hallam and Mackintosh could roar
and bawl at one another over such Questions as Which is the Greatest
Poet? Which is the greatest Work of that Greatest Poet? etc., like Boys
at some Debating Society.

You can imagine the little dull Country town on whose Border I live; our
one merit is an Estuary that brings up Tidings of the Sea twice in the
twenty-four hours, and on which I sail in my Boat whenever I can.

I must add a P.S. to say that having written my half-yearly Letter to
Carlyle, just to ask how he was, etc., I hear from his Niece that he has
been to his own Dumfries, has driven a great deal about the Country: but
has returned to Chelsea very weak, she says, though not in any way ill.
He has even ceased to care about Books; but, since his Return, has begun
to interest himself in them a little again. In short, his own Chelsea is
the best Place for him.

Another reason for this other half Sheet is--that--Yes! I wish very much
for your Translation of the Vita Nuova, which I did read in a slovenly
(slovenly with Dante!) way twenty or thirty years ago, but which I did
not at all understand. I should know much more about it now with you and
Mr. Lowell.

I could without 'roaring' persuade you about Don Quixote, I think; if I
were to roar over the Atlantic as to 'Which is the best of the Two Parts'
in the style of Macaulay & Co. 'Oh for a Pot of Ale, etc.,' rather than
such Alarums. Better dull Woodbridge! What bothered me in London
was--all the Clever People going wrong with such clever Reasons for so
doing which I couldn't confute. I will send an original Omar if I find
one.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

WOODBRIDGE. _October_ 5/76.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I bought Clemencin's Quixote after all: but have looked little into
him as yet, as I had finished my last Reading of the Don before he came . . .
I fear his Notes are more than one wants about errors, or
inaccuracies of Style, etc. Cervantes had some of the noble carelessness
of Shakespeare, Scott, etc., as about Sancho's stolen Dicky. {202} But
why should Clemencin, and his Predecessors, decide that Cervantes changed
the title of his second Part from 'Hidalgo' to 'Caballero' from
negligence? Why should he not have intended the change for reasons of
his own? Anyhow, they should have printed the Title as he printed it,
and pointed out what they thought the oversight in a Note. This makes
one think they may have altered other things also: which perhaps I shall
see when I begin another Reading: which (if I live) won't be very far
off. I think I almost inspired Alfred Tennyson (who suddenly came here a
Fortnight ago) to begin on the Spanish. Yes: A. T. called one day, after
near twenty years' separation, and we were in a moment as if we had been
together all that while. He had his son Hallam with him: whom I liked
much: unaffected and unpretentious: so attentive to his Father, with a
humorous sense of his Character as well as a loving and respectful. It
was good to see them together. We went one day down the Orwell and back
again by Steamer: but the weather was not very propitious. Altogether, I
think we were all pleased with our meeting.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE. _Novr._ 8/76.

MY DEAR SIR,

'Vita Nuova' reached me safe, and 'siempre verde,' untarnished by its
Voyage. I am afraid I liked your account of it more than itself: I mean,
I was more interested: I suppose it is too mystical for me. So I felt
when I tried to read it in the original twenty years ago: and I fear I
must despair of relishing it as I ought now I have your Version of it,
which, it seems to me, must be so good. I don't think you needed to
bring in Rossetti, still less Theodore Martin, to bear Witness, or to put
your Work in any other Light than its own.

After once more going through my Don Quixote ('siempre verde' too, if
ever Book was), I returned to another of the Evergreens, Boccaccio, which
I found by a Pencil mark at the Volume's end I had last read on board the
little Ship I then had, nine years ago. And I have shut out the accursed
'Eastern Question' by reading the Stories, as the 'lieta Brigata' shut
out the Plague by telling them. Perhaps Mr. Lowell will give us
Boccaccio one day, and Cervantes? And many more, whom Ste. Beuve has
left to be done by him. I fancy Boccaccio must be read in his Italian,
as Cervantes in his Spanish: the Language fitting either 'like a Glove'
as we say. Boccaccio's Humour in his Country People, Friars, Scolds,
etc., is capital: as well, of course, as the easy Grace and Tenderness of
other Parts. One thinks that no one who had well read him and Don
Quixote would ever write with a strain again, as is the curse of nearly
all modern Literature. I know that 'Easy Writing is d---d hard Reading.'
Of course the Man must be a Man of Genius to take his Ease: but, if he
be, let him take it. I suppose that such as Dante, and Milton, and my
Daddy, took it far from easy: well, they dwell apart in the Empyrean; but
for Human Delight, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Boccaccio, and Scott!

