Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume I Part 28

MY DEAR COWELL,

Owing partly to my own Stupidity, and partly to a change in the India Post days, my last two letters (to you and wife) which were quite ready by the Ma.r.s.eilles Post of April 25th will not get off till the Southampton Mail of this May 10. Your letter of March 21 reached me three days ago. Write only when you have Leisure and Inclination, and only as much as those two good things are good for: I will do the same. I will at once say (in reply to a kind offer you make to have Hatifi's 'Haft Paikar' copied for me) that it will [be] best to wait till you have read it; you know me well enough to know whether it will hit my taste.

However, if it be but a very short poem, no harm would be done by a Copy: but do let me be at the Charges of such things. I will ask for Hatifi's Laili: but I didn't (as you know) take much to what little I saw. As to any copies Allen might have had, I believe there is no good asking for them: for, only yesterday going to put into Madden's hands Mr. Newton's MS. of the Mantic, I saw Allen's house _kharab_. There had been a Fire there, Madden told me, which had destroyed stock, etc., but I could not make much out of the matter, Madden putting on a Face of foolish mystery.

You can imagine it? We talked of you, as you may imagine also: and I believe in that he is not foolish. Well, and to-day I have a note from the great De Ta.s.sy which announces, 'My dear Sir, Definitively I have written a little Paper upon Omar with some Quotations taken here and there at random, avoiding only the too badly sounding _rubayat_. I have read that paper before the Persian Amba.s.sador and suite, at a meeting of the Oriental Society of which I am Vice President, the Duc de Dondeauville being president. The Amba.s.sador has been much pleased of my quotations.' So you see I have done the part of an ill Subject in helping France to ingratiate herself with Persia when England might have had the start! I suppose it probable _Ferukh Khan_ himself had never read or perhaps heard of Omar. I think I told you in my last that I had desired De Ta.s.sy to say nothing about you in any Paper he should write; since I cannot have you answerable for any blunders I may have made in my Copy, nor may you care to be named with Omar at all. I hope the Frenchman will attend to my desire; and I dare say he will, as he will then have all credit to himself. He says he can't make out the metre of the _rubayat_ at all--never could--though 'I am enough skilful in scanning the Persian verses as you have seen' (Qy?) 'in my Prosody of the languages of Musulman Countries, etc.' So much for De Ta.s.sy. No; but something more yet: and better, for he tells me his Print of the Mantic is finisht, 'in proofs,' and will be out in about a Month: and he will send me one. Now, my dear Cowell, can't I send one to you? Yes, we must manage that somehow.

Well, I have not turned over Johnson's Dictionary for the last month, having got hold of AEschylus. I think I want to turn his Trilogy into what shall be readable English Verse; a thing I have always thought of, but was frightened at the Chorus. So I am now; I can't think them so fine as People talk of: they are terribly maimed; and all such Lyrics require a better Poet than I am to set forth in English. But the better Poets won't do it; and I cannot find one readable translation. I shall (if I make one) make a very free one; not for Scholars, but for those who are ignorant of Greek, and who (so far as I have seen) have never been induced to learn it by any Translations yet made of these Plays. I think I shall become a bore, of the Bowring order, by all this Translation: but it amuses me without any labour, and I really think I have the faculty of making some things readable which others have hitherto left unreadable.

But don't be alarmed with the antic.i.p.ation of another sudden volume of Translations; for I only sketch out the matter, then put it away; and coming on it one day with fresh eyes trim it up with some natural impulse that I think gives a natural air to all. So I have put away the Mantic.

When I die, what a farrago of such things will be found! Enough of such matter. . . .

Friday, June 5! What an interval since the last sentence! And why?

