Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume II Part 24

I have taken that single little Lodging at Dunwich for the next three months, and shall soon be under those Priory Walls again. But the poor little 'Dunwich Rose,' brought by those monks from the North Country, will have pa.s.sed, after the hot weather we are at last having. Write when you will, and not till then; I believe in your friendly regard, with, or without, a Letter to a.s.sure me of it.

WOODBRIDGE. _October_ 15/78.

MY DEAR NORTON,

. . . I got little more than a Fortnight at that old Dunwich; for my Landlady took seriously ill, and finally died: and the Friend {255a} whom I went to meet there became so seriously ill also as to be obliged to return to London before August was over. So then I went to an ugly place {255b} on the sea sh.o.r.e also, some fifteen miles off the old Priory; and there was with some Nephews and Nieces, trying to read the Novels from a Circulating Library with indifferent Success. And now here am I at home once more; getting my Garden, if not my House, in order; and here I shall be probably all Winter, except for a few days visit to that sick Friend in London, if he desires it. . . .

We too have been having a Fortnight of delightful weather, so as one has been able to sit abroad all the Day. And now, that Spirit which Tennyson sung of in one of his early Poems is heard, as it were, walking and talking to himself among the decaying flower-beds. This Season (such as we have been enjoying)--my old Crabbe sings of it too, in a very pathetic way to me: for it always seems to me an Image of the Decline of Life also.

It was a Day ere yet the Autumn closed, When Earth before her Winter's War reposed; When from the Garden as we look'd above, No Cloud was seen, and nothing seem'd to move; [When the wide River was a silver Sheet, And upon Ocean slept the unanch.o.r.ed fleet;] {256a} When the wing'd Insect settled in our sight, And waited wind to recommence its flight. {256b}

You see I cross out two lines which, fine as they are, go beyond the Garden: but I am not sure if I place them aright. The two last lines you will feel, I think: for I suppose some such Insect is in America too.

(You must not mind Crabbe's self-contradiction about 'nothing moving.') . . .

I have two Letters I want to send Lowell: but I do not like writing as if to extort answers from him. You see Carlyle's Note within: I do not want it back, thank you. Good night: for Night it is: and my Reader is coming. We look forward to The Lammermoor, and Old Mortality before long. I made another vain attempt on George Eliot at Lowestoft, Middlemarch.

_To J. R. Lowell_.

WOODBRIDGE. _Octr._ 17/78.

MY DEAR SIR,

I scarce like to write to you again because of seeming to exact a Letter.

I do not wish that at all, pray believe it: I don't think letter-writing men are much worth. What puts me up to writing just now is, the enclosed two Letters by other men; one of them relating to yourself; the other to the Spain you are now in. I sent Frederic Tennyson, eldest Brother of the Laureate, your Study Windows: and now you see what he says about it.

He is a Poet too, as indeed all the Brethren more or less are; and is _a Poet_: only with (I think) a somewhat monotonous Lyre. But a very n.o.ble Man in all respects, and one whose good opinion is worth having, however little you read, or care for, opinion about yourself, one way or other. I do not say that I agree with all he says: but here is his Letter. I am going to send him a Volume of yours 'Among my Books,' which I know is a maturer work than the Windows; and you know what I think of it.

The other Letter, or piece of Letter, is from our Professor Cowell, and has surely a good Suggestion concerning a Spanish Dictionary. You might put some Spanish Scholar on the scent. And so much about my two Letters.

I was but little at my old Dunwich this Summer, for my Landlady fell sick, and died: and the Friend I went to be with was obliged to leave; I doubt his Brain is becoming another Ruin to be a.s.sociated with that old Priory wall, already so pathetic to me. So here am I back again at my old Desk for all the Winter, I suppose, with my old Crabbe once more open before me, disembowelled too; for I positively meditate a Volume made up of 'Readings' from his Tales of the Hall, that is, all his better Verse connected with as few words of my own Prose as will connect it intelligibly together.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE. _Decr._ 15/78.

