Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume II Part 3

MY DEAR DONNE,

I talk indignantly against others bothering you, and do worse than all myself, I think, what with Bookbindings, Dressing-gowns, etc. (N.B. You know that the last is only in case when you are going your Rounds to St.

James, etc.) Now I have a little Query to make: which, not being even so much out of your way, won't I hope trouble you. I remember Thompson telling me that, from what he had read and seen of Grecian Geography, he almost thought Clytemnestra's famous Account of the Line of Signal Fires from Troy to Mycenae to be possible (I mean you know in the Agamemnon).

At least this is what _I believe_ he said: I must not a.s.sert from a not very accurate Memory anything that would compromise a Greek Professor: I am so ignorant of Geography, ancient as well as modern, I don't know exactly, or at all, the Points of the Beacons so enumerated: and Lempriere, the only Cla.s.sic I have to refer to, doesn't help me in what I want. Will you turn to the pa.s.sage, and tell me _what_, and _where_, are:

1. The [Greek text]--

2. The [Greek text]--

3. The [Greek text].

_What_, _where_, and _why_, so called? The rest I know, or can find in Dictionary, and Map. But for these--

Lempriere Is no-where; Liddell and Scott Don't help me a jot: When I'm off, Donnegan Don't help me _on again_.-- So I'm obliged to resort to old _Donne again_!

Rhyme and Epigram quite worthy of the German.

_To W. H. Thompson_.

Fragment of a Letter written in Nov. 1862.

I took down a Juvenal to look for a Pa.s.sage about the Loaded Waggon rolling through the Roman Streets. {34} I couldn't find it. Do you know where it is? Not that you need answer this Question, which only comes in as if I were talking to you. I remember asking you whence AEschylus made his Agamemnon speak of Ulysses as unwilling at first to go on the Trojan Expedition. I see Paley refers it to some Poem called the Cypria quoted by Proclus. I was asking Donne the other Day as to some of the names of the Beacon-places in Clytemnestra's famous Speech: and I then said I _believed_--but only _believed_, as an inaccurate Man, not wis.h.i.+ng to implicate others--that you, Thompson, had once told me that you thought the Chain of Fires _might_ have pa.s.sed from Troy to Mycenae in the way described--_just possibly_ MIGHT, I think--I a.s.sure you I took care not to commit your Credit by my uncertain Memory, whatever it was you said was only in a casual way over a Cigar. Are you for [Greek text]? {35a} a point I don't care a straw about; so don't answer this neither.

No, I didn't go to the Exhibition: which, I know, looks like Affectation: but was honest Incuriosity and Indolence.

. . . On looking over Juvenal for the Lines I wanted I was amused at the prosaic Truth of one I didn't want:

Intolerabilius nihil est quam femina dives. {35b}

_To George Crabbe_.

_Dec._ 20, 1862.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . I have been, and am, reading Borrow's 'Wild Wales,' which _I_ like well, because I can hear him talking it. But I don't know if others will like it: anyhow there is too much of the same thing. Then what is meant for the plainest record of Conversation, etc., has such Phrases as 'Marry come up,' etc., which mar the sense of Authenticity. Then, no one writing better English than Borrow in general, there is the vile _Individual_--_Person_--and _Locality_ always cropping up: and even this vulgar Young Ladyism, 'The Scenery was beautiful _to a Degree_.' _What_ Degree? When did this vile Phrase arise?

_To W. H. Thompson_.

_Good Friday_, 1863.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

Pray never feel ashamed of not answering my Letters so long as you do write twice a year, to let me know you live and thrive. As much oftener as you please: but you are only to be ashamed of not doing that. For that I really want of all who have been very kind and very constant ('_loyal_' is the word that even Emperors now use of themselves) for so many years. This I say in all sincerity.

Now, while you talk of being ashamed of not writing, I am rather ashamed of writing so much to you. Partly because I really have so little to say; and also because saying that little too often puts you to the shame you speak of. You say my Letters are pleasant, however: and they will be so far pleasant if they a.s.sure you that I like talking to you in that way: bad as I am at more direct communication. I can tell you your letters are very pleasant to me; you at least have always something to tell of your half-year's Life: and you tell it so wholesomely, I always say in so capital a Style, as makes me regret you have not written some of your better Knowledge for the Public. I suppose (as I have heard) that your Lectures {37} are excellent in this way; I can say I should like very much to attend a course of them, on the Greek Plays, or on Plato. I dare say you are right about an Apprentices.h.i.+p in Red Tape being necessary to make a Man of Business: but is it too late in Life for you to buckle to and screw yourself up to condense some of your Lectures and scholarly Lore into a Book? By 'too late in Life' I mean too late to take Heart to do it.

I am sure you won't believe that I am _scratching_ you in return for any scratchings from your hands. We are both too old, too sensible, and too independent, I think, for that sort of thing.

As to my going to Ely in June, I don't know yet what to say; for I have been Fool enough to order a Boat to be building which will cost me 350 pounds, and she talks of being launched in the very first week of June, and I have engaged for some short trips in her as soon as she is afloat.

