Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes
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Edward FitzGerald >> Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes
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Well, I went again, as I say, to Cambridge a month ago; not in my way to
Naseby, but to my friend George Crabbe's (Grandson of my Poet) in
Norfolk. I went because it was Vacation time, and no one I knew up
except Cowell and Aldis Wright. Cowell, married, lives in pleasant
lodging with trees before and behind, on the skirts of the town; Wright,
in 'Neville's Court,' one side of which is the Library, all of Wren's
design, and (I think) very good. I felt at home in the rooms there,
walled with Books, large, and cool: and I was lionized over some things
new to me, and some that I was glad to see again. Now I am back again,
without any design to move; not even to my old haunts on our neighbouring
Sea-coast. The inland Verdure suits my Eyes better than glowing sand and
pebble: and I suppose that every year I grow less and less desirous of
moving.
I will scarce touch upon the Carlyle Chapter: except to say that I am
sorry Froude printed the Reminiscences; at any rate, printed them before
the Life which he has begun so excellently in the 'Nineteenth Century'
for July. I think one can surely see there that Carlyle might become
somewhat crazed, whether by intense meditation or Dyspepsy or both:
especially as one sees that his dear good Mother was so afflicted. But
how beautiful is the Story of that home, and the Company of Lads
travelling on foot to Edinburgh; and the monies which he sends home for
the paternal farm: and the butter and cheese which the Farm returns to
him. Ah! it is from such training that strength comes, not from
luxurious fare, easy chairs, cigars, Pall Mall Clubs, etc. It has all
made me think of a very little Dialogue {317} I once wrote on the matter,
thirty years ago and more, which I really think of putting into shape
again: and, if I do, will send it to you, by way of picture of what our
Cambridge was in what I think were better days than now. I see the
little tract is overdone and in some respects in bad taste as it is. Now,
do not ask for this, nor mention it as if it were of any importance
whatsoever: it is not, but if pruned, etc., just a pretty thing, which
your Cambridge shall see if I can return to it.
By the by, I had meant to send you an emendation of a passage in my
Tyrannus which you found fault with. I mean where OEdipus, after putting
out his eyes, talks of seeing those in Hades he does not wish to see. I
knew it was not Greek: but I thought that a note would be necessary to
explain what the Greek was: and I confess I do not care enough for their
Mythology for that. But, if you please, the passage (as I remember it)
might run:
Eyes, etc.,
Which, having seen such things, henceforth, he said,
Should never by the light of day behold
Those whom he loved, nor in the after-dark
Of Hades, those he loathed, to look upon.
All this has run me into a third _screed_, you see: a word we used at
School, only calling it '_screet_'--'I say, do lend me a screet of
paper,' meaning, a quarter of a foolscap sheet.
WOODBRIDGE. _Jan._ 18/82.
MY DEAR NORTON,
At last I took heart, and Eyes, to return to the OEdipus of this time
last year; and have left none of your objections unattended to, if not
all complied with. Not but that you may be quite as right in objecting
as I in leaving things as they were: but as I believe I said (right or
wrong) a little obscurity seems to me not amiss in certain places,
provided enough is left clear, I mean in matter of Grammar, etc. But I
see that you have good reason to object in other cases: and, on looking
at the Play again, I also discover more, too many perhaps to have heart
or Eyes to devote to their rectification. The Paper on which the second
Part is printed will not endure Ink, which also daunts me: nevertheless,
I send you a Copy pencilled, rather than references and alterations
written by way of Letter: I hope the least trouble to you of either
Alternative. . . .
I scarcely know what I have written, but I know it must be bad MS.; all
which I ought in good manners to rectify, or re-write. I think you in
America think more of Calligraphy than we here do: a really polite
accomplishment, I always maintain: and yet 'deteriora sequor.' But you
know that my eyes are not very active: and now my hand is less than
usually so, possessed as I am with a Devil of a Chill (in spite, or in
consequence, of warm wet weather) attended with something of Bronchitis,
I think. . . .
I forget if I told you in my last of my surprising communication with the
Spanish Ambassador who sent me the Calderon medal, I doubt not at Mr.
Lowell's instance. But I think I must have told you. Cowell came over
to me here on Monday: he, to whom a Medal is far more due than to me;
always reading, and teaching, Calderon at Cambridge now (as he did to me
thirty years ago), in spite of all his Sanskrit Duties. I wish I could
send him to you across the Atlantic, as easily as Arbuthnot once bid Pope
'toss Johnny Gay' to him over the Thames. Cowell is greatly delighted
with Ford's '_Gatherings in Spain_,' a Supplement to his Spanish
Handbook, and in which he finds, as I did, a supplement to Don Quixote
also. If you have not read, and cannot find, the Book, I will toss it
over the Atlantic to you, a clean new Copy, if that be yet procurable, or
my own second-hand one in default of a new. . . .
