Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes

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There is a pretty story, which seems as if it really happened (p. 201 of
De Tassy's Translation, referring to v. 3581 of the original), of the Boy
falling into a well, and on being taken out senseless, the Father asking
him to say but a word; and then, but one word more: which the Boy says
and dies. And at p. 256, Translation (v. 4620), I read, 'Lorsque Nizam
ul-mulk fut a l'agonie, il dit: "O mon Dieu, je m'en vais entre les mains
du vent."' Here is our Omar in his Friend's mouth, is it not?

I have come here to wind up accounts for our Herring-lugger: much against
us, as the season has been a bad one. My dear Captain, who looks in his
Cottage like King Alfred in the Story, was rather saddened by all this,
as he had prophesied better things. I tell him that if he is but what I
think him--and surely my sixty years of considering men will not so
deceive me at last!--I would rather lose money with him than gain it with
others. Indeed I never proposed Gain, as you may imagine: but only to
have some Interest with this dear Fellow. Happy New Year to you Both!

I wish you would have Semelet's Gulistan which I have. You know I never
cared for Sadi.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_Jan_: 9/68.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

I saw advertised in my old Athenaeum a Review {102} of Richardson's
Novels in the January Cornhill. So I bought it: and began to think you
might have written it: but was not so assured as I went on. It is
however very good, in my opinion, whoever did it: though I don't think it
does all justice to the interminable Original. When the Writer talks of
Grandison and Clarissa being the two Characters--oh, Lovelace himself
should have made the third: if unnatural (as the Reviewer says), yet not
the less wonderful: quite beyond and above anything in Fielding. Whether
you wrote the article or not, I know you are one of the few who have read
the Book. The Reviewer admits that it might be abridged; I am convinced
of that, and have done it for my own satisfaction: but you thought this
was not to be done. So here is internal proof that you didn't write what
Thackeray used to call the '_Hurticle_,' or that you have changed your
mind on that score. But you haven't. But I know better, Lord bless you:
and am sure I could (with a pair of Scissors) launch old Richardson
again: we shouldn't go off the stocks easy (pardon nautical metaphors),
but stick by the way, amid the jeers of Reviewers who had never read the
original: but we should float at last. Only I don't want to spend a lot
of money to be hooted at, without having time to wait for the floating.

I have spent lots of money on my Herring-lugger, which has made but a
poor Season. So now we are going (like wise men) to lay out a lot more
for Mackerel; and my Captain (a dear Fellow) is got ill, which is much
worst of all: so hey for 1868! Which is wishing you better luck next
time, Sir, etc.

Spedding at last found and sent me his delightful little Paper about
Twelfth Night. I was glad to be set right about Viola: but I think he
makes too much of the whole play, 'finest of Comedies,' etc. It seems to
me quite a light, slight, sketch--for Twelfth Night--What you will, etc.
What else does the Name mean? Have I uttered these Impieties! No more!
Nameless as shameless.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

WOODBRIDGE: _May_ 28/68.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I was just about to post you your own Calcutta Review when your Letter
came, asking about some Euphranors. Oh yes! I have a Lot of them:
returned from Parker's when they were going to dissolve their House; I
would not be at the Bother of any further negociation with any other
Bookseller, about half a dozen little Books which so few wanted: so had
them all sent here. I will therefore send you six copies. I had
supposed that you didn't like the second Edition so well as the first:
and had a suspicion myself that, though I improved it in some respects, I
had done more harm than good: and so I have never had courage to look
into it since I sent it to you at Oxford. Perhaps Tennyson {104} only
praised the first Edition and I don't know where to lay my hands on that.
I wonder he should have thought twice about it. Not but I think the
Truth is told: only, a Truth every one knows! And told in a shape of
Dialogue really something Platonic: but I doubt rather affectedly too.
However, such as it is, I send it you. I remember being anxious about it
twenty years ago, because I thought it was the Truth (as if my telling it
could mend the matter!): and I cannot but think that the Generation that
has grown up in these twenty years has not profited by the Fifty Thousand
Copies of this great work!

I am sorry to trouble you about Macmillan; I should not have done so had
I kept my Copy with your corrections as well as my own. As Lamb said of
himself, so I say; that I never had any Luck with printing: I certainly
don't mean that I have had much cause to complain: but, for instance, I
know that Livy and Napier, put into good Verse, are just worth a corner
in one of the swarm of Shilling Monthlies. {105}

'Locksley Hall' is far more like Lucretius than the last Verses put into
his mouth by A. T. But, once get a Name in England, and you may do
anything. But I dare say that wise men too, like Spedding, will be of
the same mind with the Times Critic. (I have not seen him.) What does
Thompson say? You, I, and John Allen, are among the few, I do say, who,
having a good natural Insight, maintain it undimmed by public, or
private, Regards.

