Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume II Part 2

Let me know when you come into these Parts, and be sure I shall be glad to entertain you as well as I can if you come while I am here. Nor am I likely to be away further than Aldbro', so far as I see. I do meditate crossing one fine Day to Holland: to see the Hague, Paul Potter, and some Rembrandt at Rotterdam. This, however, is not to be done in my little Boat: but in some Trader from Ipswich. I also talk of a cruise to Edinburgh in one of their Schooners. But both these Excursions I reserve for such hot weather as may make a retreat from the Town agreeable. I make no advances to Farlingay, because (as yet) we have not had any such Heat as to bake the Houses here: and, beside, I am glad to be by the River. It is strange how sad the Country has become to me. I went inland to see Acton's Curiosities before the Auction: and was quite glad to get back to the little Town again. I am quite clear I must live the remainder of my Life in a Town: but a little one, and with a strip of Garden to saunter in. . . .

I go sometimes to see the Rifles drill, and shoot at their Target, and have got John {22} to ask them up to Boulge to practise some day: I must insinuate that he should offer them some Beer when they get there. It is a shame the Squires do nothing in the matter: take no Interest: offer no Encouragement, beyond a Pound or two in Money. And who are those who have most interest at stake in case of Rifles being really wanted? But I am quite a.s.sured that this Country is dying, as other Countries die, as Trees die, atop first. The lower Limbs are making all haste to follow. . . .

By the bye, don't let me forget to ask you to bring with you my Persian Dictionary in case you come into these Parts. I read very very little: and get very desultory: but when Winter comes again must take to some dull Study to keep from Suicide, I suppose. The River, the Sea, etc., serve to divert one now.

Adieu. These long Letters prove one's Idleness.

_To R. C. Trench_. {23a}

MARKET-HILL, WOODBRIDGE.

_July_ 3/61.

DEAR DOCTOR TRENCH,

Thank you sincerely for the delightful little Journal {23b} which I had from you yesterday, and only wished to be a dozen times as long. The beautiful note at p. 73 speaks of much yet unprinted! It is a pity Mrs.

Kemble had not read p. 79. I thought in the Night of 'the subdued Voice of Good Sense' and 'The Eye that invites you to look into it.' I doubt I can read, more or less attentively, most personal Memoirs: but I am equally sure of the superiority of this, in its Shrewdness, Humour, natural Taste, and Good Breeding. One is sorry for the account of Lord Nelson: but one cannot doubt it. It was at the time when he was intoxicated, I suppose, with Glory and Lady Hamilton. What your Mother says of the Dresden Madonna reminds me of what Tennyson once said: that the Att.i.tude of The Child was that of a Man: but perhaps not the less right for all that. As to the Countenance, he said that scarce any Man's Face could look so grave and rapt as a Baby's could at times. He once said of his own Child's, 'He was a whole hour this morning wors.h.i.+pping the Suns.h.i.+ne playing on the Bedpost.' He never writes Letters or Journals: but I hope People will be found to remember some of the things he has said as naturally as your Mother wrote them. {24}

_To W. H. Thompson_.

MARKET-HILL, WOODBRIDGE.

_July_ 15/61.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

I was very glad to hear of you again. You need never take it to Conscience, not answering my Letters, further than that I really do want to hear you are well, and where you are, and what doing, from time to time. I have absolutely nothing to tell about myself, not having moved from this place since I last wrote, unless to our Sea coast at Aldbro', whither I run, or sail, from time to time to idle with the Sailors in their Boats or on their Beach. I love their childish ways: but they too degenerate. As to reading, my Studies have lain chiefly in some back Volumes of the New Monthly Magazine and some French Memoirs. Trench was good enough to send me a little unpublished Journal by his Mother: a very pretty thing indeed. I suppose he did this in return for one or two Papers on Oriental Literature which Cowell had sent me from India, and which I thought might interest Trench. I am very glad to hear old Spedding is really getting _his_ Share of Bacon into Print: I doubt if it will be half as good as the '_Evenings_,' where Spedding was in the _Pa.s.sion_ which is wanted to fill his Sail for any longer Voyage.