MY DEAR NORTON,

You are very good to ask for my _OEdipodes_, etc. And when I can find Eyes as well as Courage to copy out a '_brouillon_,' I will see what can be done. Only, you and Professor Goodwin must not feel any way bound to print them, even if you both approved of them; and that is not at all certain. How would you two Scholars approve of two whole Scenes omitted in either OEdipus (as I know to be the case), and the Choephori {259a} reduced almost to an Act? So that would be, I doubt. Then, as you know, Sophocles does not strike Fire out of the Flint, as old AEschylus does; and though my Sophocles has lain by me (lookt at now and then) these ten years, I was then a dozen years older than when Agamemnon haunted me, until I laid his Ghost so far as I myself was concerned. By the way, I see that Dr. Kennedy, Professor of Greek at our Cambridge, has published a Translation of Agamemnon in 'rhythmic English.' So, at any rate, I have been the cause of waking up two great men (Browning and Kennedy) and a minor Third (I forget his name) {259b} to the Trial, if it were only for the purpose of extinguis.h.i.+ng my rash attempt. However that may be, I cannot say my attempt on Sophocles would please you and my American Patrons (in England I have none) so well as AEschylus; indeed I only see in what I remember to have done, good English, and fair Verse, beyond the chief merit of shaping the Plays to modern Taste by the very excisions which Scholars will most deprecate. However, you shall see, one day. . . .

I want to send you a very little volume by Charles Tennyson, long ago published: too modest to make a noise: worth not only all me, but all --- , ---, & Co. put together. Three such little volumes have appeared, but just appeared; like Violets, I say: to be overlooked by the 'madding Crowd,' but I believe to smell sweet and blossom when all the gaudy Growths now in fas.h.i.+on are faded and gone. He ought to be known in America--everywhere; is he?

_To J. R. Lowell_.

WOODBRIDGE. _Decr._ 19/78.

MY DEAR SIR,

I am writing to you because you say you like to hear from me. I dare say, a Letter from your home, or mine, is acceptable in Madrid, which, by the by, if Travellers' Stories be true, must be terrible this winter: and I always try to stuff my Letters with all I can about other people more or less worth hearing of. But for that I have but little to say, certainly nothing worth your keeping. But if you like me to write, no matter why. I wish I could find you a short Letter written to me this time last year by C. Merivale, Dean of Ely, Roman Historian; a man of infinite dry humour, and quaint fancy. I have put it away in some safe place where (of course) I can't find it. Perhaps the like may happen to yourself now and then. I tell him that some one should pick up his Table- talk and Letter-talk: for he of course would not do it himself. I have known him from College days, fifty years ago; but have never read his History: never having read any History but Herodotus, I believe. But I should like you to see how an English Dean and Roman Historian can write in spite of Toga and Canonicals.

_December_ 22.

I left off when my Reader came to finish The Bride of Lammermoor; as wonderful to me as ever. O, the Austens, Eliots, and even Thackerays, won't eclipse Sir Walter for long.

To come down rather a little from him, my Calderon, which you speak of--very many beside myself, with as much fair Dramatic Spirit, knowledge of good English and English Verse, would do quite as well as you think I do, if they would not hamper themselves with Forms of Verse, and Thought, irreconcilable with English Language and English Ways of Thinking. I am persuaded that, to keep Life in the Work (as Drama must) the Translator (however inferior to his Original) must re-cast that original into his own Likeness, more or less: the less like his original, so much the worse: but still, the live Dog better than the dead Lion; in Drama, I say. As to Epic, is not Cary still the best Dante? Cowper and Pope were both Men of Genius, out of my Sphere; but whose Homer still holds its own? The elaborately exact, or the 'teacup-time' Parody? Is not Fairfax' Ta.s.so good? I never read Harington's Ariosto, English or Italian. Another shot have I made at Faust in Bayard Taylor's Version: but I do not even get on with him as with Hayward, hampered as he (Taylor) is with his allegiance to original metres, etc. His Notes I was interested in: but I shall die ungoethed, I doubt, so far as Poetry goes: I always believe he was Philosopher and Critic.