Tennyson (a Man of Genius, who, I think, has crippled his growth by over-
elaboration) came suddenly upon me here six weeks ago: and, many years as
it was since we had met, there seemed not a Day's Interval between. He
looked very well; and very happy; having with him his eldest Son, a very
nice Fellow, who took all care of 'Papa,' as I was glad to hear him say,
not 'Governor' as the Phrase now is. One Evening he was in a Stew
because of some nasty Paragraph in a Newspaper about his not allowing Mr.
Longfellow to quote from his Poems. And he wrote a Note to Mr. L. at
once in this room, and his Son carried it off to the Post that same
Night, just in time. So my House is so far become a Palace, being the
Place of a Despatch from one Poet to the other, all over that Atlantic!

We never had the trees in Leaf so long as this Year: they are only just
rusty before my window, this Nov. 8. So I thought they would die of mere
Old Age: but last night came a Frost, which will hasten their End. I
suppose yours have been dying in all their Glory as usual.

You must understand that this Letter is to acknowledge the Vita Nuova
(which, by the by, I think ought to be the Title on the Title page as
well as outside), so do not feel obliged to reply, but believe me yours
truly,

E. F. G.

_To Miss Anna Biddell_.

WOODBRIDGE.
_Saturday_, _Nov._ 76.

. . . You spoke once of even trying Walpole's Letters; capital as they
are to me, I can't be sure they would much interest, even if they did not
rather disgust, you: the Man and his Times are such as you might not care
for at all, though there are such men as his, and such Times too, in the
world about us now. If you will have the Book on your return home, I
will send you a three-volume Collection of his Letters: that is, not a
Third part of all his collected Letters: but perhaps the best part, and
quite enough for a Beginning. I can scarce imagine better Christmas
fare: but I can't, I say, guess how you would relish it. N.B. It is not
gross or coarse: but you would not like the man, so satirical, selfish,
and frivolous, you would think. But I think I could show you that he had
a very loving Heart for a few, and a very firm, just, understanding under
all his Wit and Fun. Even Carlyle has admitted that he was about the
clearest-sighted Man of his time.

_To John Allen_.

LOWESTOFT. _Decr._ 9/76.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

It was stupid of me not to tell you that I did not want Contemporary
back. It had been sent me by Tennyson or his son Hallam (for I can't
distinguish their MS. now), that I might see that A. S. Battle fragment:
{206} which is remarkable in its way, I doubt not. I see by the Athenaeum
that A. T. is bringing out another Poem--another Drama, I think--as
indeed he hinted to me during his flying visit to Woodbridge. He should
rest on his Oars, or ship them for good now, I think: and I was audacious
to tell him as much. But he has so many Worshippers who tell him
otherwise. I think he might have stopped after 1842, leaving Princesses,
Ardens, Idylls, etc., all unborn; all except The Northern Farmer, which
makes me cry. . . .

I dare say there are many as good, if not better, Arctic accounts than
'Under the Northern Lights,' but it was pleasant as read out to me by the
rather intelligent Lad who now serves me with Eyes for two hours of a
Night at Woodbridge. . . . I am, you see at old Quarters: but am soon
returning to Woodbridge to make some Christmas Arrangements. Will Peace
and Good Will be our Song this year? Pray that it be so.

_To Miss Thackeray_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_Decr._ 12, 1876.

DEAR ANNIE THACKERAY,

Messrs. Smith and Elder very politely gave me leave to print, and may be
publish, three Stanzas of your Father's 'Ho, pretty Page,' adapted (under
proper direction) to an old Cambridge Tune, which he and I have sung
together, tho' not to these fine Words, as you may guess. I asked this
of Messrs. Smith and Elder, because I thought they had the Copyright. But
I did not mean to publish them unless with your Approval: only to print a
few Copies for friends. And I will stop even that, if you don't choose.
Please to tell me in half a dozen words as directly as you can.

The Words, you know, are so delightful (stanzas one, two, and the last),
and the old Tune of 'Troll, troll, the bonny brown Bowl' so pretty, and
(with some addition) so appropriate, I think, that I fancied others
beside Friends might like to have them together. But, if you don't
approve, the whole thing shall be quashed. Which I ought to have asked
before: but I thought your Publishers' sanction might include yours.
Please, I say, to say Yes or No as soon as you can.