P.S. Having consulted my Landlord, I find that I can pay carriage all
through to Cambridge. Therefore it is that I send you, not only your own
Book, and my own, but also one of the genteel copies of Boswell's
Johnson; and Wesley's Journal: both of which I gave you, only never sent!
Now they shall go. Wesley, you will find pleasant to dip into, I think:
of course, there is much sameness; and I think you will allow some
absurdity among so much wise and good. I am almost sorry that I have not
noted down on the fly-leaf some of the more remarkable Entries, as I have
in my own Copy. If you have not read the little Autobiography of
Wesley's Disciple, John Nelson, give a shilling for it. It seems to me
something wonderful to read these Books, written in a Style that cannot
alter, because natural; while the Model Writers, Addison, Johnson, etc.,
have had their Day. Dryden holds, I think: he did not set up for a Model
Prose man. Sir T. Browne's Style is natural to him, one feels.

FELIXTOW FERRY: _July_ 25 [1868.]

MY DEAR COWELL,

I found your Letter on reaching Woodbridge yesterday; where you see I did
not stay long. In fact I only left Lowestoft partly to avoid a Volunteer
Camp there which filled the Town with People and Bustle: and partly that
my Captain might see his Wife: who cannot last _very_ much longer I
think: scarcely through Autumn, surely. She goes about, nurses her
children, etc., but grows visibly thinner, weaker, and more ailing.

If the Wind changes (now directly in our Teeth) I shall sail back to
Lowestoft to-morrow. Thompson and Mrs. T. propose to be at the Royal
Hotel there till Wednesday, and we wish, I believe, to see each other
again. Sailing did not agree with his bilious temperament: and he seemed
to me injudicious in his hours of Exercise, Dinner, etc. But he, and
she, should know best. I like her very much: head and heart right
feminine of the best, it seemed to me: and her experience of the World,
and the Wits, not having injured either.

I only wanted Macmillan to return the Verses {107} if he wouldn't use
them, because of my having no corrected Copy of them.

I see in the last Athenaeum a new '_and revised_' Edition of Clarissa
advertised. I suppose this 'revised' does not mean 'abridged,' without
which the Book will _not_ permanently make way, as I believe. That, you
know, I wanted to do: could do: and nearly have done;--But that, and my
Crabbe, I must leave for my Executors and Heirs to consign to
Lumber-room, or fire.

Pray let me hear of your movements, especially such as tend hitherward.
About September--Alas!--I think we shall be a good Deal here, or at
Woodbridge; probably not so much before that time.

Ever yours and Lady's, E. F. G.

WOODBRIDGE: _March_ 1/69.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . My Lugger Captain has just left me to go on his Mackerel Voyage to
the Western Coast; and I don't know when I shall see him again. Just
after he went, a muffled bell from the Church here began to toll for
somebody's death: it sounded like a Bell under the sea. He sat listening
to the Hymn played by the Church chimes last evening, and said he could
hear it all as if in Lowestoft Church when he was a Boy, 'Jesus our
Deliverer!' You can't think what a grand, tender, Soul this is, lodged
in a suitable carcase.

_To Mrs. W. H. Thompson_.

[1869.]

DEAR MRS. THOMPSON,

(I must get a new Pen for you--which doesn't promise to act as well as
the old one--Try another.)

Dear Mrs. Thompson--Mistress of Trinity--(this does better)--

I am both sorry, and glad, that you wrote me the Letter you have written
to me: sorry, because I think it was an effort to you, disabled as you
are; and glad, I need not say why.

I despatched Spedding's letter to your Master yesterday; I daresay you
have read it: for there was nothing extraordinary wicked in it. But, he
to talk of _my_ perversity! . . .

My Sir Joshua is a darling. A pretty young Woman ('Girl' I won't call
her) sitting with a turtle-dove in her lap, while its mate is supposed to
be flying down to it from the window. I say 'supposed,' for Sir J. who
didn't know much of the drawing of Birds, any more than of Men and Women,
has made a thing like a stuffed Bird clawing down like a Parrot. But
then, the Colour, the Dove-colour, subdued so as to carry off the richer
tints of the dear Girl's dress; and she, too, pensive, not sentimental: a
Lady, as her Painter was a Gentleman. Faded as it is in the face (the
Lake, which he would use, having partially flown), it is one of the most
beautiful things of his I have seen: more varied in colour; not the
simple cream-white dress he was fond of, but with a light gold-threaded
Scarf, a blue sash, a green chair, etc. . . .