I begin to feel tired of her already; I felt I should when I was persuaded to order her: and that is the Folly of it. They say it is a very bad Thing to do Nothing: but I am sure that is not the case with those who are born to Blunder; I always find that I have to repent of what I have done, not what I have left undone; and poor W. Browne used to say it was better even to repent of what [was] undone than done. You know how glad I should be if you came here: but I haven't the Face to ask it, especially after that misfit last Summer; which was not my fault however.

I always look upon old Spedding's as one of the most wasted Lives I know: and he is a wise Man! Twenty years ago I told him that he should knock old Bacon off; I don't mean give him up, but wind him up at far less sacrifice of Time and Labour; and edit Shakespeare. I think it _would_ have been worth his Life to have done those two; and I am always persuaded his Bacon would have been better if done more at a heat. I shall certainly buy the new Shakespeare you tell me of, if the Volumes aren't bulky; which destroys my pleasure in the use of a Book.

I have had my share of Influenza: even this Woodbridge, with all its capital Air and self-contented Stupidity (which you know is very conducive to long Life) has been wheezing and coughing all the very mild winter; and the Bell of the Tower opposite my Room has been tolling oftener than I ever remember.

Though I can't answer for _June_, I am really meditating a small trip to Wilts.h.i.+re _before_ June; mainly to see the daughters of my old George Crabbe who are settled at Bradford on Avon, and want very much that I should see how happily they live on very small means indeed. And I must own I am the more tempted to go abroad because there is preparation for a Marriage in my Family (a Niece--but not one of my Norfolk Nieces) which is to be at my Brother's near here; and there will be a Levee of People, who drop in here, etc. This may blow over, however.

Now I ought to be ashamed of this long Letter: don't you make me so by answering it.

Ever yours, E. F. G.

_To George Crabbe_.

WOODBRIDGE, _June_ 8/63.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

Your sister wrote me a very kind Letter to tell of her safe Return home.

I must repeat to you very sincerely that I never recollect to have pa.s.sed a pleasanter week. As far as Company went, it was like Old Times at Bredfield; and the Oak-trees were divine! I never expected to care so very much for Trees, nor for your flat Country: but I really feel as one who has bathed in Verdure. I suppose Town-living makes one alive to such a Change.

I spent a long Day with Thompson: {40} and much liked the painted Roof.

On Thursday I went to Lynn: which I took a Fancy to: the odd old Houses: the Quay: the really grand Inn (Duke's Head, in the Market place) and the civil, Norfolk-talking, People. I went to Hunstanton, which is rather dreary: one could see the Country at Sandringham was good. I enquired fruitlessly about those Sandringham Pictures, etc.: even the Auctioneer, whom I found in the Bar of the Inn, could tell nothing of where they had gone.

_To W. B. Donne_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.

_Sat. July_ 18/63.

MY DEAR DONNE,

. . . I can hardly tell you whether I am much pleased with my new Boat; for I hardly know myself. She is (as I doubted would be from the first) rather awkward in our narrow River; but then she was to be a good Sea- boat; and I don't know but she is; and will be better in all ways when we have got her in proper trim. Yesterday we gave her what they call '_a tuning_' in a rather heavy swell round Orford Ness: and she did well without a reef, etc. But, now all is got, I don't any the more want to go far away by Sea, any more than by Land; having no Curiosity left for other Places, and glad to get back to my own Chair and Bed after three or four Days' Absence. So long as I get on the Sea from time to time, it is much the same to me whether off Aldbro' or Penzance. And I find I can't sleep so well on board as I used to do thirty years ago: and not to get one's Sleep, you know, indisposes one more or less for the Day. However, we talk of Dover, Folkestone, Holland, etc., which will give one's sleeping Talents a _tuning_.

_To George Crabbe_.

WOODBRIDGE, _July_ 19, [1863].

MY DEAR GEORGE,

You tell me the Romney is at Gardner's: but where is Gardner's? And what was the Price of the Portrait? Laurence said well about Romney that, as compared to Sir Joshua and Gainsboro', his Pictures looked tinted, rather than painted; the colour of the Cheek (for instance) rather superficially laid on, as rouge, rather than ingrained, and mantling like Blood from below. Laurence had seen those at last year's Exhibition: I have not seen near so many. I remember one that seemed to me capital at Lord Bute's in Bedfords.h.i.+re.

I came home yesterday from a short Cruise to Yarmouth, etc., where some people were interested in the Channel Fleet. But I could take no interest in Steam s.h.i.+ps and Iron Rams.

WOODBRIDGE, _August_ 4, [1863].

MY DEAR GEORGE,

I have at last done my Holland: you won't be surprised to hear that I did it in two days, and was too glad to rush home on the first pretence, after (as usual) seeing nothing I cared the least about. The Country itself I had seen long before in Dutch Pictures, and between Beccles and Norwich: the Towns I had seen in Picturesque Annuals, Drop Scenes, etc.