I have been reading the two Series of 'Hours in a Library' with real
delight. Some of them I had read before in Cornhill, but all together
now: delighted, I say, to find all I can so heartily concur and believe
in put into a shape that I could not have wrought out for myself. I
think I could have suggested a very little about Crabbe, in whom I am
very much up: and one word about Clarissa. {208} But God send me many
more Hours in a Library in which I may shut myself up from this accursed
East among other things.

_To C. E. Norton_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_Dec._ 22/76.
[Post mark _Dec._ 21.]

MY DEAR SIR,

. . . In the last Atlantic Monthly was, as you know, an Ode by Mr.
Lowell; lofty in Thought and Expression: too uniformly lofty, I think,
for Ode. Do you, would Mr. Lowell, agree? I should not say so, did I
not admire the work very much. You are very good to speak of sending me
his new Volume: but why should you? My old Athenaeum will tell me of it
here, and I will be sure to get it.

You see --- has come out with another Heroic Poem! And the Athenaeum
talks of it as a Great Work, etc., with (it seems to me) the false Gallop
in all the Quotations. It seems to me strange that ---, ---, and ---,
should go on pouring out Poem after Poem, as if such haste could prosper
with any but First-rate Men: and I suppose they hardly reckon themselves
with the very First. I feel sure that Gray's Elegy, pieced and patched
together so laboriously, by a Man of almost as little Genius as abundant
Taste, will outlive all these hasty Abortions. And yet there are plenty
of faults in that Elegy too, resulting from the very Elaboration which
yet makes it live. So I think.

I have been reading with real satisfaction, and delight, Mr. L. Stephen's
Hours in a Library: only, as I have told his Sister in law, I should have
liked to put in a word or two for Crabbe. I think I could furnish L. S.
with many Epigrams, of a very subtle sort, from Crabbe: and several
paragraphs, if not pages, of comic humour as light as Moliere. Both
which L. S. seems to doubt in what he calls 'our excellent Crabbe,' who
was not so 'excellent' (in the goody sense) as L. S. seems to intimate.
But then Crabbe is my Great Gun. He will outlive ---, --- and Co. in
spite of his Carelessness. So think I again.

His Son, Vicar of a Parish near here, and very like the Father in face,
was a great Friend of mine. He detested Poetry (sc. verse), and I
believe had never read his Father through till some twenty years ago when
I lent him the Book. Yet I used to tell him he threw out sparks now and
then. As one day when we were talking of some Squires who cut down Trees
(which all magnanimous Men respect and love), my old Vicar cried out 'How
_scan_dalously they misuse the Globe!' He was a very noble, courageous,
generous Man, and worshipped his Father in his way. I always thought I
could hear this Son in that fine passage which closes the Tales of the
Hall, when the Elder Brother surprises the Younger by the gift of that
House and Domain which are to keep them close Neighbours for ever.

Here on that lawn your Boys and Girls shall run,
And gambol, when the daily task is done;
From yonder Window shall their Mother view
The happy tribe, and smile at all they do:
While you, more gravely hiding your Delight,
_Shall cry_--'_O_, _childish_!'--_and enjoy the Sight_.

By way of pendant to this, pray read the concluding lines of the long,
ill-told, Story of 'Smugglers and Poachers.' Or shall I fill up my
Letter with them? This is a sad Picture to match that sunny one.

As men may children at their sports behold,
And smile to see them, tho' unmoved and cold,
Smile at the recollected Games, and then
Depart, and mix in the Affairs of men;
So Rachel looks upon the World, and sees
It can no longer pain, no longer please:
But just detain the passing Thought; just cause
A little smile of Pity, or Applause--
And then the recollected Soul repairs
Her slumbering Hope, and heeds her own Affairs.

I wish some American Publisher would publish my Edition of Tales of the
Hall, edited by means of Scissors and Paste, with a few words of plain
Prose to bridge over whole tracts of bad Verse; not meaning to improve
the original, but to seduce hasty Readers to study it.

What a Letter, my dear Sir! But you encourage me to tattle over the
Atlantic by your not feeling bound to answer. You are a busy man, and I
quite an idle one, but yours sincerely,

E. FITZGERALD.

Carlyle's Niece writes me that he is 'fairly well.'

Ecce iterum! That mention of Crabbe reminds me of meeting two American
Gentlemen at an Inn in Lichfield, some thirty years ago. One of them was
unwell, or feeble, and the other tended him very tenderly: and both were
very gentlemanly and well-read. They had come to see the English
Cathedrals, and spoke together (it was in the common Room) of Places and
Names I knew very well. So that I took the Liberty of telling them
something of some matters they were speaking of. Among others, this very
Crabbe: and I told them, if ever they came Suffolk way, I would introduce
them to the Poet's son. I suppose I gave them my Address: but I had to
go away next morning before they were down: and never heard of them
again.

