Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume II Part 30

But some six or seven years ago that Sheikh of mine, Edward Cowell, who liked the Version better than any one else, wished it to be reprinted. So I took it in hand, boiled it down to three-fourths of what it originally was, and (as you see) clapt it on the back of Omar, where I still believed it would hang somewhat of a dead weight; but that was Quaritch's look-out, not mine. I have never heard of any notice taken of it, but just now from you: and I believe that, say what you would, people would rather have the old Sinner alone. Therefore it is that I write all this to you. I doubt not that any of your Editors would accept an Article from you on the Subject, but I believe also they would much prefer one on many another Subject: and so probably with the Public whom you write for.

Thus 'liberavi animam meam' for your behoof, as I am rightly bound to do in return for your Goodwill to me.

As to the publication of my name, I believe I could well dispense with it, were it other and better than it is. But I have some unpleasant a.s.sociations with it: not the least of them being that it was borne, Christian and Surname, by a man who left College just when I went there.

{326} . . . What has become of him I know not: but he, among other causes, has made me dislike my name, and made me sign myself (half in fun, of course), to my friends, as now I do to you, sincerely yours

(THE LAIRD OF) LITTLEGRANGE,

where I date from.

_To C. E. Norton_.

_March_ 7, [1882].

MY DEAR NORTON,

You will receive by Post a volume of Translation of Dante's Inferno by Musurus Pasha into Modern Greek. I was so much interested in a quotation from it in our 'Academy' that I bought it for myself, and subsequently thought that a copy might be acceptable to you, loving both Greek and Dante as you do. Had not I bidden the London Publishers to send it direct to you, I should have written your name and my own on the fly-leaf. But you can do this for us both.

I have not as yet read much of it: for my Eyes are impatient of the Greek letter; but the Language comes out before me as the worthiest representative of the Italian: provided it be p.r.o.nounced as we have learned to p.r.o.nounce it, not as the modern Greek man is said to do. I always maintain that a Language is apt to sound better from a Foreigner, who idealises the p.r.o.nunciation. As to the structure of the language, I doubt that I may prefer the modern to the ancient because of being cleared of many [Greek text], etc., particles. I think I shall send a Copy to Professor Goodwin. This is nearly all that I have to send across the Atlantic to-day, which reminds me that I have just been quoting (in a little thing {327} I may send you),

The fleecy Star that bears Andromeda far off Atlantic Seas.

What a Line!

. . . It is, I think, worth your while to look at Dean Stanley's Volume of Bishop Thirlwall's Letters; nay, even Dean Perowne's earlier volume, if but to show how the pedantic Boy grew into the large-hearted Man, and even Bishop: but, from the first, always sincere, just, and not pretentious. I remember him at Cambridge: he, Fellow and Tutor, and I undergraduate: and he took a little fancy to me, I think.

_To Hallam Tennyson_. {328}

WOODBRIDGE. _May_ 28 [1882].

MY DEAR HALLAM,

I believe I ought to be ashamed of reviving the little thing which accompanies this Letter. My excuse must be that I have often been askt for a copy when I had no more to give; and a visit to Cambridge last summer, to the old familiar places, if not faces, made me take it up once more and turn it into what you now see. I should certainly not send a copy to you, or yours, but for what relates to your Father in it. He did not object, so far as I know, to what I said of him, though not by name, in a former Edition; but there is more of him in this, though still not by name, nor, as you see, intended for Publication. All of this you can read to him, if you please, at pp. 25 and 56. I do not ask him to say that he approves of what is said, or meant to be said, in his honour; and I only ask you to tell me if he disapproves of its going any further. I owed you a letter in return for the kind one you sent me; and, if I do not hear from you to the contrary, I shall take silence, if not for consent, at least not for prohibition. I really did, and do, wish my first, which is also my last, little work to record, for a few years at least, my love and admiration of that dear old Fellow, my old Friend.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE. _June_ 9/82.