_To Mrs. Kemble_.
[_Jan._ 1882.]
I see my poor little Aconites--'New Year's Gifts'--still surviving in the
Garden-plot before my window: 'still surviving,' I say, because of their
having been out for near a month agone. I believe that Messrs. Daffodil,
Crocus and Snowdrop are putting in appearance above ground, but (old
Coward) I have not put my own old Nose out of doors to look for them. I
read (Eyes permitting) the Correspondence between Goethe and Schiller
(translated) from 1798 to 1806, extremely interesting to me, though I do
not understand, and generally skip, the more purely AEsthetic Parts:
which is the Part of Hamlet, I suppose. But in other respects, two such
men so freely discussing together their own, and each other's, works
interest me greatly. At night, we have the Fortunes of Nigel; a little
of it, and not every night: for the reason that I do not wish to eat my
Cake too soon. The last night but one I sent my Reader to see Macbeth
played by a little Shakespearian company at a Lecture Hall here. He
brought me one new Reading; suggested, I doubt not by himself, from a
remembrance of Macbeth's tyrannical ways: 'Hang out our _Gallows_ on the
outward walls.' Nevertheless, the Boy took great Interest in the Play,
and I like to encourage him in Shakespeare rather than in the Negro
Melodists.
_To C. E. Norton_.
WOODBRIDGE. _Jan._ 25/82.
MY DEAR NORTON,
I forgot in my last letter to beg you not to write for the mere purpose
of acknowledging the revised OEdipus who was to travel along with it. You
know that I am glad to hear from you at any time when you are at leisure,
not otherwise; and I shall take for granted that you think my alterations
are improvements, so far as they go. And that is enough.
I herewith enclose you a sort of Choral Epilogue for the second Part,
which you can stick in or not as you will. I cannot say much for it: but
it came together in my head after last writing to you, while I was pacing
up and down a Landing-place in my house, to which I have been confined
for the last ten days by a Bronchial Cold. But for which I should have
been last week in London for the purpose of seeing a very dear old,
coaevally old, Friend, {322} who has been gradually declining in Body and
Mind for the last three years.
Yours always sincerely
LITTLEGRANGE.
_To W. A. Wright_.
_Friday_ [24 _February_ 1882].
MY DEAR WRIGHT,
I went to London this day week: saw my poor Donne (rather better than I
had expected to find him--but all declining) three times: and came
home--glad to come home!--on Monday. Mrs. Kemble, Edwards (Keene at the
latter Lady's) and my old Nursey friends, all I saw beside, in the human
way, save Streetfarers, Cabmen, etc. The Shops seemed all stale to me:
the only Exhibition I went to (Old Masters) ditto. So I suppose that I
have lost my Appetite for all but dull Woodbridge Life. I have not lost
my Cold--nor all its bronchial symptoms; but may do so--as I get a little
older.
Tennyson was in London, I heard: but in some grand Locality of Eaton
Square; so I did not venture down to him. But a day scarcely passes
without my thinking of him, in one way or other.
Browning told Mrs. Kemble he knew there was 'a grotesque side' to his
Society, etc., but he could not refuse the kind solicitations of his
Friends, Furnivall and Co. Mrs. K. had been asked to join: but declined,
because of her somewhat admiring him; nay, much admiring what he might
have done.
I enclose a note from Keene which appeals to you: I suppose that his
'fastous' means 'festuous,' or what is now called in Music 'Pompous.'
Charles' 'plump bass' is good. {323}
You had a bad cold when last you wrote: so you can tell me, if you
please, that you have shaken it off, as your Seniors cannot so easily do.
Let me know, of course, how the Master is, and give him my Love. Does he
know of Musurus Pasha's Translation of Dante's Inferno into Modern Greek?
I was so much interested in it from the Academy that I bought; and, so
far as I have seen through uncut leaves, do not repent of having done so.
The Academy also announced that an MS. account of Carlyle's Visit to
Ireland in 1849 was in Froude's hands for the Press. As T. C. stayed
some, if not the greater part of his time there at the country house of
my Uncle's Widow, I can only hope that he did not jot down much to offend
her surviving Children. Perhaps not: for they were, and are, all of them
(Mother dead) quite unpretending people, and T. C. himself not then so
savage as after his Wife's death. From Froude no mercy of reticence can
be expected.