But, harking back to Calderon, surely you have seen the 'Magico' printed from the Duc d'Osuna's original MS., with many variations from the text as we have it. This volume is edited, in French, by 'Alfred Morel Fatio,' printed at 'Heilbronn' (wherever that is), and to be bought of 'M. Murillo, Calle de Alcala, Num. 18, Madrid.' It contains a Facsimile of the old Boy's MS. I will send you my Copy if there be 'no Coal in Newcastle.'

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE. _May_ 18/79.

MY DEAR NORTON,

It is over six months, I believe, since we exchanged a letter; mine the last shot: which I mention only because that has been my reason for not writing again till I should hear from you that all was well enough with you and yours to justify my writing an idle letter. You have spoken of an aged Mother:--if your Winter has been such as ours! And not over yet, as scarce a leaf on the trees, and a N. E. wind blowing Cold, Cough, Bronchitis, etc., and the confounded Bell of a neighbouring Church announcing a Death, day after day. I certainly never remember so long, and so mortal a Winter: among young as well as old. Among the latter, I have just lost my elder, and only surviving Brother. But I shall close this Bill of Mortality before turning over the leaf.

Well: it is Mr. Clarke's pamphlet which has encouraged me to 'take up the pen,' for I think it was you who sent it to me. All I am qualified to say about it is, that it is very well and earnestly written; but on a Subject, like your own Olympia, that I am no Judge of. I think of forwarding it to Cowell at our Cambridge, who is a Judge of Everything, I think, while pretending to Nothing. . . .

This reminds me of all the pains he bestowed on me five and twenty years ago; of which the result is one final Edition of Omar and Jami. . . .

Omar remains as he was; Jami (Salaman) is cut down to two-thirds of his former proportion, and very much improved, I think. It is still in a wrong key: Verse of Miltonic strain, unlike the simple Eastern; I remember trying that at first, but could not succeed. So there is little but the Allegory itself (not a bad one), and now condensed into a very fair Bird's Eye view; quite enough for any Allegory, I think. . . .

And--(this Letter is to be all about myself)--by this post I send you my Handbook of Crabbe's Tales of the Hall, of which I am so doubtful that I do not yet care to publish it. I wished to draw a few readers to a Book which n.o.body reads, by an Abstract of the most readable Parts connected with as little of my Prose as would tell the story of much prosaic Verse, but that very amount of prosy Verse may help to soak the story into the mind (as Richardson, etc.) in a way that my more readable Abstract does not. So it may only serve to remind any one of a Book--which he never read! The Original must be more obsolete in America than here in England; however, I should like to know what you make of it: and you see that you may tell me very plainly, for it is not as an Author, but only as Author's Showman that I appear.

It is rather shameful to take another Sheet because of almost filling the first with myself. And I have but little to tell in it. Carlyle I have not heard of for these six months: nor Tennyson: I must write to hear how they have weathered this mortal Winter. Tennyson's elder, not eldest, Brother Charles is dead: and I was writing only yesterday to persuade Spedding to insist on Macmillan publis.h.i.+ng a complete edition of Charles'

Sonnets: graceful, tender, beautiful, and quite original, little things.

Two thirds of them would be enough: but no one can select in such a case, you know. I have been reading again your Hawthorne's Journal in England when he was Consul here; this I have: I cannot get his 'Our old Home,'

nor his Foreign Notes: can you send me any small, handy, Edition of these two last? I delight in them because of their fearless Truthfulness as well as for their Genius. I have just taken down his Novels, or Romances, to read again, and try to relish more than I have yet done; but I feel sure the fault must be with me, as I feel about Goethe, who is yet as sealed a Book to me as ever. . . . I have (alas!) got through all Sir Walter's Scotch Novels this winter, even venturing further on Kenilworth: which is wonderful for Plot: and one scene, Elizabeth reconciling her Rival Earls at Greenwich, seeming to me as good as Shakespeare's Henry VIII., which is mainly Fletcher's, I am told. I have heard nothing of Mr. Lowell since I heard of you, and do think that I will pitch him a Crabbe into the midst of Madrid, if he be still there. (N.B. Some of Crabbe is not in the Text but from MS. first (and best) readings printed in the Son's edition.)

