Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume II Part 10

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I don't think I told you about Garcin de Ta.s.sy. He sent me (as no doubt he sent you) his annual Oration. I wrote to thank him: and said I had been lately busy with another countryman of his, Mons. Nicolas, with his Omar Khayyam. On which De Ta.s.sy writes back by return of post to ask 'Where I got my Copy of Nicolas? He had not been able to get one in all Paris!' So I wrote to Quaritch: who told me the Book was to be had of Maisonneuve, or any Oriental Bookseller in Paris; but that probably the Shopman did not understand, when '_Les Rubaiyat d'Omar_, etc.,' were asked for, that it meant '_Les Quatrains_, etc.' This (which I doubt not is the solution of the Mystery) I wrote to Garcin: at the same time offering one of my two Copies. By return of Post comes a frank acceptance of one of the Copies; and his own Translation of Attar's Birds by way of equivalent. [Greek text]. Well, as I got these Birds just as I was starting here, I brought them with me, and looked them over. Here, at Lowestoft, in this same row of houses, two doors off, I was writing out the Translation I made in the Winter of 1859. I have scarce looked at Original or Translation since. But I was struck by this; that eight years had made little or no alteration in my idea of the matter: it seemed to me that I really had brought in nearly all worth remembering, and had really condensed the whole into a much compacter Image than the original. This is what I think I can do, with such discursive things: such as all the Oriental things I have seen are. I remember you thought that I had lost the Apologues towards the close; but I believe I was right in excluding them, as the narrative grew dramatic and neared the Catastrophe. Also, it is much better to glance at the dangers of the Valley when the Birds are in it, than to let the Leader recount them before: which is not good policy, morally or dramatically. When I say all this, you need not suppose that I am vindicating the Translation as a Piece of Verse. I remember thinking it from the first rather disagreeable than not: though with some good parts. Jam satis.

There is a pretty story, which seems as if it really happened (p. 201 of De Ta.s.sy's Translation, referring to v. 3581 of the original), of the Boy falling into a well, and on being taken out senseless, the Father asking him to say but a word; and then, but one word more: which the Boy says and dies. And at p. 256, Translation (v. 4620), I read, 'Lorsque Nizam ul-mulk fut a l'agonie, il dit: "O mon Dieu, je m'en vais entre les mains du vent."' Here is our Omar in his Friend's mouth, is it not?

I have come here to wind up accounts for our Herring-lugger: much against us, as the season has been a bad one. My dear Captain, who looks in his Cottage like King Alfred in the Story, was rather saddened by all this, as he had prophesied better things. I tell him that if he is but what I think him--and surely my sixty years of considering men will not so deceive me at last!--I would rather lose money with him than gain it with others. Indeed I never proposed Gain, as you may imagine: but only to have some Interest with this dear Fellow. Happy New Year to you Both!

I wish you would have Semelet's Gulistan which I have. You know I never cared for Sadi.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.

_Jan_: 9/68.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

I saw advertised in my old Athenaeum a Review {102} of Richardson's Novels in the January Cornhill. So I bought it: and began to think you might have written it: but was not so a.s.sured as I went on. It is however very good, in my opinion, whoever did it: though I don't think it does all justice to the interminable Original. When the Writer talks of Grandison and Clarissa being the two Characters--oh, Lovelace himself should have made the third: if unnatural (as the Reviewer says), yet not the less wonderful: quite beyond and above anything in Fielding. Whether you wrote the article or not, I know you are one of the few who have read the Book. The Reviewer admits that it might be abridged; I am convinced of that, and have done it for my own satisfaction: but you thought this was not to be done. So here is internal proof that you didn't write what Thackeray used to call the '_Hurticle_,' or that you have changed your mind on that score. But you haven't. But I know better, Lord bless you: and am sure I could (with a pair of Scissors) launch old Richardson again: we shouldn't go off the stocks easy (pardon nautical metaphors), but stick by the way, amid the jeers of Reviewers who had never read the original: but we should float at last. Only I don't want to spend a lot of money to be hooted at, without having time to wait for the floating.

I have spent lots of money on my Herring-lugger, which has made but a poor Season. So now we are going (like wise men) to lay out a lot more for Mackerel; and my Captain (a dear Fellow) is got ill, which is much worst of all: so hey for 1868! Which is wis.h.i.+ng you better luck next time, Sir, etc.

