Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) Part 11

'Ho! parlons d'autres choses, ma Fille,' as my dear Sevigne says. She now occupies Montaigne's place in my room: well--worthily: she herself a Lover of Montaigne, and with a spice of his free thought and speech in her. I am sometimes vext I never made her acquaintance till last year: but perhaps it was as well to have such an acquaintance reserved for one's latter years. The fine Creature! much more alive to me than most Friends--I _should_ like to see her 'Rochers' in Brittany. {105}

'Parlons d'autres choses'--your Mother's Miniature. You seemed at first to think it was taken from the Engraving: but the reverse was always clear to me. The whole figure, down to the Feet, is wanted to account for the position of the Legs; and the superior delicacy of Feature would not be gained _from_ the Engraving, but the contrary. The Stars were stuck in to make an 'Urania' of it perhaps. I do not a.s.sert that your Miniature is the original: but that such a Miniature is. I did not expect that Black next the Picture would do: had you 'tried on the Bonnet' first, as I advised? I now wish I had sent the Picture over in its original Frame, which I had doctored quite well with a strip of Black Paper pasted over the Gold. It might really have gone through Quaritch's Agency: but I got into my head that the Post was safer. (How badly I am writing!) I had a little common Engraving of the Cottage bonnet Portrait: so like Henry. If I did not send it to you, I know not what is become of it.

Along with your Letter came one from Donne telling me of your Niece's Death. {106} He said he had written to tell you. In reply, I gave him your message; that he must 'hold on' till next year when peradventure you may see England again, and hope to see him too.

Sooner or later you will see an Account of 'Mary Tudor' at the Lyceum.

{107} It is just what I expected: a 'succes d'estime,' and not a very enthusiastic one. Surely, no one could have expected more. And now comes out a new Italian Hamlet--Rossi--whose first appearance is recorded in the enclosed sc.r.a.p of _Standard_. And (to finish Theatrical or Dramatic Business) Quaritch has begun to print Agamemnon--so leisurely that I fancy he wishes to wait till the old Persian is exhausted, and so join the two. I certainly am in no hurry; for I fully believe we shall only get abused for the Greek in proportion as we were praised for the Persian--in England. I mean: for you have made America more favourable.

'Parlons d'autres choses.' 'Eh? mais de quoi parler,' etc. Well: a Blackbird is singing in the little Garden outside my Lodging Window, which is frankly opened to what Sun there is. It has been a singular half year; only yesterday Thunder in rather cold weather; and last week the Road and Rail in Cambridge and Huntingdon was blocked up with Snow; and Thunder then also. I suppose I shall get home in ten days: before this Letter will reach you, I suppose: so your next may be addressed to Woodbridge. I really don't know if these long Letters are more of Trouble or Pleasure to you: however, there is an end to all: and that End is that I am yours as truly as ever I was

E. F.G.

XL.

WOODBRIDGE, _July_ 4, [1876.]

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Here I am back into the Country, as I may call my suburb here as compared to Lowestoft; all my house, except the one room--which 'serves me for Parlour and Bedroom and all' {108a}--occupied by Nieces. Our weather is temperate, our Trees green, Roses about to bloom, Birds about to leave off singing--all sufficiently pleasant. I must not forget a Box from Mudie with some Memoirs in it--of G.o.dwin, Haydon, etc., which help to amuse one. And I am just beginning Don Quixote once more for my 'piece de Resistance,' not being so familiar with the First Part as the Second.

Lamb and Coleridge (I think) thought that Second Part should not have been written; why then did I--not for contradiction's sake, I am sure--so much prefer it? Old Hallam, in his History of Literature, resolved me, I believe, by saying that Cervantes, who began by making his Hero ludicrously crazy, fell in love with him, and in the second part tamed and tempered him down to the grand Gentleman he is: scarce ever originating a Delusion, though acting his part in it as a true Knight when led into it by others. {108b} A good deal however might well be left out. If you have Jarvis' Translation by, or near, you, pray read--oh, read all of the second part, except the stupid stuff of the old Duenna in the Duke's Palace.