MY DEAR NORTON,

I told you, I think, but I scarce know when, that I would send you a very little Tract of mine written forty years ago; and reformed into its present shape in consequence of copies being askt for when I had none to give. So a few days at Cambridge last Summer, among the old places, though not faces, set me off. 'Et voila qui est fait,' and posted to you along with this Letter, together with a Copy for Professor Goodwin. The first and last of my little works: and I do think a pretty specimen of 'chisell'd Cherry-stone.' Having which opinion myself, I more than ever deprecate any word of praise from any to whom I send it. Nay, I even a.s.sume beforehand that you will like it too: and Professor Goodwin also (so do not let him write): as my little tribute to my own old Cambridge sent to you in your new. I think I shall send it to Mr. Lowell too. So you see that I need no compliment, no, nor even acknowledgment of it. . . .

And now here is enough written. And yet I will enclose some pretty Verses, {330a} some twenty years old, which I sent to 'Temple Bar,' which repaid me (as I deserved) with a dozen copies. And I am always truly yours

LITTLEGRANGE THE LAIRD.

Longfellow and Emerson! {330b}

WOODBRIDGE. _July_ 13/82.

MY DEAR NORTON,

Here is a speedy reply to your kind Letter. For I wish to say at once that when Froude has done what he wants with my Carlyle Papers, you shall have them to do the like. He thought (as I antic.i.p.ated) that he could use but two or three of the Letters, as you will also guess from the scheme and compa.s.s of his Biography, as given in the Letter which I enclose along with this; but, as I bade him use what he saw good, and keep the Papers as long as convenient to him, I cannot as yet ask him, how much, nor how long. When I think I may properly do so, I will: and shall be very glad that you should have them under like conditions. You know that they chiefly concern Naseby, which might do for an Episode, or separate Item, in your Book, though not for Froude's; I should also think the Letters about that Squire business would be well to clear somewhat up: but that can scarcely be done unless by vindicating Squire's honesty at the expense of his sanity: and, as I have no reason to suppose but he is yet alive, I know not how this can be decently done. Froude says he cannot see his way into the truth further than Carlyle's printed Article on the subject goes: but I think Carlyle must have told him his conviction (whatever it was) some time during their long acquaintance.

Perhaps, however, he was too sick of what he thought an unimportant controversy to endure any more talk about it. I am convinced, as from the first, that Squire's story was true; and the fragments of Cromwell's despatches genuine, though (as Critics pointed out) partially misquoted by a scatter-brained fellow, ignorant of the subject, and of the Writer.

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[_August_ 1882].

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I have let the Full Moon go by, and very well she looked too, over the Sea by which I am now staying. Not at Lowestoft; but at the old extinguished Borough of Aldeburgh, to which as to other 'premiers Amours'

I revert: where more than sixty years ago I first saw, and first felt, the Sea; where I have lodged in half the houses since; and where I have a sort of traditional acquaintance with half the population: Clare Cottage is where I write from; two little rooms, enough for me; a poor civil woman pleased to have me in them. . . .

The Carlyle 'Reminiscences' had long indisposed me from taking up the Biography. But when I began, and as I went on with that, I found it one of the most interesting of Books: and the result is that I not only admire and respect Carlyle more than ever I did: but even love him, which I never thought of before. For he loved his Family, as well as for so long helped to maintain them out of very slender earnings of his own; and, so far as these two volumes show me, he loved his wife also, while he put her to the work which he had been used to see his own Mother and Sisters fulfil, and which was suitable to the way of Life which he had been used to. His indifference to her sufferings seems to me rather because of Blindness than Neglect; and I think his Biographer has been a little too hard upon him on the Score of selfish disregard of her.

ALDEBURGH. _Sept._ 1. [1882].