Spedding at last found and sent me his delightful little Paper about Twelfth Night. I was glad to be set right about Viola: but I think he makes too much of the whole play, 'finest of Comedies,' etc. It seems to me quite a light, slight, sketch--for Twelfth Night--What you will, etc.

What else does the Name mean? Have I uttered these Impieties! No more!

Nameless as shameless.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

WOODBRIDGE: _May_ 28/68.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I was just about to post you your own Calcutta Review when your Letter came, asking about some Euphranors. Oh yes! I have a Lot of them: returned from Parker's when they were going to dissolve their House; I would not be at the Bother of any further negociation with any other Bookseller, about half a dozen little Books which so few wanted: so had them all sent here. I will therefore send you six copies. I had supposed that you didn't like the second Edition so well as the first: and had a suspicion myself that, though I improved it in some respects, I had done more harm than good: and so I have never had courage to look into it since I sent it to you at Oxford. Perhaps Tennyson {104} only praised the first Edition and I don't know where to lay my hands on that.

I wonder he should have thought twice about it. Not but I think the Truth is told: only, a Truth every one knows! And told in a shape of Dialogue really something Platonic: but I doubt rather affectedly too.

However, such as it is, I send it you. I remember being anxious about it twenty years ago, because I thought it was the Truth (as if my telling it could mend the matter!): and I cannot but think that the Generation that has grown up in these twenty years has not profited by the Fifty Thousand Copies of this great work!

I am sorry to trouble you about Macmillan; I should not have done so had I kept my Copy with your corrections as well as my own. As Lamb said of himself, so I say; that I never had any Luck with printing: I certainly don't mean that I have had much cause to complain: but, for instance, I know that Livy and Napier, put into good Verse, are just worth a corner in one of the swarm of s.h.i.+lling Monthlies. {105}

'Locksley Hall' is far more like Lucretius than the last Verses put into his mouth by A. T. But, once get a Name in England, and you may do anything. But I dare say that wise men too, like Spedding, will be of the same mind with the Times Critic. (I have not seen him.) What does Thompson say? You, I, and John Allen, are among the few, I do say, who, having a good natural Insight, maintain it undimmed by public, or private, Regards.

P.S. Having consulted my Landlord, I find that I can pay carriage all through to Cambridge. Therefore it is that I send you, not only your own Book, and my own, but also one of the genteel copies of Boswell's Johnson; and Wesley's Journal: both of which I gave you, only never sent!

Now they shall go. Wesley, you will find pleasant to dip into, I think: of course, there is much sameness; and I think you will allow some absurdity among so much wise and good. I am almost sorry that I have not noted down on the fly-leaf some of the more remarkable Entries, as I have in my own Copy. If you have not read the little Autobiography of Wesley's Disciple, John Nelson, give a s.h.i.+lling for it. It seems to me something wonderful to read these Books, written in a Style that cannot alter, because natural; while the Model Writers, Addison, Johnson, etc., have had their Day. Dryden holds, I think: he did not set up for a Model Prose man. Sir T. Browne's Style is natural to him, one feels.

FELIXTOW FERRY: _July_ 25 [1868.]

MY DEAR COWELL,

I found your Letter on reaching Woodbridge yesterday; where you see I did not stay long. In fact I only left Lowestoft partly to avoid a Volunteer Camp there which filled the Town with People and Bustle: and partly that my Captain might see his Wife: who cannot last _very_ much longer I think: scarcely through Autumn, surely. She goes about, nurses her children, etc., but grows visibly thinner, weaker, and more ailing.

If the Wind changes (now directly in our Teeth) I shall sail back to Lowestoft to-morrow. Thompson and Mrs. T. propose to be at the Royal Hotel there till Wednesday, and we wish, I believe, to see each other again. Sailing did not agree with his bilious temperament: and he seemed to me injudicious in his hours of Exercise, Dinner, etc. But he, and she, should know best. I like her very much: head and heart right feminine of the best, it seemed to me: and her experience of the World, and the Wits, not having injured either.

I only wanted Macmillan to return the Verses {107} if he wouldn't use them, because of my having no corrected Copy of them.

I see in the last Athenaeum a new '_and revised_' Edition of Clarissa advertised. I suppose this 'revised' does not mean 'abridged,' without which the Book will _not_ permanently make way, as I believe. That, you know, I wanted to do: could do: and nearly have done;--But that, and my Crabbe, I must leave for my Executors and Heirs to consign to Lumber-room, or fire.