I fear I get more and more interested in your 'Gossip,' as you approach the Theatre. I suppose indeed that it is better to look on than to be engaged in. I love it, and reading of it, now as much as ever I cared to see it: and that was, very much indeed. I never heard till from your last Paper {109a} that Henry was ever thought of for Romeo: I wonder he did not tell me this when he and I were in Paris in 1830, and used to go and see 'La Muette!' (I can hear them calling it now:) at the Grand Opera. I see that 'Queen Mary' has some while since been deposed from the Lyceum; and poor Mr. Irving descended from Shakespeare to his old Melodrama again. All this is still interesting to me down here: much more than to you--over there!--

'Over there' you are in the thick of your Philadelphian Exhibition, {109b} I suppose: but I dare say you do not meddle with it very much, and will probably be glad when it is all over. I wish now I had sent you the Miniature in its Frame, which I had instructed to become it. What you tell us your Mother said concerning Dress, I certainly always felt: only secure the Beautiful, and the Grand, in all the Arts, whatever Chronology may say. Rousseau somewhere says that what you want of Decoration in the Theatre is, what will bewilder the Imagination--'ebranler l'Imagination,'

I think: {110} only let it be Beautiful!

_June_ 5.

I kept this letter open in case I should see Arthur Malkin, who was coming to stay at a Neighbour's house. He very kindly did call on me: he and his second wife (who, my Neighbour says, is a very proper Wife), but I was abroad--though no further off than my own little Estate; and he knows I do not visit elsewhere. But I do not the less thank him, and am always yours

E. F.G.

Pollock writes me he had just visited Carlyle--quite well for his Age: and vehement against Darwin, and the Turk.

XLI.

WOODBRIDGE, _July_ 31/76.

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

A better pen than usual tempts me to write the little I have to tell you; so that [at] any rate your Eyes shall not be afflicted as sometimes I doubt they are by my MS.

Which MS. puts me at once in mind of Print: and to tell you that I shall send you Quaritch's Reprint of Agamemnon: which is just done after many blunders. The revises were not sent me, as I desired: so several things are left as I meant not: but 'enfin' here it is at last so fine that I am ashamed of it. For, whatever the merit of it may be, it can't come near all this fine Paper, Margin, etc., which Quaritch _will_ have as counting on only a few buyers, who will buy--in America almost wholly, I think.

And, as this is wholly due to you, I send you the Reprint, however little different to what you had before.

'Tragedy wonders at being so fine,' which leads me to that which ought more properly to have led to _it_: your last two Papers of 'Gossip,'

which are capital, both for the Story told, and the remarks that arise from it. To-morrow, or next day, I shall have a new Number; and I really do count rather childishly on their arrival. Spedding also is going over some of his old Bacon ground in the Contemporary, {111} and his writing is always delightful to me though I cannot agree with him at last. I am told he is in full Vigour: as indeed I might guess from his writing. I heard from Donne some three weeks ago: proposing a Summer Holyday at Whitby, in Yorks.h.i.+re: Valentia, I think, not very well again: Blanche then with her Brother Charles. They all speak very highly of Mrs.

Santley's kindness and care. Mowbray talks of coming down this way toward the end of August: but had not, when he last wrote, fixed on his Holyday place.

Beside my two yearly elder Nieces, I have now a younger who has spent the last five Winters in Florence with your once rather intimate (I think) Jane FitzGerald my Sister. She married, (you may know) a Clergyman considerably older than herself. I wrote to Annie Thackeray lately, and had an answer (from the Lakes) to say she was pretty well--as also Mr.

Stephen.

And I am ever yours E. F.G.

P.S. On second thoughts I venture to send you A. T.'s letter, which may interest you and cannot shame her. I do not want it again.

XLII.

WOODBRIDGE: _Septr._ 21/76.