I have not seen his Paper on English Hexameters {25} which you tell me of: but I will now contrive to do so. I, however, believe in them: and I think the ever-recurring attempts that way show there is some ground for such belief. To be sure, the Philosopher's Stone, and the Quadrature of the Circle, have had at least as many Followers. . . .

It was finding some Bits of Letters and Poems of old Alfred's that made me wish to restore those I gave you to the number, as marking a by-gone time to me. That they will not so much do to you, who did not happen to save them from the Fire when the Volumes of 1842 were printing. But I would waive that if you found it good or possible to lay them up in Trinity Library in the Closet with Milton's! Otherwise, I would still look at them now and then for the few years I suppose I have to live. . . .

This is a terribly long Letter: but, if it be legible sufficiently, will perhaps do as if I were spinning it in talk under the walls of the Cathedral. I dare not now even talk of going any visits: I can truly say I wish you could drop in here some Summer Day and take a Float with me on our dull River, which does lead to THE SEA some ten miles off. . .

You must think I have become very nautical, by all this: haul away at ropes, swear, dance Hornpipes, etc. But it is not so: I simply sit in Boat or Vessel as in a moving Chair, dispensing a little Grog and s.h.a.g to those who do the work.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.

_December_ 7/61.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I shall look directly for the pa.s.sages in Omar and Hafiz which you refer to and clear up, though I scarce ever see the Persian Character now. I suppose you would think it a dangerous thing to edit Omar: else, who so proper? Nay, are you not the only Man to do it? And he certainly is worth good re-editing. I thought him from the first the most remarkable of the Persian Poets: and you keep finding out in him Evidences of logical Fancy which I had not dreamed of. I dare say these logical Riddles are not his best: but they are yet evidences of a Strength of mind which our Persian Friends rarely exhibit, I think. I always said about Cowley, Donne, etc., whom Johnson calls the metaphysical Poets, that their very Quibbles of Fancy showed a power of Logic which could follow Fancy through such remote a.n.a.logies. This is the case with Calderon's Conceits also. I doubt I have given but a very one-sided version of Omar: but what I do only comes up as a Bubble to the Surface, and breaks: whereas you, with exact Scholars.h.i.+p, might make a lasting impression of such an Author. So I say of Jelaluddin, whom you need not edit in Persian, perhaps, unless in selections, which would be very good work: but you should certainly translate for us some such selections exactly in the way in which you did that apologue of Azrael.

{27} I don't know the value of the Indian Philosophy, etc., which you tell me is a fitter exercise for the Reason: but I am sure that you should give us some of the Persian I now speak of, which you can do all so easily to yourself; yes, as a holiday recreation, you say, to your Indian Studies. As to India being 'your Place,' it may be: but as to your being lost in England, that could not be. You know I do not flatter. . . .

I declare I should like to go to India as well as any where: and I believe it might be the best thing for me to do. But, always slow at getting under way as I have been all my Life, what is to be done with one after fifty! I am sure there is no longer any great pleasure living in this Country, so tost with perpetual Alarms as it is. One Day we are all in Arms about France. To-day we are doubting if To-morrow we may not be at War to the Knife with America! I say still, as I used, we have too much Property, Honour, etc., on our Hands: our outward Limbs go on lengthening while our central Heart beats weaklier: I say, as I used, we should give up something before it is forced from us. The World, I think, may justly resent our being and interfering all over the Globe.

Once more I say, would we were a little, peaceful, unambitious, trading, Nation, like--the Dutch! . . .

Adieu, My Dear Cowell; once more, Adieu. I doubt if you can read what I have written. Do not forget my Love to your Wife. I wonder if we are ever to meet again: you would be most disappointed if we were!

_To W. H. Thompson_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.

_Dec._ 9/61.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

The MS. came safe to hand yesterday, thank you: and came out of its Envelope like a Ray of Old Times to my Eyes. I wish I had secured more leaves from that old '_Butcher's Book_' torn up in old Spedding's Rooms in 1842 when the Press went to work with, I think, the Last of old Alfred's Best. But that, I am told, is only a 'Crotchet.' However, had I taken some more of the Pages that went into the Fire, after serving in part for Pipe-lights, I might have enriched others with that which AT {29} himself would scarce have grudged, jealous as he is of such sort of Curiosity.