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Still by the Sea, from which I saw The Harvest Moon rise for her three nights' Fullness. And to-day is so wet that I shall try and pay you my plenilunal due, not much to your satisfaction; for the Wet really gets into one's Brain and Spirits, and I have as little to write of as ever any Full Moon ever brought me. And yet, if I accomplish my letter, and 'take it to the Barber's' where I sadly want to go, and after being wrought on by him, post my letter, why, you will, by your Laws, be obliged to answer it. Perhaps you may have a little to tell me of yourself in requital for the very little you have to hear of me.

I have made a new Acquaintance here. Professor Fawcett (Postmaster General, I am told) married a daughter of one Newson Garrett of this Place, who is also Father of your Doctor Anderson. Well, the Professor (who was utterly blinded by the Discharge of his Father's Gun some twenty or five and twenty years ago) came to this Lodging to call on Aldis Wright; and, when Wright was gone, called on me, and also came and smoked a Pipe one night here. A thoroughly unaffected, unpretending, man: so modest indeed that I was ashamed afterwards to think how I had harangued him all the Evening, instead of getting him to instruct me. But I would not ask him about his Parliamentary Shop: and I should not have understood his Political Economy: and I believe he was very glad to be talked to instead, about some of those he knew, and some whom I had known. And, as we were both in Crabbe's Borough, we talked of him: the Professor, who had never read a word, I believe, about him, or of him, was pleased to hear a little; and I advised him to buy the Life written by Crabbe's Son; and I would give him my abstract of the Tales of the Hall, by way of giving him a taste of the Poet's self.

Yes; you must read Froude's Carlyle above all things, and tell me if you do not feel as I do about it. . . . I regret that I did not know what the Book tells us while Carlyle was alive; that I might have loved him as well as admired him. But Carlyle never spoke of himself in that way. I never heard him advert to his Works and his Fame, except one day he happened to mention 'About the time when Men began to talk of me.'

WOODBRIDGE. _Oct._ 17, [1882].

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I suppose that you are returned from the Loire by this time; but as I am not sure that you have returned to the 'Hotel des Deux Mondes' whence you dated your last, I make bold once more to trouble Coutts with adding your Address to my Letter. I think I shall have it from yourself not long after. I shall like to hear a word about my old France, dear to me from childish a.s.sociations, and in particular of the Loire, endeared to me by Sevigne; for I never saw the glimmer of its waters myself. . . .

It seems to me (but I believe it seems so every year) that our trees keep their leaves very long; I suppose, because of no severe frosts or winds up to this time. And my garden still shows some Geranium, Salvia, Nasturtium, Great Convolvulus, and that grand African Marigold whose Colour is so comfortable to us Spanish-like Paddies. I have also a dear Oleander which even now has a score of blossoms on it, and touches the top of my little Green-house; having been sent me when 'haut comme ca,'

as Marquis Somebody used to say in the days of Louis XIV. Don't you love the Oleander? So clean in its leaves and stem, as so beautiful in its flower; loving to stand in water which it drinks up so fast. I rather wors.h.i.+p mine.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

WOODBRIDGE. _October_ 20/82.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

Pray let me hear how you and yours are after your Summer Holyday. I have been no further for mine than Aldeburgh, an hour's Rail distance from here: there I got out boating, etc., and I think became the more hearty in consequence: but my Bosom friend Bronchitis puts in a reminder every now and then, and, I suppose, will come out of his Closet, or Chest, when Winter sets in. . . .

When I was at Aldeburgh, Professor Fawcett . . . came to see Aldis Wright who was with me there for a Day. When Wright was gone, the Professor came to smoke a Pipe (in his case a Cigar) with me. What a brave, unpretending Fellow! I should never have guessed that a notable man in any way. 'Brave' too I say because of his cheerful Blindness; for which I should never have forgiven my Father and his Gun. To see him stalking along the Beach, regardless of Pebble and Boulder, though with some one by his side to prevent his going quite to Sea! He was on the Eve of starting for Scotland--to fish--in the dear Tweed, I think; though he scarce seemed to know much of Sir Walter.

_To S. Laurence_.

LITTLEGRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.