Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) Part 7

first. But I venture to think that your feeling on the subject will be pretty much like my own, and so, no use in talking.

Now, if I could send you part of what I am now packing up for some Woodbridge People--some--some--Saffron Buns!--for which this Place is notable from the first day of Lent till Easter--A little Hamper of these!

Now, my dear Mrs. Kemble, do consider this letter of mine as an Answer to yours--your two--else I shall be really frightened at making you write so often to yours always and sincerely

E. F.G.

XXV.

LOWESTOFT, _March_ 11/75.

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I am really ashamed that you should apologize for asking me a Copy of Calderon, etc. {64a} I had about a hundred Copies of all those things printed _when_ printed: and have not had a hundred friends to give them to--poor Souls!--and am very well pleased to give to any one who likes--especially any Friend of yours. I think however that your reading of them has gone most way to make your Lady ask. But, be that as it may, I will send you a Copy directly I return to my own Chateau, which I mean to do when the Daffodils have taken the winds of March. {64b}

We have had severe weather here: it has killed my Brother Peter (not John, my eldest) who tried to winter at Bournemouth, after having wintered for the last ten years at Cannes. Bronchitis:--which (_sotto voce_) I have as yet kept Cold from coming to. But one knows one is not 'out of the Wood' yet; May, if not March, being, you know, one of our worst Seasons.

I heard from our dear Donne a week ago; speaking with all his own blind and beautiful Love for his lately lost son; and telling me that he himself keeps his heart going by Brandy. But he speaks of this with no Fear at all. He is going to leave Weymouth Street, but when, or for where, he does not say. He spoke of a Letter he had received from you some while ago.

Now about Crabbe, which also I am vext you should have trouble about. I wrote to you the day after I had your two Letters, with Mr. Furness'

enclosed, and said that, seeing the uncertainty of any success in the matter, I really would not bother you or him any more. You know it is but a little thing; which, even if a Publisher tried piece-meal, would very likely be scouted: I only meant 'piece-meal,' by instalments: so as they could be discontinued if not liked. But I suppose I must keep my Work--of paste, and scissors--for the benefit of the poor Friends who have had the benefit of my other Works.

Well: as I say, I wrote and posted my Letter at once, asking you to thank Mr. Furness for me. I think this must be a month ago--perhaps you had my Letter the day after you posted this last of yours, dated February 21. Do not trouble any more about it, pray: read Carlyle's 'Kings of Norway' in Fraser and believe me ever yours

E. F.G.

I will send a little bound Copy of the Plays for yourself, dear Mrs.

Kemble, if you will take them; so you can give the Lady those you have:--but, whichever way you like.

XXVI.

LOWESTOFT, _March_ 17/75.

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

This bit of Letter is written to apprise you that, having to go to Woodbridge three days ago, I sent you by Post a little Volume of the Plays, and (what I had forgotten) a certain little Prose Dialogue {65} done up with them. This is more than you wanted, but so it is. The Dialogue is a pretty thing in some respects: but disfigured by some confounded _smart_ writing in parts: And this is all that needs saying about the whole concern. You must not think necessary to say anything more about it yourself, only that you receive the Book. If you do not, in a month's time, I shall suppose it has somehow lost its way over the Atlantic: and then I will send you the Plays you asked for, st.i.tched together--and those only.

I hope you got my Letter (which you had not got when your last was written) about Crabbe: for I explained in it why I did not wish to trouble you or Mr. Furness any more with such an uncertain business.

Anyhow, I must ask you to thank him for the trouble he had already taken, as I hope you know that I thank you also for your share in it.

I scarce found a Crocus out in my Garden at home, and so have come back here till some green leaf shows itself. We are still under the dominion of North East winds, which keep people coughing as well as the Crocus under ground. Well, we hope to earn all the better Spring by all this Cold at its outset.

I have so often spoken of my fear of troubling you by all my Letters, that I won't say more on that score. I have heard no news of Donne since I wrote. I have been trying to read Gil Blas and La Fontaine again; but, as before, do not relish either. {67} I must get back to my Don Quixote by and by.

Yours as ever

E. F.G.

I wonder if this letter will smell of Tobacco: for it is written just after a Pipe, and just before going to bed.

XXVII.

LOWESTOFT: _April_ 9/75.

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I wrote you a letter more than a fortnight ago--mislaid it--and now am rather ashamed to receive one from you thanking me beforehand for the mighty Book which I posted you a month ago. I only hope you will not feel bound to acknowledge [it] when it does reach you, I think I said so in the Letter I wrote to go along with it. And I must say no more in the way of deprecating your Letters, after what you write me. Be a.s.sured that all my deprecations were for your sake, not mine; but there's an end of them now.

I had a longish letter from Donne himself some while ago; indicating, I thought, _some_ debility of Mind and Body. He said, however, he was going on very well. And a Letter from Mowbray (three or four days old) speaks of his Father as 'remarkably well.' But these Donnes won't acknowledge Bodily any more than Mental fault in those they love. Blanche had been ill, of neuralgic Cold: Valentia not well: but both on the mending hand now.