I have seen no more of Tannhauser than the Athenaeum showed me; and certainly do not want to see more. One wonders that Men of some Genius (as I suppose these are) should so disguise it in Imitation: but, if they be very young men, this is the natural course, is it not? By and by they may find their own Footing.

As to my own Peccadilloes in Verse, which never pretend to be original, this is the story of _Rubaiyat_. I had translated them partly for Cowell: young Parker asked me some years ago for something for Fraser, and I gave him the less wicked of these to use if he chose. He kept them for two years without using: and as I saw he did'nt want them I printed some copies with Quaritch; and, keeping some for myself, gave him the rest. Cowell, to whom I sent a Copy, was naturally alarmed at it; he being a very religious Man: nor have I given any other Copy but to George Borrow, to whom I had once lent the Persian, and to old Donne when he was down here the other Day, to whom I was showing a Pa.s.sage in another Book which brought my old Omar up.

(end of letter lost.)

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.

_March_ 19/62.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

Thanks for your Letter in the middle of graver occupations. It will give me very great pleasure if you will come here: but not if you only do so out of kindness; I mean, if you have no other call of Business or Pleasure to yourself. For I don't deserve--

You should have sent me some Photograph. I hate them nearly all: but S.

Rice {30} was very good. I wonder you don't turn out well: I suppose, too black, is it? It is generally florid people, I think, who fail: yet, strange to say, my Brother Peter has come quite handsome in the Process.

I am all for a little Flattery in Portraits: that is, so far as, I think, the Painter or Sculptor should try at something more agreeable than anything he sees sitting to him: when People look either bored, or smirking: he should give the best possible Aspect which the Features before him _might_ wear, even if the Artist had not seen that Aspect.

Especially when he works for Friends or Kinsfolk: for even the plainest face has looked handsome to them at some happy moment, and just such we like to have perpetuated.

Now, I really do feel ashamed when you ask about my Persian Translations, though they are all very well: only very little affairs. I really have not the face to send to Milnes direct: but I send you four Copies which I have found in a Drawer here to do as you will with. This will save Milnes, or any one else, the bore of writing to me to acknowledge it.

My old Boat has been altered, I hope not spoiled; and I shall soon be preparing for the Water--and Mud. I don't think one can reckon on warm weather till after the Longest Day: but if you should come before, it will surely be warm enough to walk, or drive, if not to sail; and Leaves will be green, if the Tide should be out.

You would almost think I wanted to repay you in Compliment if I told you I regarded even your hasty Letters as excellent in all respects. I do, however: but I do not wish you to write one when you are busy or disinclined.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.

_Sept._ 29/62.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

'What Cheer, ho!' I somehow fancy that a Line of Nonsense will catch you before you leave Ely: and yet, now I come to think, you will have left Ely, probably, and will be returning in another Fortnight to Cambridge for the Term. Well, I will direct to Cambridge then; and my Note shall await you there, and you need not answer it till some very happy hour of Leisure and Inclination. As to Inclination, indeed, I don't think you will ever have much of that, toward writing such Letters, I mean; what sensible Man after forty has? You have done so much more (in my Eyes, and perhaps so much less in your own) coming all this way to see me! I did wonder at the Goodness of that. I suppose Spedding didn't tell you that I wrote to him to say so. It was very unlucky I was out when you came: I have often thought of that with vexation.

Well, I have gone on Boating, etc., just the same ever since. And just now I have been applying to Spring Rice to use his Influence to get a larger Buoy laid at the mouth of our River; across which lies a vile Bar of s.h.i.+fting Sand, and such a little Bit of a Buoy to mark it that we often almost miss it going in and out, and are in danger of running on the Shoal; which would break the Boat to Pieces if not drown us. Here is a fine Piece of Information to a Canon of Ely and Professor of Greek at Cambridge!

Spring Rice does not speak well, I think, of his health; not at all well; and his Handwriting looks shaky. What a Loyal Kind Heart it is!

_To W. B. Donne_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE, _Nov._ 28/62.