I was rather taken aback by the Master's having discovered my last--yes,
and bona-fide my last--translation in the volume I sent to your Library.
I thought it would slip in unobserved, and I should have given all my
little contributions to my old College, without after-reckoning. Had I
known you as the Wife of any but the 'quondam' Greek Professor, I should
very likely have sent it to you: since it was meant for those who might
wish for some insight into a Play {109} which I must think they can
scarcely have been tempted into before by any previous Translation. It
remains to be much better done; but if Women of Sense and Taste, and Men
of Sense and Taste (who don't know Greek) can read, and be interested in
such a glimpse as I give them of the Original, they must be content, and
not look the Horse too close in the mouth, till a better comes to hand.

My Lugger has had (along with her neighbours) such a Season hitherto of
Winds as no one remembers. We made 450 pounds in the North Sea; and
(just for fun) I did wish to realize 5 pounds in my Pocket. But my
Captain would take it all to pay Bills. But if he makes another 400
pounds this Home Voyage! Oh, then we shall have money in our Pockets. I
do wish this. For the anxiety about all these People's lives has been so
much more to me than all the amusement I have got from the Business, that
I think I will draw out of it if I can see my Captain sufficiently firm
on his legs to carry it on alone. True, there will then be the same risk
to him and his ten men, but they don't care; only I sit here listening to
the Winds in the Chimney, and always thinking of the Eleven hanging at my
own fingers' ends.

This Letter is all desperately about me and mine, Translations and Ships.
And now I am going to walk in _my_ Garden: and feed _my_ Captain's Pony
with white Carrots; and in the Evening have _my_ Lad come and read for an
hour and a half (he stumbles at every third word, and gets dreadfully
tired, and so do I; but I renovate him with Cake and Sweet Wine), and I
can't just now smoke the Pipe nor drink the Grog. 'These are my
Troubles, Mr. Wesley;' {110} but I am still the Master's and Mistress'
loyal Servant,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

WOODBRIDGE: Tuesday,
[28 _Dec._ 1869.]

MY DEAR COWELL,

Your Letter to day was a real pleasure--nay, a comfort--to me. For I had
begun to think that, for whatever reason, you had dropt me; and I know
not one of all my friends whom I could less afford to lose.

You anticipate rightly all I think of the new Idylls. {111} I had bought
the Book at Lowestoft: and when I returned here for Christmas found that
A. T.'s Publisher had sent me a Copy. As I suppose this was done by A.
T.'s order, I have written to acknowledge the Gift, and to tell him
something, if not all, of what I think of them. I do not tell him that I
think his hand weakened; but I tell him (what is very true) that, though
the main Myth of King Arthur's Dynasty in Britain has a certain Grandeur
in my Eyes, the several legendary fragments of it never did much interest
me; excepting the _Morte_, which I suppose most interested him also, as
he took it up first of all. I am not sure if such a Romance as Arthur's
is not best told in the artless old English in which it was told to
Arthur's artless successors four hundred years ago; or dished up anew in
something of a Ballad Style like his own Lady of Shalott, rather than
elaborated into a modern Epic form. I never cared, however, for _any_
chivalric Epic; neither Tasso, nor Spenser, nor even Ariosto, whose Epic
has a sort of Ballad-humour in it; Don Quixote is the only one of all
this sort I have ever cared for.

I certainly wish that Alfred had devoted his diminished powers to
translating Sophocles, or AEschylus, as I fancy a Poet should do--_one_
work, at any rate--of his great Predecessors. But Pegasus won't be
harnessed.

From which I descend to my own humble feet. I will send you some copies
of Calderon when I have uncloseted and corrected them. As to Agamemnon,
I bound up a Copy of him in the other Translations I sent to Trinity
Library--not very wisely, I doubt; but I thought the Book would just be
put up on its shelf, and I had given all I was asked for, or ever could
be asked for. The Master, however, wrote me that it came to his Eyes,
and I dare say he thought I had best have let AEschylus alone. My
Version was not intended for those who know the Original; but, by hook or
by crook, to interest some who do not. The _Shape_ I have wrought the
Play into is good, I think: the Dialogue good also: but the Choruses
(though well contrived for the progress of the Story) are very false to
AEschylus; and anyhow want the hand of a Poet. Mine, as I said, are only
a sort of 'Entr' acte' Music, which would be better supplied by Music
itself.