I sometimes wonder if this eternal Crabbe is relished in America (I am
not looking to my Edition, which would be a hopeless loss anywhere): he
certainly is little read in his own Country. And I fancy America likes
more abstract matter than Crabbe's homespun. Excuse AEtat. 68.

Yes, 'Gillies arise! etc.' But I remember one who used to say he never
got farther with another of the Daddy's Sonnets than--

Clarkson! It was an obstinate hill to climb, etc.

English Sonnets, like English Terza Rima, want, I think, the double
rhyme.

_To S. Laurence_.

WOODBRIDGE. _Jan._ 15/77.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

Then I sent you the Greek instead of the Persian whom you asked for? The
two are the same size and binding: so of course I sent the wrong one. But
I will send the right one directly: and you need not make a trouble of
acknowledging it: I know you will thank me, and I think you will feel a
sort of 'triste Plaisir' in it, as others beside myself have felt. It is
a desperate sort of thing, unfortunately at the bottom of all thinking
men's minds; but made Music of. . . . I shall soon be going to old ugly
Lowestoft again to be with Nephews and Nieces. The Great Man . . . is
yet there: commanding a Crew of those who prefer being his Men to having
command of their own. And they are right; for the man is Royal, tho'
with the faults of ancient Vikings. . . . His Glory is somewhat marred;
but he looks every inch a King in his Lugger now. At home (when he is
there, and not at the Tavern) he sits among his Dogs, Cats, Birds, etc.,
always with a great Dog following abroad, and aboard. This is altogether
the Greatest Man I have known.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE. _February_ 1/77.

MY DEAR SIR,

I really only write now to prevent your doing so in acknowledgment of
Thackeray's Song {213} which I sent you, and you perhaps knew the
handwriting of the Address. Pray don't write about such a thing, so soon
after the very kind Letter I have just had from you. Why I sent you the
Song I can hardly tell, not knowing if you care for Thackeray or Music:
but that must be as it is; only, do not, pray, write expressly about it.

The Song is what it pretends to be: the words speak for themselves; very
beautiful, I think: the Tune is one which Thackeray and I knew at
College, belonging to some rather free Cavalier words,

Troll, troll, the bonny brown Bowl,

with four bars interpolated to let in the Page. I have so sung it
(without a Voice) to myself these dozen years, since his Death, and so I
have got the words decently arranged, in case others should like them as
well as myself. Voila tout!

I thought, after I had written my last, that I ought not to have said
anything of an American Publisher of Crabbe, as it might (as it has done)
set you on thinking how to provide one for me. I spoke of America,
knowing that no one in England would do such a thing, and not knowing if
Crabbe were more read in your Country than in his own. Some years ago I
got some one to ask Murray if he would publish a Selection from all
Crabbe's Poems: as has been done of Wordsworth and others. But Murray
(to whom Crabbe's collected Works have always been a loss) would not
meddle. . . . You shall one day see my 'Tales of the Hall,' when I can
get it decently arranged, and written out (what is to be written), and
then you shall judge of what chance it has of success. I want neither
any profit, whether of money, or reputation: I only want to have Crabbe
read more than he is. Women and young People never will like him, I
think: but I believe every thinking man will like him more as he grows
older; see if this be not so with yourself and your friends. Your
Mother's Recollection of him is, I am sure, the just one: Crabbe never
showed himself in Company, unless to a very close and experienced
observer: his Company manner was exactly the reverse of his Books:
almost, as Moore says, '_doucereux_'; the apologetic politeness of the
old School over-done, as by one who was not born to it. But Campbell
observed his 'shrewd Vigilance' awake under all his 'politesse,' and John
Murray said that Crabbe said uncommon things in so common a way that they
escaped recognition. It appears, I think, that he not only said, but
wrote, such things: even to such Readers as Mr. Stephen; who can see very
little Humour, and no Epigram, in him. I will engage to find plenty of
both. I think Mr. Stephen could hardly have read the later Books: viz.,
Tales of the Hall, and the Posthumous Poems: which, though careless and
incomplete, contain Crabbe's most mature Self, I think. Enough of him
for the present: and altogether enough, unless I wish to become a
'seccatore' by my repeated, long, letters. . . .