Because I have been moving about nearly ever since till yesterday, and my Letter, thus far written, was packt up in a Box sent down hither, namely, Gorlestone Cliffs, Great Yarmouth. Instead of the Regent's Park, and Regent Street, here before my windows are the Vessels going in and out of this River: and Sailors walking about with fur caps and their brown hands in their Breeches Pockets. Within hail almost lives George Borrow who has lately published, and given me, two new Volumes of Lavengro called 'Romany Rye,' with some excellent things, and some very bad (as I have made bold to write to him--how shall I face him!). You would not like the Book at all, I think. But I must now tell you an odd thing, which will also be a sad thing to you. I left London last Tuesday fortnight for Bedfords.h.i.+re, meaning to touch at Hertford in pa.s.sing; but as usual, bungled between two Railroads and got to Bedford, and not to Hertford, on the Tuesday Evening. To that latter place I had wanted to go, as well to see it, as to see N. Newton, who had made one or two bungled efforts to see me in London. So, when I got to Bedford, I wrote him a line to say how it was I had missed him. On the very Sat.u.r.day immediately after, I received a Hertford Paper announcing the sudden Death of N. Newton on the very Tuesday on which I had set out to see him! He had been quite well till the Sat.u.r.day preceding: had then caught some illness (I suppose some infectious fever) which had been visiting some in his house; died on the Tuesday, and was buried on the Thursday after! What will Austin do without him? He had written to me about your Hafiz saying he had got several subjects for Ill.u.s.tration, and I meant to have had a talk with him on the matter. What should be done? I dare not undertake any great responsibility in meddling in such a matter even if asked to do so, which is not likely to be unless on your part; for I find my taste so very different from the Public that what I think good would probably be very unprofitable.

When in Bedfords.h.i.+re I put away almost all Books except Omar Khayyam!, which I could not help looking over in a Paddock covered with b.u.t.tercups and brushed by a delicious Breeze, while a dainty racing Filly of W.

Browne's came startling up to wonder and snuff about me. 'Tempus est quo Orientis Aura mundus renovatur, Quo de fonte pluviali dulcis Imber reseratur; _Musi-ma.n.u.s_ undec.u.mque ramos insuper splendescit; Jesu-spiritusque Salutaris terram pervagatur.' Which is to be read as Monkish Latin, like 'Dies Irae,' etc., retaining the Italian value of the Vowels, not the Cla.s.sical. You will think me a perfectly Aristophanic Old Man when I tell you how many of Omar I could not help running into such bad Latin. I should not confide such follies but to you who won't think them so, and who will be pleased at least with my still harping on our old Studies. You would be sorry, too, to think that Omar breathes a sort of Consolation to me! Poor Fellow; I think of him, and Oliver Ba.s.selin, and Anacreon; lighter Shadows among the Shades, perhaps, over which Lucretius presides so grimly. Thursday, June 11. Your letter of April is come to hand, very welcome; and I am expecting the MS. Omar which I have written about to London. And now with respect to your proposed Fraser Paper on Omar. You see a few lines back I talk of some lazy Latin Versions of his Tetrastichs, giving one clumsy example. Now I shall rub up a few more of those I have sketched in the same manner, in order to see if you approve, if not of the thing done, yet of

(_letter breaks off abruptly at the end of the page_.)

June 23. I begin another Letter because I am looking into the Omar MS.

you have sent me, and shall perhaps make some notes and enquiries as I go on. I had not intended to do so till I had looked all over and tried to make out what I could of it; since it is both pleasant to oneself to find out for oneself if possible, and also saves trouble to one's friends. But yet it will keep me talking with you as I go along: and if I find I say silly things or clear up difficulties for myself before I close my Letter (which has a month to be open in!) why, I can cancel or amend, so as you will see the whole Process of Blunder. I think this MS. furnishes some opportunities for one's critical faculties, and so is a good exercise for them, if one wanted such! First however I must tell you how much ill poor Crabbe has been: a sort of Paralysis, I suppose, in two little fits, which made him think he was sure to die: but Dr. Beck at present says he may live many years with care. Of this also I shall be able to tell you more before I wind up. The brave old Fellow! he was quite content to depart, and had his Daughter up to give her his Keys, and tell her where the different wines were laid! I must also tell you that Borrow is greatly delighted with your MS. of Omar which I showed him: delighted at the terseness so unusual in Oriental Verse. But his Eyes are apt to cloud: and his wife has been obliged, he tells me, to carry off even the little Omar out of reach of them for a while. . . .