You left here Rabisha {324a} and Groome's Book of Tracts {324b}: unless
you will be coming this way before long, I will send them to you.
You did not say whether you would undertake to look over Borrow's Books
and MSS., and I write his Step-daughter to that effect. But I hope you
will find it not inconvenient or unpleasant so to do: and am yours always
LITTLEGRANGE.
My Boy went to Macbeth at our Lecture Hall. What do you say to his
reading 'Hang out our Gallows on the outward Walls'?
_To H. Schutz Wilson_.
[1 _March_, 1882.]
MY DEAR SIR,
I must thank you sincerely for your thoughts about Salaman, in which I
recognize a good will toward the Translator, as well as liking for his
work.
Of course your praise could not but help that on: but I scarce think that
it is of a kind to profit so far by any review as to make it worth the
expense of Time and Talent you might bestow upon it. In Omar's case it
was different: he sang, in an acceptable way it seems, of what all men
feel in their hearts, but had not had exprest in verse before: Jami tells
of what everybody knows, under cover of a not very skilful Allegory. I
have undoubtedly improved the whole by boiling it down to about a Quarter
of its original size; and there are many pretty things in it, though the
blank Verse is too Miltonic for Oriental style.
All this considered, why did I ever meddle with it? Why, it was the
first Persian Poem I read, with my friend Edward Cowell, near on forty
years ago: and I was so well pleased with it then (and now think it
almost the best of the Persian Poems I have read or heard about), that I
published my Version of it in 1856 (I think) with Parker of the Strand.
When Parker disappeared, my unsold Copies, many more than of the sold,
were returned to me; some of which, if not all, I gave to little
Quaritch, who, I believe, trumpeted them off to some little profit: and I
thought no more of them.
But some six or seven years ago that Sheikh of mine, Edward Cowell, who
liked the Version better than any one else, wished it to be reprinted. So
I took it in hand, boiled it down to three-fourths of what it originally
was, and (as you see) clapt it on the back of Omar, where I still
believed it would hang somewhat of a dead weight; but that was Quaritch's
look-out, not mine. I have never heard of any notice taken of it, but
just now from you: and I believe that, say what you would, people would
rather have the old Sinner alone. Therefore it is that I write all this
to you. I doubt not that any of your Editors would accept an Article
from you on the Subject, but I believe also they would much prefer one on
many another Subject: and so probably with the Public whom you write for.
Thus 'liberavi animam meam' for your behoof, as I am rightly bound to do
in return for your Goodwill to me.
As to the publication of my name, I believe I could well dispense with
it, were it other and better than it is. But I have some unpleasant
associations with it: not the least of them being that it was borne,
Christian and Surname, by a man who left College just when I went there.
{326} . . . What has become of him I know not: but he, among other
causes, has made me dislike my name, and made me sign myself (half in
fun, of course), to my friends, as now I do to you, sincerely yours
(THE LAIRD OF) LITTLEGRANGE,
where I date from.
_To C. E. Norton_.
_March_ 7, [1882].
MY DEAR NORTON,
You will receive by Post a volume of Translation of Dante's Inferno by
Musurus Pasha into Modern Greek. I was so much interested in a quotation
from it in our 'Academy' that I bought it for myself, and subsequently
thought that a copy might be acceptable to you, loving both Greek and
Dante as you do. Had not I bidden the London Publishers to send it
direct to you, I should have written your name and my own on the
fly-leaf. But you can do this for us both.
I have not as yet read much of it: for my Eyes are impatient of the Greek
letter; but the Language comes out before me as the worthiest
representative of the Italian: provided it be pronounced as we have
learned to pronounce it, not as the modern Greek man is said to do. I
always maintain that a Language is apt to sound better from a Foreigner,
who idealises the pronunciation. As to the structure of the language, I
doubt that I may prefer the modern to the ancient because of being
cleared of many [Greek text], etc., particles. I think I shall send a
Copy to Professor Goodwin. This is nearly all that I have to send across
the Atlantic to-day, which reminds me that I have just been quoting (in a
little thing {327} I may send you),
The fleecy Star that bears
Andromeda far off Atlantic Seas.
What a Line!
. . . It is, I think, worth your while to look at Dean Stanley's Volume
of Bishop Thirlwall's Letters; nay, even Dean Perowne's earlier volume,
if but to show how the pedantic Boy grew into the large-hearted Man, and
even Bishop: but, from the first, always sincere, just, and not
pretentious. I remember him at Cambridge: he, Fellow and Tutor, and I
undergraduate: and he took a little fancy to me, I think.
_To Hallam Tennyson_. {328}
WOODBRIDGE. _May_ 28 [1882].