Mr. Lowell was good enough to send me his Odes, and I have written to
acknowledge them with many thanks and a few observations, not meant to
instruct such a Man, but just to show that I had read with Attention, as
I did. I think I had much the same to say of them as I said to you: and
so I won't say it again. I think it is a mistake to rely on the reading,
or recitation, for an Effect which ought to speak for itself in any
capable Reader's Head. Tennyson, with the grand Voice he had (I fancy it
is somewhat weakened now) could make sonorous music of such a beginning
to an Ode as

Bury the Great Duke!

The Thought is simple and massy enough: but where is a Vowel? Dryden
opened better:

'Twas at the royal Feast o'er Persia won.

But Mr. Lowell's Odes, which do not fail in the Vowel, are noble in
Thought, with a good Organ roll in the music, which perhaps he thinks
more fitted to Subject and occasion.

_To Mrs. Cowell_.

12 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT.
_March_ 11/77.

. . . I scarce like your taking any pains about my Works, whether in
Verse, Prose, or Music. I never see any Paper but my old Athenaeum,
which, by the way, now tells me of some Lady's Edition of Omar which is
to discover all my Errors and Perversions. So this will very likely turn
the little Wind that blew my little Skiff on. Or the Critic who
incautiously helped that may avenge himself on Agamemnon King, as he
pleases. If the Pall Mall Critic knew Greek, I am rather surprised he
should have vouchsafed even so much praise as the words you quoted. But
I certainly have found that those few whom I meant it for, not Greek
scholars, have been more interested in it than I expected. Not you, I
think, who, though you judge only too favourably of all I do, are not
fond of such Subjects.

I have here two Volumes of my dear Sevigne's Letters lately discovered at
Dijon; and I am writing out for my own use a Dictionary of the Dramatis
Persons figuring in her Correspondence, whom I am always forgetting and
confounding.

* * * * *

In May 1877 his old boatman West died and FitzGerald wrote to Professor
Cowell, 'I have not had heart to go on our river since the death of my
old Companion West, with whom I had traversed reach after reach for these
dozen years. I am almost as averse to them now as Peter Grimes. {217} So
now I content myself with the River Side.'

_To W. A. Wright_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_June_ 23/77.

MY DEAR WRIGHT,

. . . I have been regaling myself, in my unscholarly way, with Mr.
Munro's admirable Lucretius. Surely, it must be one of the most
admirable Editions of a Classic ever made! I don't understand the Latin
punctuation, but I dare say there is good reason for it. The English
Translation reads very fine to me: I think I should have thought so
independent of the original: all except the dry theoretic System, which I
must say I do all but skip in the Latin. Yet I venerate the earnestness
of the man, and the power with which he makes some music even from his
hardest Atoms; a very different Didactic from Virgil, whose Georgics,
_quoad_ Georgics, are what every man, woman, and child, must have known;
but, his Teaching apart, no one loves him better than I do. I forget if
Lucretius is in Dante: he should have been the Guide thro' Hell: but
perhaps he was too deep in it to get out for a Holiday. That is a very
noble Poussin Landscape, v. 1370-8 'Inque dies magis, etc.'

I had always observed that mournful '_Nequicquam_' which comes to throw
cold water on us after a little glow of Hope. When Tennyson went with me
to Harwich, I was pointing out an old Collier rolling by to the tune of

Trudit agens magnam magno molimine navem. [iv. 902.]

That word '_Magnus_' rules in Lucretius as much as 'Nequicquam.' I was
rejoiced to meet Tennyson quoted in the notes too, and my old Montaigne
who discourses so on the text of

Pascit amore avidos inhians in te, Dea, visus. [i. 36.]

Ask Mr. Munro, when he reprints, to quote old Montaigne's Version of

Nam verae voces tum demum, etc. [iii. 57.]

'A ce dernier rolle de la Mort, et de nous, il n'y a plus que feindre, il
faut parler Francais; il faut montrer ce qu'il y a de bon et de net dans
le fond du pot.' {219a} And tell him (damn my impudence!) I don't like
my old Fathers '_dancing_' under the yellow and ferruginous awnings.
{219b} . . .

There is a coincidence with Bacon in verses 1026-9 of Book II.
(Lucretius, I mean).

_To John Allen_.

MY DEAR ARCHDEACON,

I have little else to send you in reply to your letter (which I believe
however was in reply to one of mine) except the enclosed from Notes and
Queries: which I think you will like to read, and to return to me.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20