M.R.M.

(No date.)

Dear Mr. Fields: I sent you a packet last week, but I have just

received your two charming books, and I cannot suffer a post to

pass without thanking you for them. Mr. Whittier's volume is quite

what might have been expected from the greatest of Quaker writers,

the worthy compeer of Longfellow, and will give me other extracts to

go with "From Massachusetts to Virginia" and "Cassandra Southwick"

in my own book, where one of my pleasures will be trying to do

justice to American poetry, and Dr. Holmes's fine "Astraea." We have

nothing like that nowadays in England. Nobody writes now in the

glorious resonant metre of Dryden, and very few ever did write as

Dr. Holmes does. I see there is another volume of his poetry, but

the name was new to me. How much I owe to you, my dear Mr. Fields!

That great romance, "The Scarlet Letter," and these fine poets,--for

true poetry, not at all imitative, is rare in England, common as

elegant imitative verse may be,--and that charming edition of Robert

Browning. Shall you republish his wife's new edition? I cannot tell

you how much I thank you. I read an extract from the Times,

containing a report of Lord Carlisle's lecture on America, chiefly

because he and Dr. Holmes say the same thing touching the slavish

regard to opinion which prevails in America. Lord Carlisle is by

many degrees the most accomplished of our nobles. Another

accomplished and cultivated nobleman, a friend of my own, we have

just lost,--Lord Nugent,--liberal, too, against the views of his

family.

You must make my earnest and very sincere congratulations to your

friend. In publishing Gray, he shows the refinement of taste to be

expected in your companion. I went over all his haunts two years

ago, and have commemorated them in the book you will see by and

by,--the book that is to be,--and there I have put on record the

bride-cake, and the finding by you on my table your own edition of

Motherwell. You are not angry, are you? If your father and mother in

law ever come again to England, I shall rejoice to see them, and

shall be sure to do so, if they will drop me a line. God bless you,

dear Mr. Fields.

Ever faithfully and gratefully yours, M.R.M.

Three-mile Cross, July 20, 1851.

You will have thought me most ungrateful, dear Mr. Fields, in being

so long your debtor for a most kind and charming letter; but first I

waited for the "House of the Seven Gables," and then when it

arrived, only a week ago; I waited to read it a second time. At

sixty-four life gets too short to allow us to read every book once

and again; but it is not so with Mr. Hawthorne's. The first time one

sketches them (to borrow Dr. Holmes's excellent word), and cannot

put them down for the vivid interest; the next, one lingers over the

beauty with a calmer enjoyment. Very beautiful this book is! I thank

you for it again and again. The legendary part is all the better for

being vague and dim and shadowy, all pervading, yet never tangible;

and the living people have a charm about them which is as lifelike

and real as the legendary folks are ghostly and remote. Phoebe, for

instance, is a creation which, not to speak it profanely, is almost

Shakespearian. I know no modern heroine to compare with her, except

it be Eugene Sue's Rigolette, who shines forth amidst the iniquities

of "Les Mystères de Paris" like some rich, bright, fresh cottage

rose thrown by evil chance upon a dunghill. Tell me, please, about

Mr. Hawthorne, as you were so good as to do about that charming

person, Dr. Holmes. Is he young? I think he is, and I hope so for

the sake of books to come. And is he of any profession? Does he

depend altogether upon literature, as too many writers do here? At

all events, he is one of the glories of your most glorious part of

great America. Tell me, too, what is become of Mr. Cooper, that

other great novelist? I think I heard from you, or from some other

Transatlantic friend, that he was less genial and less beloved than

so many other of your notabilities have been. Indeed, one sees that

in many of his recent works; but I have been reading many of his

earlier books again, with ever-increased admiration, especially I

should say "The Pioneers"; and one cannot help hoping that the mind

that has given so much pleasure to so many readers will adjust

itself so as to admit of its own happiness,--for very clearly the

discomfort was his own fault, and he is too clever a person for one

not to wish him well.

I think that the most distinguished of our own _young_ writers are,

the one a dear friend of mine, John Ruskin; the other, one who will

shortly be so near a neighbor that we must know each other. It is

quite wonderful that we don't now, for we are only twelve miles

apart, and have scores of friends in common. This last is the Rev.