June 27. Geldestone Hall. I brought back my two Nieces here yesterday: and to-day am sitting as of old in my accustomed Bedroom, looking out on a Landscape which your Eyes would drink. It is said there has not been such a Flush of Verdure for years: and they are making hay on the Lawn before the house, so as one wakes to the tune of the Mower's Scythe-whetting, and with the old Perfume blowing in at open windows. . .

July 1. June over! A thing I think of with Omar-like sorrow. And the Roses here are blowing--and going--as abundantly as even in Persia. I am still at Geldestone, and still looking at Omar by an open window which gives over a Greener Landscape than yours. To-morrow my eldest Nephew, Walter Kerrich, whom I first took to school, is to be married in the Bermudas to a young Widow. He has chosen his chosen sister Andalusia's Birthday to be married on; and so we are to keep that double Festival. .

_Extract from Letter begun_ 3 _July_, 1857.

Monday, July 13. This day year was the last I spent with you at Rushmere! We dined in the Evening at your Uncle's in Ipswich, walking home at night together. The night before (yesterday year) you all went to Mr. Maude's Church, and I was so sorry afterward I had not gone with you too; for the last time, as your wife said. One of my manifold stupidities, all avenged in a Lump now! I think I shall close this letter to-morrow: which will be the Anniversary of my departure from Rushmere. I went from you, you know, to old Crabbe's. Is he too to be wiped away by a yet more irrecoverable exile than India? By to-morrow I shall have finisht my first Physiognomy of Omar, whom I decidedly prefer to any Persian I have yet seen, unless perhaps Salaman. . . .

Tuesday, July 14. Here is the Anniversary of our Adieu at Rushmere. And I have been (rather hastily) getting to an end of my first survey of the Calcutta Omar, by way of counterpart to our joint survey of the Ouseley MS. then. I suppose we spoke of it this day year; probably had a final look at it together before I went off, in some Gig, I think, to Crabbe's.

We hear rather better Report of him, if the being likely to live a while longer is better. I shall finish my Letter to-day; only leaving it open to add any very particular word. I must repeat I am sure this Calcutta Omar is, in the same proportion with the Ouseley, by as good a hand as the Ouseley: by as good a hand, if not Omar's; which I think you seemed to doubt if it was, in one of your Letters. . . .

Have I previously asked you to observe 486, of which I send a poor Sir W.

Jones' sort of Parody which came into my mind walking in the Garden here; where the Rose is blowing as in Persia? And with this poor little Envoy my Letter shall end. I will not stop to make the Verse better.

I long for wine! oh Saki of my Soul, Prepare thy Song and fill the morning Bowl; For this first Summer month that brings the Rose Takes many a Sultan with it as it goes.

_To Mrs. Charles Allen_. {337}

GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES.

_August_ 15/57.

MY DEAR MRS. ALLEN,

One should be very much gratified at being remembered so long with _any_ kindness: and how much more gratified with so kind Remembrances as yours!

I may safely say that I too remember you and my Freestone days of five and twenty years ago with a particular regard; I have been telling my Nieces at the Breakfast Table this morning, after I read your letter, how I remembered you sitting in the '_Schoolroom_'--too much sheltered with Trees--with a large Watch open before you--your Sister too, with her light hair and China-rose Complexion--too delicate!--your Father, your Mother, your Brother--of whom (your Brother) I caught a glimpse in London two years ago. And all the _Place_ at Freestone--I can walk about it as I lie awake here, and see the very yellow flowers in the fields, and hear that distant sound of explosion in some distant Quarry. The coast at Bosherston one could never forget once seen, even if it had no domestic kindness to frame its Memory in. I might have profited more of those good Days than I did; but it is not my Talent to take the Tide at its flow; and so all goes to worse than waste!

But it is ungracious to talk of oneself--except so far as shall answer some points you touch on. It would in many respects be very delightful to me to walk again with you over those old Places; in other respects sad:--but the pleasure would have the upper hand if one had not again to leave it all and plunge back again. I dare not go to Wales now.

I owe to Tenby the chance acquaintance of another Person who now from that hour remains one of my very best Friends. A Lad--then just 16--whom I met on board the Packet from Bristol: and next morning at the Boarding House--apt then to appear with a little _chalk_ on the edge of his Cheek from a touch of the Billiard Table Cue--and now a man of 40--Farmer, Magistrate, Militia Officer--Father of a Family--of more use in a week than I in my Life long. You too have six sons, your Letter tells me.