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Have your American Woods begun to hang out their Purple and Gold yet? on this Day of Equinox. Some of ours begin to look rusty, after the Summer Drought; but have not turned Yellow yet. I was talking of this to a Heroine of mine who lives near here, but visits the Highlands of Scotland, which she loves better than Suffolk--and she said of those Highland Trees--'O, they give themselves no dying Airs, but turn Orange in a Day, and are swept off in a Whirlwind, and Winter is come.'

Now too one's Garden begins to be haunted by that Spirit which Tennyson says is heard talking to himself among the flower-borders. Do you remember him? {113a}

And now--Who should send in his card to me last week--but the old Poet himself--he and his elder Son Hallam pa.s.sing through Woodbridge from a Tour in Norfolk. {113b} 'Dear old Fitz,' ran the Card in pencil, 'We are pa.s.sing thro'.' {113c} I had not seen him for twenty years--he looked much the same, except for his fallen Locks; and what really surprised me was, that we fell at once into the old Humour, as if we had only been parted twenty Days instead of so many Years. I suppose this is a Sign of Age--not altogether desirable. But so it was. He stayed two Days, and we went over the same old grounds of Debate, told some of the old Stories, and all was well. I suppose I may never see him again: and so I suppose we both thought as the Rail carried him off: and each returned to his ways as if scarcely diverted from them. Age again!--I liked Hallam much; unaffected, unpretending--no Slang--none of Young England's nonchalance--speaking of his Father as 'Papa' and tending him with great Care, Love, and Discretion. Mrs. A. T. is much out of health, and scarce leaves Home, I think. {114a}

I have lately finished Don Quixote again, and I think have inflamed A. T.

to read him too--I mean in his native Language. For this _must_ be, good as Jarvis' Translation is, and the matter of the Book so good that one would think it would lose less than any Book by Translation. But somehow that is not so. I was astonished lately to see how Shakespeare's Henry IV. came out in young V. Hugo's Prose Translation {114b}: Hotspur, Falstaff and all. It really seemed to show me more than I had yet seen in the original.

Ever yours, E. F.G.

XLIII.

LOWESTOFT: _October_ 24/76.

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Little--Nothing--as I have to write, I am nevertheless beginning to write to you, from this old Lodging of mine, from which I think our Correspondence chiefly began--ten years ago. I am in the same Room: the same dull Sea moaning before me: the same Wind screaming through the Windows: so I take up the same old Story. My Lugger was then about building: {115} she has pa.s.sed into other hands now: I see her from time to time bouncing into Harbour, with her '244' on her Bows. Her Captain and I have parted: I thought he did very wrongly--Drink, among other things: but he did not think he did wrong: a different Morality from ours--that, indeed, of Carlyle's ancient Sea Kings. I saw him a few days ago in his house, with Wife and Children; looking, as always, too big for his house: but always grand, polite, and unlike anybody else. I was noticing the many Flies in the room--'Poor things,' he said, 'it is the warmth of our Stove makes them alive.' When Tennyson was with me, whose Portrait hangs in my house in company with those of Thackeray and this Man (the three greatest men I have known), I thought that both Tennyson and Thackeray were inferior to him in respect of Thinking of Themselves.

When Tennyson was telling me of how The Quarterly abused him (humorously too), and desirous of knowing why one did not care for his later works, etc., I thought that if he had lived an active Life, as Scott and Shakespeare; or even ridden, shot, drunk, and played the Devil, as Byron, he would have done much more, and talked about it much less. 'You know,'

said Scott to Lockhart, 'that I don't care a Curse about what I write,'

{116} and one sees he did not. I don't believe it was far otherwise with Shakespeare. Even old Wordsworth, wrapt up in his Mountain mists, and proud as he was, was above all this vain Disquietude: proud, not vain, was he: and that a Great Man (as Dante) has some right to be--but not to care what the Coteries say. What a Rigmarole!