It has been indeed the Devil of a Winter: and even now--To-day as I write--no better than it was three months ago. The Daffodils scarce dare take April, let alone March; and I wait here till a Green Leaf shows itself about Woodbridge.

I have been looking over four of Shakespeare's Plays, edited by Clark and Wright: editors of the 'Cambridge Shakespeare.' These 'Select Plays' are very well done, I think: Text, and Notes; although with somewhat too much of the latter. Hamlet, Macbeth, Tempest, and Shylock--I heard them talking in my room--all alive about me.

By the by--How did _you_ read 'To-morrow and To-morrow, etc.' All the Macbeths I have heard took the opportunity to become melancholy when they came to this: and, no doubt, some such change from Fury and Desperation was a relief to the Actor, and perhaps to the Spectator. But I think it _should_ all go in the same Whirlwind of Pa.s.sion as the rest: Folly!--Stage Play!--Farthing Candle; Idiot, etc. Macready used to drop his Truncheon when he heard of the Queen's Death, and stand with his Mouth open for some while--which didn't become him.

I have not seen his Memoir: only an extract or two in the Papers. He always seemed to me an Actor by Art and Study, with some native Pa.s.sion to inspire him. But as to Genius--we who have seen Kean!

I don't know if you were acquainted with Sir A. Helps, {68} whose Death (one of this Year's Doing) is much regretted by many. I scarcely knew him except at Cambridge forty years ago: and could never relish his Writings, amiable and sensible as they are. I suppose they will help to swell that substratum of Intellectual _Peat_ (Carlyle somewhere calls it) {69} from [which] one or two living Trees stand out in a Century. So Shakespeare above all that Old Drama which he grew amidst, and which (all represented by him alone) might henceforth be left unexplored, with the exception of a few twigs of Leaves gathered here and there--as in Lamb's Specimens. Is Carlyle himself--with all his Genius--to subside into the Level? d.i.c.kens, with all his Genius, but whose Men and Women act and talk already after a more obsolete fas.h.i.+on than Shakespeare's? I think some of Tennyson will survive, and drag the deader part along with it, I suppose. And (I doubt) Thackeray's terrible Humanity.

And I remain yours ever sincerely, A very small Peat-contributor, E. F.G.

I am glad to say that Clark and Wright Bowdlerize Shakespeare, though much less extensively than Bowdler. But in one case, I think, they have gone further--altering, instead of omitting: which is quite wrong!

XXVIII.

LOWESTOFT: _April_ 19/75.

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Yesterday I wrote you a letter: enveloped it: then thought there was something in it you might misunderstand--Yes!--the written word across the Atlantic looking perhaps so different from what intended; so kept my Letter in my pocket, and went my ways. This morning your Letter of April 3 is forwarded to me; and I shall re-write the one thing that I yesterday wrote about--as I had intended to do before your Letter came. Only, let me say that I am really ashamed that you should have taken the trouble to write again about my little, little, Book.

Well--what I wrote about yesterday, and am to-day about to re-write, is--Macready's Memoirs. You asked me in your previous Letter whether I had read them. No--I had not: and had meant to wait till they came down to Half-price on the Railway Stall before I bought them. But I wanted to order something of my civil Woodbridge Bookseller: so took the course of ordering this Book, which I am now reading at Leisure: for it does not interest me enough to devour at once. It is however a very unaffected record of a very conscientious Man, and Artist; conscious (I think) that he was not a great Genius in his Profession, and conscious of his defect of Self-control in his Morals. The Book is almost entirely about _himself_, _his_ Studies, _his_ Troubles, _his_ Consolations, etc.; not from Egotism, I do think, but as the one thing he had to consider in writing a Memoir and Diary. Of course one expects, and wishes, that the Man's self should be the main subject; but one also wants something of the remarkable people he lived with, and of whom one finds little here but that 'So-and-so came and went'--scarce anything of what they said or did, except on mere business; Macready seeming to have no Humour; no intuition into Character, no Observation of those about him (how could he be a great Actor then?)--Almost the only exception I have yet reached is his Account of Mrs. Siddons, whom he wors.h.i.+pped: whom he acted with in her later years at Country Theatres: and who was as kind to him as she was even then heart-rending on the Stage. He was her Mr. Beverley: {71} 'a very young husband,' she told him: but 'in the right way if he would study, study, study--and not marry till thirty.' At another time, when he was on the stage, she stood at the side scene, called out 'Bravo, Sir, Bravo!' and clapped her hands--all in sight of the Audience, who joined in her Applause. Macready also tells of her falling into such a Convulsion, as it were, in Aspasia {72a} (what a subject for such a sacrifice!) that the Curtain had to be dropped, and Macready's Father, and Holman, who were among the Audience, looked at each other to see which was whitest! This was the Woman whom people somehow came to look on as only majestic and terrible--I suppose, after Miss O'Neill rose upon her Setting.