They may do worse than do as well as he I have spoken of, though he too has sown some wild oats, and paid for doing so.

_My_ family consists of some eight Nieces here, whom I have seen, all of them, from their Birth upwards--perfectly good, simple, and well-bred, women and girls; varying in disposition but all agreed among themselves and to do what they can in a small Sphere. They go about in the Village here with some consolation both for Body and Mind for the Poor, and have no desire for the Opera, nor for the Fine Folks and fine Dresses there.

There is however some melancholy in the Blood of some of them--but none that mars any happiness but their own: and that but so slightly as one should expect when there was no Fault, and no Remorse, to embitter it!

You will perhaps be as well entertained with this poor familiar news as any I could tell you. As to public matters, I scarcely meddle with them, and don't know what to think of India except that it is very terrible. I always think a Nation with great Estates is like a Man with them:--more trouble than Profit: I would only have a _Competence_ for my Country as for myself. Two of my very dearest Friends went but last year to Calcutta:--he as Professor at the Presidency College there: and now he has to shoulder a musket, I believe, as well as deliver a Lecture. You and yours are safe at home, I am glad to think.

Please to remember me to all whom I have shaken hands with, and make my kind Regards to those of your Party I have not yet seen. I am sure all _would be_ as kind to me as others who bear the name of Allen _have been_.

Once more--thank you thank you for your kindness; and believe me yours as ever very truly,

EDWD. FITZGERALD.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

RUSHMERE, _October_ 3/57.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I hope things will not be so black with you and us by the time this Letter reaches you, but you may be amused and glad to have it from me.

Not that I have come into Suffolk on any cheerful Errand: I have come to bury dear old Mr. Crabbe! I suppose you have had some Letters of mine telling you of his Illness; Epileptic Fits which came successively and weakened him gradually, and at last put him to his Bed entirely, where he lay some while unable to move himself or to think! They said he might lie so a long time, since he eat and drank with fair Appet.i.te: but suddenly the End came on and after a twelve hours Stupor he died. On Tuesday September 22 he was buried; and I came from Bedfords.h.i.+re (where I had only arrived two days before) to a.s.sist at it. I and Mr. Drew were the only persons invited not of the Family: but there were very many Farmers and Neighbours come to pay respect to the remains of the brave old Man, who was buried, by his own desire, among the poor in the Churchyard in a Grave that he wishes to be no otherwise distinguisht than by a common Head and Footstone. . . .

You may imagine it was melancholy enough to me to revisit the house when He who had made it so warm for me so often lay cold in his Coffin unable to entertain me any more! His little old dark Study (which I called the '_Cobblery'_) smelt strong of its old Smoke: and the last Cheroot he had tried lay three quarters smoked in its little China Ash-pan. This I have taken as a Relic, as also a little silver Nutmeg Grater which used to give the finis.h.i.+ng Touch to many a Gla.s.s of good hot Stuff, and also had belonged to the Poet Crabbe. . . .

Last night I had some of your Letters read to me: among them one but yesterday arrived, not very suns.h.i.+ny in its prospects: but your Brother thinks the Times Newspaper of yesterday somewhat bids us look up. Only, all are trembling for Lucknow, crowded with Helplessness and Innocence! I am ashamed to think how little I understand of all these things: but have wiser men, and men in Place, understood much more? or, understanding, have they _done_ what they should? . . .

Love to the dear Lady, and may you be now and for time to come safe and well is the Prayer of yours,

E. F. G.

31 PORTLAND STREET, LONDON.

_Decr_. 8/57.