Pray let me hear of your movements, especially such as tend hitherward.

About September--Alas!--I think we shall be a good Deal here, or at Woodbridge; probably not so much before that time.

Ever yours and Lady's, E. F. G.

WOODBRIDGE: _March_ 1/69.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . My Lugger Captain has just left me to go on his Mackerel Voyage to the Western Coast; and I don't know when I shall see him again. Just after he went, a m.u.f.fled bell from the Church here began to toll for somebody's death: it sounded like a Bell under the sea. He sat listening to the Hymn played by the Church chimes last evening, and said he could hear it all as if in Lowestoft Church when he was a Boy, 'Jesus our Deliverer!' You can't think what a grand, tender, Soul this is, lodged in a suitable carcase.

_To Mrs. W. H. Thompson_.

[1869.]

DEAR MRS. THOMPSON,

(I must get a new Pen for you--which doesn't promise to act as well as the old one--Try another.)

Dear Mrs. Thompson--Mistress of Trinity--(this does better)--

I am both sorry, and glad, that you wrote me the Letter you have written to me: sorry, because I think it was an effort to you, disabled as you are; and glad, I need not say why.

I despatched Spedding's letter to your Master yesterday; I daresay you have read it: for there was nothing extraordinary wicked in it. But, he to talk of _my_ perversity! . . .

My Sir Joshua is a darling. A pretty young Woman ('Girl' I won't call her) sitting with a turtle-dove in her lap, while its mate is supposed to be flying down to it from the window. I say 'supposed,' for Sir J. who didn't know much of the drawing of Birds, any more than of Men and Women, has made a thing like a stuffed Bird clawing down like a Parrot. But then, the Colour, the Dove-colour, subdued so as to carry off the richer tints of the dear Girl's dress; and she, too, pensive, not sentimental: a Lady, as her Painter was a Gentleman. Faded as it is in the face (the Lake, which he would use, having partially flown), it is one of the most beautiful things of his I have seen: more varied in colour; not the simple cream-white dress he was fond of, but with a light gold-threaded Scarf, a blue sash, a green chair, etc. . . .

I was rather taken aback by the Master's having discovered my last--yes, and bona-fide my last--translation in the volume I sent to your Library.

I thought it would slip in un.o.bserved, and I should have given all my little contributions to my old College, without after-reckoning. Had I known you as the Wife of any but the 'quondam' Greek Professor, I should very likely have sent it to you: since it was meant for those who might wish for some insight into a Play {109} which I must think they can scarcely have been tempted into before by any previous Translation. It remains to be much better done; but if Women of Sense and Taste, and Men of Sense and Taste (who don't know Greek) can read, and be interested in such a glimpse as I give them of the Original, they must be content, and not look the Horse too close in the mouth, till a better comes to hand.

My Lugger has had (along with her neighbours) such a Season hitherto of Winds as no one remembers. We made 450 pounds in the North Sea; and (just for fun) I did wish to realize 5 pounds in my Pocket. But my Captain would take it all to pay Bills. But if he makes another 400 pounds this Home Voyage! Oh, then we shall have money in our Pockets. I do wish this. For the anxiety about all these People's lives has been so much more to me than all the amus.e.m.e.nt I have got from the Business, that I think I will draw out of it if I can see my Captain sufficiently firm on his legs to carry it on alone. True, there will then be the same risk to him and his ten men, but they don't care; only I sit here listening to the Winds in the Chimney, and always thinking of the Eleven hanging at my own fingers' ends.

This Letter is all desperately about me and mine, Translations and s.h.i.+ps.

And now I am going to walk in _my_ Garden: and feed _my_ Captain's Pony with white Carrots; and in the Evening have _my_ Lad come and read for an hour and a half (he stumbles at every third word, and gets dreadfully tired, and so do I; but I renovate him with Cake and Sweet Wine), and I can't just now smoke the Pipe nor drink the Grog. 'These are my Troubles, Mr. Wesley;' {110} but I am still the Master's and Mistress'

loyal Servant,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

WOODBRIDGE: Tuesday, [28 _Dec._ 1869.]

MY DEAR COWELL,

Your Letter to day was a real pleasure--nay, a comfort--to me. For I had begun to think that, for whatever reason, you had dropt me; and I know not one of all my friends whom I could less afford to lose.