Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume I Part 23

. . . My heart saddens to think of Bramford all desolate; {267a} and I shall now almost turn my head away as any road, or railroad, brings me within sight of the little spire! I write once a week to abuse both of them for going. But they are quite happy at Oxford.

I felt a sort of horror when I read in your letter you had ordered the Book {267b} into your Club, for fear some one might guess. But if _your_ folks don't guess, no one else will. I have heard no more of it since I wrote to you last, except that its sale does not stand still. Pickering's foreman blundered in the Advertis.e.m.e.nts; quoting an extract about the use of the Book, when he should have quoted about its amus.e.m.e.nt, which is what the world is attracted by. But I left it to him. As it would be a real horror to me to be known as the writer, I do not think I can have much personal ambition in its success; but I should sincerely wish it to be read for what little benefit it may do. . . .

I have seen scarce anybody here: Thackeray only once; neither Tennyson nor Carlyle. Donne came up for a day to see as to the morality of the 'Prodigal Son' {268} at Drury Lane, which the Bishop of London complained of. Donne is deputy Licenser for Jack Kemble. I went to see it with him; it was only stupid and gaudy.

BOULGE, Tuesday, _May_ the something, 1851.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

I am ashamed you should have the trouble of asking me to Merton so often, and so in vain. I might give you a specious reason for not going now . . .

but I will honestly confess I believe I should not have accompanied your Father in his Voyage to your house, had the sky been quite clear of engagement. Why, I cannot exactly say: my soul is not packed up for Merton yet, though one day it will be; and I have no such idea of the preciousness of my company as to have any hesitation in letting my friends wait any length of time before I go to occupy their easy chairs.

The day will come, if we live. I have had a very strong invitation to Cambridge this week; to live with my old friends the Skrines in Sidney College. But why should we meet to see each other grown old, etc.? (I don't mean this quite seriously.) Ah, I should like a drive over Newmarket Heath: the sun s.h.i.+ning on the distant leads of Ely Cathedral.

_To F. Tennyson_.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, [25 _August_, 1851.]

MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,

Why do you never write to me? I am sure I wrote last: I constantly am thinking of you, and constantly wis.h.i.+ng to see you. Perhaps you are in England at this very hour, and do not let me know of it. _When_ I wrote to you last I cannot remember; whether in Winter or Spring. I was in London during January and February last, but have been vegetating down here ever since. Have not been up even to see the Great Exh.--one is tired of writing, and seeing written, the word. All the world, as you know, goes in droves: you may be lounging in it this very hour, though I don't mean to say you are one of a drove. It is because there are so few F. Tennysons in the world that I do not like to be wholly out of hearing of the one I know. . . . My own affairs do not improve, and I have seen more and more of the pitiful in humanity . . . but luckily my wants decrease. I am quite content never to buy a picture or a Book; almost content not to see them. One could soon relapse into Barbarism. I do indeed take a survey of old Handel's Choruses now and then; and am just now looking with great delight into Purcell's King Arthur, real n.o.ble _English_ music, much of it; and a.s.suredly the prototype of much of Handel. It is said Handel would not admire Purcell; but I am sure he adapted himself to English ears and sympathies by means of taking up Purcell's vein. I wish you were here to consider this with me; but you would grunt dissent, and smile bitterly at my theories. I am trying to teach the b.u.mpkins of the united parishes of Boulge and Debach to sing a second to such melodies as the women sing by way of Hymns in our Church: and I have invented (as I think) a most simple and easy way of teaching them the little they need to learn. How would you like to see me, with a bit of chalk in my hand, before a black board, scoring up semibreves on a staff for half a dozen Rustics to vocalize? Laugh at me in Imagination.

Almost the only man I hear from is dear old Spedding, who has lost his Father, and is now, I suppose, a rich man. This makes no apparent change in his way of life: he has only hired an additional Attic in Lincoln's Inn Fields, so as to be able to bed a friend upon occasion. I may have to fill it ere long. Merivale (you know, surely) is married, and has a son I hear. He lives some twenty miles from here. . . .

Now, my dear Frederic, this is a sadly dull letter. I could have made it duller and sadder by telling you other things. But, instead of this, let me hear from you a good account of yourself and your family, and especially of my little G.o.dson. Remember, I have a right to hear about him. Ever yours, dear old Grimsby,

E. F. G.

[19 CHARLOTTE ST., FITZROY SQUARE, _Dec_. 1851.]

MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,

I have long been thinking I would answer a long and kind letter I had from you some weeks ago, in which you condoled with me about my finances, and offered me your house as a Refuge for the Dest.i.tute. I can never wonder at generosity in you: but I am sorry I should have seemed to complain so much as to provoke so much pity from you. I am not worse off than I have been these last three years; and so much better off than thousands who deserve more that I should deserve to be kicked if I whined over my decayed fortunes. If I go to Italy, it will be to see Florence and Fred. Tennyson: I do not despair of going one day: I believe my desire is gathering, and my indolence warming up with the exhilarating increase of Railroads.

But for the present here I am, at 19 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, come up to have a fresh squabble with Lawyers, and to see to an old College friend who is gone mad, and threatens to drive his wife mad too, I think. Here are troubles, if you like: I mean, these poor people's.

Well, I have not had much time except to post about in Omnibi between Lincoln's Inn and Bayswater: but I have seen Alfred once; Carlyle once; Thackeray twice; and Spedding many times. I did not see Mrs. A.: but am to go and dine there one day before I leave. Carlyle has been undergoing the Water System at Malvern, and says it has done him a very little good.

He would be quite well, he says, if he threw his Books away, and walked about the mountains: but that would be 'propter vitam, etc.' Nature made him a Writer: so he must wear himself out writing Lives of Sterling, etc., for the Benefit of the World. Thackeray says he is getting tired of being witty, and of the great world: he is now gone to deliver his Lectures {272} at Edinburgh: having already given them at Oxford and Cambridge. Alfred, I thought looking pretty well. Spedding is immutably wise, good, and delightful: not so immutably well in Body, I think: though he does not complain. But I will deal in no more vaticinations of Evil. I can't think what was the oracle in my Letters you allude to, I mean about the three years' duration of our lives. I have long felt about England as you do, and even made up my mind to it, so as to sit comparatively, if ign.o.bly, easy on that score. Sometimes I envy those who are so old that the curtain will probably fall on them before it does on their Country. If one could save the Race, what a Cause it would be!

not for one's own glory as a member of it, nor even for its glory as a Nation: but because it is the only spot in Europe where Freedom keeps her place. Had I Alfred's voice, I would not have mumbled for years over In Memoriam and the Princess, but sung such strains as would have revived the [Greek text] to guard the territory they had won. What can 'In Memoriam' do but make us all sentimental? . . .

My dear Frederic, I hope to see you one day: I really do look forward one day to go and see you in Italy, as well as to see you here in England. I know no one whom it would give me more pleasure to think of as one who might perhaps be near me as we both go down the hill together, whether in Italy or England. You, Spedding, Thackeray, and only one or two more.

The rest have come like shadows and so departed.

_To G. Crabbe_.

[_Feb_. 27, 1852.]

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . I rejoice in your telling me what you think; or I should rejoice if these books were of importance enough to require honest advice. I think you may be very right about the length of the Preface; {273} that I do not think you right about the reasoning of it you may suppose by my ever printing it. It is to show _why_ Books of that kind are dull: what sort of writers ought to be quoted, etc.; proverbial writers: and what const.i.tutes proverbiality, etc. Well, enough of it all: I am glad you like it on the whole. As to Euphranor I do wish him not to die yet: and am gratified you think him worthy to survive a little longer. That is a good cause, let my treatment of it be as it will.

I and Drew sat up at your Father's till 3 (a.m.) last Tuesday: at the old affair of Calvinism, etc. It amuses them: else one would think it odd they did not see how they keep on fighting with Shadows, and slaying the slain.

I am really going next week from home, towards that famous expedition to Shrops.h.i.+re {274} which I mean to perform one day. I write after walking to Woodbridge: and hear that Mr. Cana has called in my absence to announce that 'the Hall' is let; to a Mr. Cobbold, from Saxmundham, I think, who has a farm at Sutton. I met Tom (_young_ Tom) Churchyard in Woodbridge, who tells me he is going to America on Monday! He makes less fuss about it than I do about going to Shrops.h.i.+re.

HAM, _June_ 2/52.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . Order into your Book Club 'Trench on the Study of Words'; a delightful, good, book, not at all dry (unless to fools); one I am sure you will like. Price but three and sixpence and well worth a guinea at least.

In spite of my anti-London prejudices, I find this Limb of London (for such it is) very beautiful: the Thames with its Swans upon it, and its wooded sides garnished with the Villas of Poets, Wits, and Courtiers, of a Time which (I am sorry to say) has more charms to me than the Middle Ages, or the Heroic.

I have seen scarce any of the living London Wits; Spedding and Donne most: Thackeray but twice for a few minutes. He finished his Novel {275} last Sat.u.r.day and is gone, I believe, to the Continent.

_To F. Tennyson_.