MY DEAR COWELL,

You will recognize the Date of my Abode. Two years ago you were coming to see me in it much about this Season: and a year ago I wrote you my first Letter to India from it. I came hither from Brighton a week ago: how long to be here uncertain: you had best direct to Goldington Hall, Bedford. I sent you a short Letter by last Ma.r.s.eilles' Post from Brighton: and I now begin this short one because I have happened again to take hold of some Books which we are mutually interested in. I have left with Borrow the Copy of the Mantic De Ta.s.sy gave me; so some days ago I bought another Copy of Norgate. For you must know I had again taken up my rough Sketch of a Translation, which, such as it is, might easily be finisht. But it is in truth no Translation: but only the _Paraphrase of a Syllabus_ of the Poem: quite unlike the original in Style too:--But it would give, I think, a fair proportionate Account of the Scheme of the Poem. If ever I finish it, I will send it you. Well; then in turning this over, I also turned over Volume I of Sprenger's Catalogue, which I bought by itself for 6s. a year ago. As it contains all the Persian MSS.

I supposed that would be enough for me. I have been looking at his List of Attar's Poems. What a number! All almost much made up of _Apologues_ in which Attar excels, I think. His Stories are better than Jami's: to be sure, he gives more to pick out of. An interesting thing in the Mantic is, the stories about Mahmud: and these are the best in the Book.

I find I have got seven or eight in my brief Extract. I see Sprenger says Attar was born in 513--four years before poor Omar Khayyam died! He mentions one of Attar's Books--'The Book of Union,' _waslat_ _namah_, which seems to be on the very subject of the Apologue to the _Peac.o.c.k's_ Brag in the Mantic: line 814 in De Ta.s.sy. I suppose this is no more the Orthodox _Mussulman_ Version than it is ours. Sprenger also mentions as one separate Book what is part of the Mantic--and main part--the _Haft wady_. Sprenger says (p. 350) how the MSS. of Attar differ from one another.

And now about old Omar. You talked of sending a Paper about him to Fraser and I told you, if you did, I would stop it till I had made my Comments. I suppose you have not had time to do what you proposed, or are you overcome with the Flood of bad Latin I poured upon you? Well: don't be surprised (vext, you won't be) if _I_ solicit Fraser for room for a few Quatrains in English Verse, however--with only such an Introduction as you and Sprenger give me--very short--so as to leave you to say all that is Scholarly if you will. I hope this is not very Cavalier of me. But in truth I take old Omar rather more as my property than yours: he and I are more akin, are we not? You see all [his]

Beauty, but you don't feel _with_ him in some respects as I do. I think you would almost feel obliged to leave out the part of Hamlet in representing him to your Audience: for fear of Mischief. Now I do not wish to show Hamlet at his maddest: but mad he must be shown, or he is no Hamlet at all. G. de Ta.s.sy eluded all that was dangerous, and all that was characteristic. I think these _free_ opinions are less dangerous in an old Mahometan, or an old Roman (like Lucretius) than when they are returned to by those who have lived on happier Food. I don't know what you will say to all this. However I dare say it won't matter whether I do the Paper or not, for I don't believe they'll put it in.

Then--yesterday I bought at that shop in the Narrow Pa.s.sage at the end of Oxford Street a very handsome small Folio MS. of Sadi's Bostan for 10s.

But I don't know when I shall look at it to read: for my Eyes are but bad: and London so dark, that I write this Letter now at noon by the Light of two Candles. Of which enough for To-day. I must however while I think of it again notice to you about those first Introductory Quatrains to Omar in both the Copies you have seen; taken out of their Alphabetical place, _if they be Omar's own_, evidently by way of putting a good Leg foremost--or perhaps _not_ his at all. So that which Sprenger says begins the Oude MS. is manifestly, not any Apology of Omar's own, but a Denunciation of him by some one else: {344} and is a _sort_ of Parody (in _Form_ at least) of Omar's own Quatrain 445, with its indignant reply by the Sultan.

Tuesday Dec. 22. I have your Letter of Nov. 9--giving a gloomy Account of what has long ere this been settled for better or worse! It is said we are to have a Mail on Friday. I must post this Letter before then.

Thank you for the MSS. You will let me know what you expend on them. I have been looking over De Ta.s.sy's Omar. Try and see the other Poems of Attar mentioned by Sprenger: those with Apologues, etc., in which (as I have said) Attar seems to me to excel. Love to the Lady. I have no news of the Crabbes, but that they do pretty well in their new home. Donne has just been here and gone--asking about you. I dine with him on Christmas Day.