MY DEAR HALLAM,
I believe I ought to be ashamed of reviving the little thing which
accompanies this Letter. My excuse must be that I have often been askt
for a copy when I had no more to give; and a visit to Cambridge last
summer, to the old familiar places, if not faces, made me take it up once
more and turn it into what you now see. I should certainly not send a
copy to you, or yours, but for what relates to your Father in it. He did
not object, so far as I know, to what I said of him, though not by name,
in a former Edition; but there is more of him in this, though still not
by name, nor, as you see, intended for Publication. All of this you can
read to him, if you please, at pp. 25 and 56. I do not ask him to say
that he approves of what is said, or meant to be said, in his honour; and
I only ask you to tell me if he disapproves of its going any further. I
owed you a letter in return for the kind one you sent me; and, if I do
not hear from you to the contrary, I shall take silence, if not for
consent, at least not for prohibition. I really did, and do, wish my
first, which is also my last, little work to record, for a few years at
least, my love and admiration of that dear old Fellow, my old Friend.
_To C. E. Norton_.
WOODBRIDGE. _June_ 9/82.
MY DEAR NORTON,
I told you, I think, but I scarce know when, that I would send you a very
little Tract of mine written forty years ago; and reformed into its
present shape in consequence of copies being askt for when I had none to
give. So a few days at Cambridge last Summer, among the old places,
though not faces, set me off. 'Et voila qui est fait,' and posted to you
along with this Letter, together with a Copy for Professor Goodwin. The
first and last of my little works: and I do think a pretty specimen of
'chisell'd Cherry-stone.' Having which opinion myself, I more than ever
deprecate any word of praise from any to whom I send it. Nay, I even
assume beforehand that you will like it too: and Professor Goodwin also
(so do not let him write): as my little tribute to my own old Cambridge
sent to you in your new. I think I shall send it to Mr. Lowell too. So
you see that I need no compliment, no, nor even acknowledgment of it. . . .
And now here is enough written. And yet I will enclose some pretty
Verses, {330a} some twenty years old, which I sent to 'Temple Bar,' which
repaid me (as I deserved) with a dozen copies. And I am always truly
yours
LITTLEGRANGE THE LAIRD.
Longfellow and Emerson! {330b}
WOODBRIDGE. _July_ 13/82.
MY DEAR NORTON,
Here is a speedy reply to your kind Letter. For I wish to say at once
that when Froude has done what he wants with my Carlyle Papers, you shall
have them to do the like. He thought (as I anticipated) that he could
use but two or three of the Letters, as you will also guess from the
scheme and compass of his Biography, as given in the Letter which I
enclose along with this; but, as I bade him use what he saw good, and
keep the Papers as long as convenient to him, I cannot as yet ask him,
how much, nor how long. When I think I may properly do so, I will: and
shall be very glad that you should have them under like conditions. You
know that they chiefly concern Naseby, which might do for an Episode, or
separate Item, in your Book, though not for Froude's; I should also think
the Letters about that Squire business would be well to clear somewhat
up: but that can scarcely be done unless by vindicating Squire's honesty
at the expense of his sanity: and, as I have no reason to suppose but he
is yet alive, I know not how this can be decently done. Froude says he
cannot see his way into the truth further than Carlyle's printed Article
on the subject goes: but I think Carlyle must have told him his
conviction (whatever it was) some time during their long acquaintance.
Perhaps, however, he was too sick of what he thought an unimportant
controversy to endure any more talk about it. I am convinced, as from
the first, that Squire's story was true; and the fragments of Cromwell's
despatches genuine, though (as Critics pointed out) partially misquoted
by a scatter-brained fellow, ignorant of the subject, and of the Writer.
_To Mrs. Kemble_.
[_August_ 1882].
MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
I have let the Full Moon go by, and very well she looked too, over the
Sea by which I am now staying. Not at Lowestoft; but at the old
extinguished Borough of Aldeburgh, to which as to other 'premiers Amours'
I revert: where more than sixty years ago I first saw, and first felt,
the Sea; where I have lodged in half the houses since; and where I have a
sort of traditional acquaintance with half the population: Clare Cottage
is where I write from; two little rooms, enough for me; a poor civil
woman pleased to have me in them. . . .
The Carlyle 'Reminiscences' had long indisposed me from taking up the
Biography. But when I began, and as I went on with that, I found it one
of the most interesting of Books: and the result is that I not only
admire and respect Carlyle more than ever I did: but even love him, which
I never thought of before. For he loved his Family, as well as for so
long helped to maintain them out of very slender earnings of his own;
and, so far as these two volumes show me, he loved his wife also, while
he put her to the work which he had been used to see his own Mother and
Sisters fulfil, and which was suitable to the way of Life which he had
been used to. His indifference to her sufferings seems to me rather
because of Blindness than Neglect; and I think his Biographer has been a
little too hard upon him on the Score of selfish disregard of her.