GOLDINGTON, BEDFORD, _June_ 8/52.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

It gave me, as always, the greatest pleasure to hear from you. Your letter found me at my Mother's house, at Ham, close to Richmond; a really lovely place, and neighbourhood, though I say it who am all prejudiced against London and 'all the purtenances thereof.' But the copious woods, green meadows, the Thames and its swans gliding between, and so many villas and cheerful houses and terraced gardens with all their a.s.sociations of Wits and Courtiers on either side, all this is very delightful. I am not heroic enough for Castles, Battlefields, etc.

Strawberry Hill for me! I looked all over it: you know all the pictures, jewels, curiosities, were sold some ten years ago; only bare walls remain: the walls indeed here and there stuck with Gothic woodwork, and the ceilings with Gothic gilding, sometimes painted Gothic to imitate woodwork; much of it therefore in less good taste: all a Toy, but yet the Toy of a very clever man. The rain is coming through the Roofs, and gradually disengaging the confectionary Battlements and Cornices. Do you like Walpole? did you ever read him? Then close by is Hampton Court: with its stately gardens, and fine portraits inside; all very much to my liking. I am quite sure gardens should be formal, and unlike general Nature. I much prefer the old French and Dutch gardens to what are called the English.

I saw scarce any of our friends during the three weeks I pa.s.sed at Ham.

Though I had to run to London several times, I generally ran back as fast as I could; much preferring the fresh air and the fields to the smoke and 'the wilderness of monkeys' in London. Thackeray I saw for ten minutes: he was just in the agony of finis.h.i.+ng a Novel: which has arisen out of the Reading necessary for his Lectures, and relates to those Times--of Queen Anne, I mean. He will get 1000 pounds for his Novel. He was wanting to finish it, and rush off to the Continent, I think, to shake off the fumes of it. Old Spedding, that aged and most subtle Serpent, was in his old haunt in Lincoln's Inn Fields, up to any mischief. It was supposed that Alfred was somewhere near Malvern: Carlyle I did not go to see, for I really have nothing to tell him, and I have got tired of hearing him growl: though I do not cease to admire him as much as ever. I also went once to the pit of the Covent Garden Italian Opera, to hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, of which I had only heard bits on the Pianoforte.

But the first Act was so noisy, and ugly, that I came away, unable to wait for the better part, that, I am told, follows. Meyerbeer is a man of Genius: and works up _dramatic_ Music: but he has scarce any melody, and is rather grotesque and noisy than really powerful. I think this is the fault of modern music; people cannot believe that Mozart is _powerful_ because he is so Beautiful: in the same way as it requires a very practised eye (more than I possess) to recognize the consummate power predominating in the tranquil Beauty of Greek Sculpture. I think Beethoven is rather spasmodically, than sustainedly, grand.

Well, I must take to my third side after all, which I meant to have spared you, partly because of this transparent paper, and my more than usually bad writing. I came down here four days ago: and have this morning sketched for you the enclosed, the common that lies before my Bedroom window, as I pulled up my blind, and opened my shutter upon it, early this morning. I never draw now, never drew well; but this may serve to give a hint of poor old dewy England to you who are, I suppose, beginning to be dried up in the South. W. Browne, my host, tells me that your Grimsby Rail is looking up greatly, and certainly will pay well, sooner or later: which I devoutly hope it may.

I do not think I told you my Father was dead; like poor old Sedley in Thackeray's Vanity Fair, all his Coal schemes at an end. He died in March, after an illness of three weeks, saying 'that engine works well'

(meaning one of his Colliery steam engines) as he lay in the stupor of Death. I was in Shrops.h.i.+re at the time, with my old friend Allen; but I went home to Suffolk just to help to lay him in the Grave.

Pray do send me your Poems, one and all: I should like very much to talk them over with you, however much you might resent me, who am no Poet, presuming to advise you who as certainly are one. That you ought to publish some of these Poems (as I think, somewhat condensed, or, at least, curtailed) I am more and more sure, having seen the very great pleasure, and deep interest, some of them have caused when read to persons of very different talents and tastes.

And now, my dear Frederic, farewell for the present. Remember, you cannot write to me too often, as far as I am concerned.

Don't write Politics--I agree with you beforehand.

_To W. B. Donne_.

BOULGE, _August_ 10/52.

MY DEAR DONNE,

It is very good of you to write to me, so much as you have to do. I am much obliged to you also for taking the trouble to go and see my Mother.

You may rely on it she feels as pleased with your company as she says she is: I do not know any one who has the power of being so agreeable to her as yourself.

And dear old Thackeray is really going to America! I must fire him a letter of farewell.