The Nightingale is now telling me that he is not dead.

_To J. R. Lowell_.

WOODBRIDGE. _May_ 20/79.

MY DEAR SIR,

By this post I send you a bit of a Book, in which you see that I only play very second Fiddle. It is not published yet, as I wait for a few friends to tell me if it be worth publis.h.i.+ng, or better kept among ourselves, who know Crabbe as well as myself. You could tell me better than any one, only that I doubt if any Transatlantic Man can care, even if he knows of a Writer whose Books are all but unread by his own Countrymen, so obsolete has become his Subject (in this Book) as well as his way of treating it. So I think I may exonerate you from giving an opinion, and will only send it to you for such amus.e.m.e.nt as it may afford you in your Exile. I fancied I could make a pleasant Abstract of a much too long and clumsy Book, and draw a few Readers to the well-nigh forgotten Author. But, on looking over my little work, I doubt that my short and readable Handybook will not leave any such impression as the long, rather un-readable, original; mere length having, you know, the inherent Virtue of soaking it in: so as my Book will scarce do but as a reminder of the original, which n.o.body reads! . . .

Voila a.s.sez sur ce sujet la. I think that you will one day give us an account of your Spanish Consuls.h.i.+p, as Hawthorne did of his English: a n.o.ble Book which I have just been reading over again. His 'Our old Home'

is out of print here; and I have asked Mr. Norton to send me any handy Edition of it, as also of the Italian Journal, my Copies having been lent out past recovery. I am going to begin again with his Scarlet Letter and Seven Gables; which (oddly to myself) I did not take to. And yet I think they are not out of my line, or reach, I ought to say.

We have had such a long, and mortal Winter as never do I remember in my seventy years, which struck 70 on March 31 last. I have just lost a Brother--75. Proximus ardet, etc. But I escaped through all these seven months Winter, till a week or ten days ago, when a South Wind and Suns.h.i.+ne came for a Day, and one expatiated abroad, and then down comes a North Easter, etc. I was like the Soldier in Crabbe's Old Bachelor (now with you), who compares himself to the Soldier stricken by a random Shot, when resting on his Arms, etc. {267} So Cold, Cough, Bronchitis, etc.

And To-day Suns.h.i.+ne again, and Ruisenor (do you know him?) in my Shrubs only just be-greening, and I am a b.u.t.terfly again. I have heard nothing of Carlyles, Tennysons, etc., save that the latter had written some Ballad about Lucknow. I shall be glad to hear a word of yourself, Calderon, and Don Quixote, the latter of whom [Greek text] from my Bookshelf. Yes, yes, I am soon coming.

WOODBRIDGE. _June_ 13/79.

MY DEAR SIR,

I had just written a Letter to Tennyson, a thing I had not done these two years, when one was brought to me with what I thought his Subscription, which I have not seen for twice two years, I suppose. Well, but the Letter was from you. I ought not to write again so quick: but you know I never exact a Reply: especially as you never will answer what I ask you, which I rather admire too. To be sure you have so much filled your Letter with my Crabbe that you have told me nothing of yourself, Calderon, and Cervantes, both of whom, I suppose, are fermenting, and maturing, in your head. Cowell says he will come to this coast this Summer with Don Quixote that we may read him together: so, if you should come, you will find yourself at home. I have said all I can say about your taking any such trouble as coming down here only to shake hands with me, as you talk of. I never make any sort of 'hospitality' to the few who ever do come this way, but just put a fowl in the Pot (as Don Quixote's _ama_ might do), and hire a Shandrydan for a Drive, or a Boat on the river, and 'There you are,' as one of d.i.c.kens' pleasant young fellows says. But I never can ask any one to come, and out of his way, to see me, a very ancient, and solitary, Bird indeed. But you know all about it. 'Parlons d'autres choses,' as Sevigne says.