I will send you in a day or two my Christmas Gossip for the East Anglian,
where I am more at home. But you have heard me tell it all before.

It is too late to wish you a good Christmas--(I wonder how you passed it,
mine was solitary and dull enough) but you know I wish you all the Good
the New Year can bring. Love to Elizabeth; do not be so long without
writing again, if only half a dozen lines, to yours and hers sincerely,

E. F. G.

_To S. Laurence_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_Jan._ 13/70.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

Can you tell me (in a line) how I should treat some old Pictures of mine
which have somehow got rusty with the mixt damp and then fires (I
suppose) of my new house, which, after being built at near double its
proper cost, is just what I do not want, according to the usage of the
Ballyblunder Family, of which I am a very legitimate offshoot?

If you were down here, I think I should make you take a life-size Oil
Sketch of the Head and Shoulders of my Captain of the Lugger. You see by
the enclosed that these are neither of them of a bad sort: and the Man's
Soul is every way as well proportioned, missing in nothing that may
become A Man, as I believe. He and I will, I doubt, part Company; well
as he likes me, which is perhaps as well as a sailor cares for any one
but Wife and Children: he likes to be, what he is born to be, his own
sole Master, of himself, and of other men. So now I have got him a fair
start, I think he will carry on the Lugger alone: I shall miss my Hobby,
which is no doubt the last I shall ride in this world: but I shall also
get eased of some Anxiety about the lives of a Crew for which I now feel
responsible. And this last has been a Year of great Anxiety in this
respect.

I had to run to London for one day about my Eyes (which, you see by my
MS., are not in prime order at all) and saw a Sir Joshua at a Framer's
window, and brought it down. The face faded, but elegant and lady-like
always; the dress in colour quite Venetian. It was in Leicester Square;
I can't think how all the world of Virtuosos kept passing and would not
give twenty pounds for it. But you don't rate Sir Joshua in comparison
with Gainsboro'.

WOODBRIDGE: _Jan._ 20/70.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . My Captain lives at Lowestoft, and is there at present: he also in
anxiety about his Wife who was brought to bed the very same day my
Landlady died, and (as a letter from him this morning tells me) has a
hard time of it. I should certainly like a large Oil-sketch, like
Thackeray's, done in your most hasty, and worst, style, to hang up with
Thackeray and Tennyson, with whom he shares a certain Grandeur of Soul
and Body. As you guess, the colouring is (when the Man is all well) as
fine as his form: the finest Saxon type: with that complexion which
Montaigne calls 'vif, male, et flamboyant'; blue eyes; and strictly
auburn hair, that any woman might sigh to possess. He says it is coming
off, as it sometimes does from those who are constantly wearing the close
hot Sou'westers. We must see what can be done about a Sketch.

LOWESTOFT, _February_ 27 [1870].

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . I came here a few days ago, for the benefit of my old Doctor, The
Sea, and my Captain's Company, which is as good. He has not yet got his
new Lugger home; but will do so this week, I hope; and then the way for
us will be somewhat clearer.

If you sketch in a head, you might send it down to me to look at, so as I
might be able to guess if there were any likelihood in that way of
proceeding. Merely the Lines of Feature indicated, even by Chalk, might
do. As I told you, the Head is of the large type, or size, the proper
Capital of a six foot Body, of the broad dimensions you see in the
Photograph. The fine shape of the Nose, less than Roman, and more than
Greek, scarce appears in the Photograph; the Eye, and its delicate
Eyelash, of course will remain to be made out; and I think you excel in
the Eye.

When I get home (which I shall do this week) I will send you two little
Papers about the Sea words and Phrases used hereabout, {116a} for which
this Man (quite unconsciously) is my main Authority. You will see in
them a little of his simplicity of Soul; but not the Justice of Thought,
Tenderness of Nature, and all the other good Gifts which make him a
Gentleman of Nature's grandest Type.

SUFFOLK HOTEL, LOWESTOFT, _August_ 2/70.

DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . The Lugger is now preparing in the Harbour beside me; the Captain
here, there, and everywhere; with a word for no one but on business; the
other side of the Man you saw looking for Birds' Nests; all things in
their season. I am sure the Man is fit to be King of a Kingdom as well
as of a Lugger. To-day he gives the customary Dinner to his Crew before
starting, and my own two men go to it; and I am asked too: but will not
spoil the Fun.