ALDEBURGH. _Sept._ 1. [1882].
MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
Still by the Sea, from which I saw The Harvest Moon rise for her three
nights' Fullness. And to-day is so wet that I shall try and pay you my
plenilunal due, not much to your satisfaction; for the Wet really gets
into one's Brain and Spirits, and I have as little to write of as ever
any Full Moon ever brought me. And yet, if I accomplish my letter, and
'take it to the Barber's' where I sadly want to go, and after being
wrought on by him, post my letter, why, you will, by your Laws, be
obliged to answer it. Perhaps you may have a little to tell me of
yourself in requital for the very little you have to hear of me.
I have made a new Acquaintance here. Professor Fawcett (Postmaster
General, I am told) married a daughter of one Newson Garrett of this
Place, who is also Father of your Doctor Anderson. Well, the Professor
(who was utterly blinded by the Discharge of his Father's Gun some twenty
or five and twenty years ago) came to this Lodging to call on Aldis
Wright; and, when Wright was gone, called on me, and also came and smoked
a Pipe one night here. A thoroughly unaffected, unpretending, man: so
modest indeed that I was ashamed afterwards to think how I had harangued
him all the Evening, instead of getting him to instruct me. But I would
not ask him about his Parliamentary Shop: and I should not have
understood his Political Economy: and I believe he was very glad to be
talked to instead, about some of those he knew, and some whom I had
known. And, as we were both in Crabbe's Borough, we talked of him: the
Professor, who had never read a word, I believe, about him, or of him,
was pleased to hear a little; and I advised him to buy the Life written
by Crabbe's Son; and I would give him my abstract of the Tales of the
Hall, by way of giving him a taste of the Poet's self.
Yes; you must read Froude's Carlyle above all things, and tell me if you
do not feel as I do about it. . . . I regret that I did not know what
the Book tells us while Carlyle was alive; that I might have loved him as
well as admired him. But Carlyle never spoke of himself in that way. I
never heard him advert to his Works and his Fame, except one day he
happened to mention 'About the time when Men began to talk of me.'
WOODBRIDGE. _Oct._ 17, [1882].
MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
I suppose that you are returned from the Loire by this time; but as I am
not sure that you have returned to the 'Hotel des Deux Mondes' whence you
dated your last, I make bold once more to trouble Coutts with adding your
Address to my Letter. I think I shall have it from yourself not long
after. I shall like to hear a word about my old France, dear to me from
childish associations, and in particular of the Loire, endeared to me by
Sevigne; for I never saw the glimmer of its waters myself. . . .
It seems to me (but I believe it seems so every year) that our trees keep
their leaves very long; I suppose, because of no severe frosts or winds
up to this time. And my garden still shows some Geranium, Salvia,
Nasturtium, Great Convolvulus, and that grand African Marigold whose
Colour is so comfortable to us Spanish-like Paddies. I have also a dear
Oleander which even now has a score of blossoms on it, and touches the
top of my little Green-house; having been sent me when 'haut comme ca,'
as Marquis Somebody used to say in the days of Louis XIV. Don't you love
the Oleander? So clean in its leaves and stem, as so beautiful in its
flower; loving to stand in water which it drinks up so fast. I rather
worship mine.
_To W. F. Pollock_.
WOODBRIDGE. _October_ 20/82.
MY DEAR POLLOCK,
Pray let me hear how you and yours are after your Summer Holyday. I have
been no further for mine than Aldeburgh, an hour's Rail distance from
here: there I got out boating, etc., and I think became the more hearty
in consequence: but my Bosom friend Bronchitis puts in a reminder every
now and then, and, I suppose, will come out of his Closet, or Chest, when
Winter sets in. . . .
When I was at Aldeburgh, Professor Fawcett . . . came to see Aldis Wright
who was with me there for a Day. When Wright was gone, the Professor
came to smoke a Pipe (in his case a Cigar) with me. What a brave,
unpretending Fellow! I should never have guessed that a notable man in
any way. 'Brave' too I say because of his cheerful Blindness; for which
I should never have forgiven my Father and his Gun. To see him stalking
along the Beach, regardless of Pebble and Boulder, though with some one
by his side to prevent his going quite to Sea! He was on the Eve of
starting for Scotland--to fish--in the dear Tweed, I think; though he
scarce seemed to know much of Sir Walter.
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