I declare, you and I have seen A Man! Have we not? Made in the mould of
what Humanity should be, Body and Soul, a poor Fisherman. The proud
Fellow had better have kept me for a Partner in some of his
responsibilities. {116b} But no; he must rule alone, as is right he
should too.

I date from the Inn where my Letters are addressed; but I write in the
little Ship which I live in. My Nieces are now here; in the town, I
mean; and my friend Cowell and his Wife; so I have more company than all
the rest of the year. I try to shut my Eyes and Ears against all tidings
of this damnable War, seeing that I can do no good to others by
distressing myself.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

BRIDGEWOOD, _Nov._ 1, [1870].

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

I must say that my savageness against France goes no further than wishing
that the new and gay part of Paris were battered down; not the poor
working part, no, nor any of the People destroyed. But I wish ornamental
Paris down, because then I think the French would be kept quiet till they
had rebuilt it. For what would France be without a splendid Palace? I
should not wish any such Catastrophe, however, if Paris were now as I
remember it: with a lot of old historic houses in it, old Gardens, etc.,
which I am told are now made away with. Only Notre Dame, the Tuileries,
and perhaps the beautiful gilt Dome of the Invalides do I care for. They
are historical and beautiful too.

But I believe it would be a good thing if the rest of Europe would take
possession of France itself, and rule it for better or worse, leaving the
French themselves to amuse and enlighten the world by their Books, Plays,
Songs, Bon Mots, and all the Arts and Sciences which they are so
ingenious in. They can do all things but manage themselves and live at
peace with others: and they should themselves be glad to have their
volatile Spirits kept in order by the Good Sense and Honesty which other
Nations certainly abound in more than themselves. {118a}

I see what I think very good remarks about them in old Palmerston's
Papers quoted in my Athenaeum. {118b} He was just the Man they wanted, I
think.

WOODBRIDGE, _Nov._ 15, [1870].

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . Ah, I should like to hear Fidelio again, often as I have heard it.
I do not find so much 'Melody' in it as you do: understanding by Melody
that which asserts itself independently of Harmony, as Mozart's Airs do.
I miss it especially in Leonora's Hope song. But, what with the story
itself, and the Passion and Power of the Music it is set to, the Opera is
one of those that one can hear repeated as often as any.

If any one ever would take a good suggestion from me, you might suggest
to Mr. Sullivan, or some competent Musician, to adapt that Epilogue part
of Tennyson's King Arthur, beginning--

And so to bed; where yet in sleep I seem'd
To sail with Arthur, etc.

down to

And War shall be no more--

to adapt this, I say, to the Music of that grand last Scene in Fidelio:
Sullivan & Co. supplying the introductory Recitative; beginning dreamily,
and increasing, crescendo, up to where the Poet begins to 'feel the truth
and Stir of Day'; till Beethoven's pompous March should begin, and the
Chorus, with 'Arthur is come, etc.'; the chief Voices raising the words
aloft (as they do in Fidelio), and the Chorus thundering in upon them. It
is very grand in Fidelio: and I am persuaded might have a grand effect in
this Poem. But no one will do it, of course; especially in these Days
when War is so far from being no more!

I want to hear Cherubini's Medea, which I dare say I should find masterly
and dull. I quite agree with you about the Italians: Mozart the only
exception; who is all in all.

WOODBRIDGE, _Dec._ 5/70.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . Had not Sunday followed Saturday I was a little tempted to run up
to hear Cherubini's Medea, which I saw advertised for the Night. But I
believe I should feel strange at a Play now: and probably should not have
sat the Opera half out. So you have a good Play, {120} and that well
acted, at last, on English Boards! At the old Haymarket, I think: the
pleasantest of all the Theatres (for size and Decoration) that I
remember; yes, and for the Listons and Vestrises that I remember there in
the days of their Glory. Vestris, in what was called a 'Pamela Hat' with
a red feather; and, again, singing 'Cherry Ripe,' one of the Dozen
immortal English Tunes. That was in 'Paul Pry.' Poor Plays they were,
to be sure: but the Players were good and handsome, and--oneself was
young--1822-3! There was Macready's Virginius at old Covent Garden, an
event never to be forgotten.

One Date leads to another. In talking one day about different Quotations
which get abroad without people always knowing whence they are derived, I
could have sworn that I remember Spring Rice mentioning one that he
himself had invented, and had been amused at seeing quoted here and
there--

Coldly correct and critically dull.

Now only last night I happened to see the Line quoted in the Preface to
Frederick Reynolds' (the Playwright's) stupid Memoirs, published in 1827;
some time before Spring Rice would have thought of such things, I
suppose. . . .

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