Charles Kingsley, author of "Alton Locke" and "Yeast" and "The

Saint's Tragedy." All these books are full of world-wide truths, and

yet, taken as a whole, they are unsatisfactory and inconclusive,

knocking down without building up. Perhaps that is the fault of the

social system that he lays bare, perhaps of the organization of the

man, perhaps a little of both. You will have heard probably that he,

with other benevolent persons, established a sort of socialist

community (Christian socialism) for journeymen tailors, he himself

being their chaplain. The evil was very great, for of twenty-one

thousand of that class in London, fifteen thousand were ill-paid

and only half-employed. For a while, that is, as long as the

subscription lasted, all went well; but I fear this week that the

money has come to an end, and so very likely will the experiment.

Have you republished "Alton Locke" in America? It has one character,

an old Scotchman, equal to anything in Scott. The writer is still

quite a young man, but out of health. I have heard (but this is

between ourselves) that ----'s brain is suffering,--the terrible

malady by which so many of our great mental laborers (Scott and

Southey, above all) have fallen. Dr. Buckland is now dying of it. I

am afraid ---- may be so lost to the world and his friends, not

merely because his health is going, but because certain

peculiarities have come to my knowledge which look like it. A

brother clergyman saw him the other day, upon a common near his own

house, spouting, singing, and reciting verse at the top of his voice

at one o'clock in the morning. Upon inquiring what was the matter,

the poet said that he never went to bed till two or three o'clock,

and frequently went out in that way to exercise his lungs. My

informant, an orderly person of a very different stamp, set him down

for mad at once; but he is much beloved among his parishioners, and

if the escapade above mentioned do not indicate disease of the

brain, I can only say it would be good for the country if we had

more madmen of the same sort. As to John Ruskin, I would not answer

for quiet people not taking him for crazy too. He is an enthusiast

in art, often right, often wrong,--"in the right very stark, in the

wrong very sturdy,"--bigoted, perverse, provoking, as ever man was;

but good and kind and charming beyond the common lot of mortals.

There are some pages of his prose that seem to me more eloquent than

anything out of Jeremy Taylor, and I should think a selection of his

works would answer to reprint. Their sale here is something

wonderful, considering their dearness, in this age of cheap

literature, and the want of attraction in the subject, although the

illustrations of the "Stones of Venice," executed by himself from

his own drawings, are almost as exquisite as the writings. By the

way, he does not say what I heard the other day from another friend,

just returned from the city of the sea, that Taglioni has purchased

four of the finest palaces, and is restoring them with great taste,

by way of investment, intending to let them to Russian and English

noblemen. She was a very graceful dancer once, was Taglioni; but

still it rather depoetizes the place, which of all others was

richest in associations.

Mrs. Browning has got as near to England as Paris, and holds out

enough of hope of coming to London to keep me from visiting it until

I know her decision. I have not seen the great Exhibition, and,

unless she arrives, most probably shall not see it. My lameness,

which has now lasted five months, is the reason I give to myself for

not going, chairs being only admitted for an hour or two on Saturday

mornings. But I suspect that my curiosity has hardly reached the

fever-heat needful to encounter the crowd and the fatigue. It is

amusing to find how people are cooling down about it. We always were

a nation of idolaters, and always had the trick of avenging

ourselves upon our poor idols for the sin of our own idolatry. Many

an overrated, and then underrated, poet can bear witness to this. I

remember when my friend Mr. Milnes was called _the_ poet, although

Scott and Byron were in their glory, and Wordsworth had written all

of his works that will live. We make gods of wood and stone, and

then we knock them to pieces; and so figuratively, if not literally,

shall we do by the Exhibition. Next month I am going to move to a

cottage at Swallowfield,--so called, I suppose, because those

migratory birds meet by millions every autumn in the park there, now

belonging to some friends of mine, and still famous as the place

where Lord Clarendon wrote his history. That place is still almost a

palace; mine an humble but very prettily placed cottage. O, how

proud and glad I should be, if ever I could receive Mr. and Mrs.

Fields within its walls for more than a poor hour! I shall have

tired you with this long letter, but you have made me reckon you

among my friends,--ay, one of the best and kindest,--and must take

the consequence.

Ever yours, M.R.M.

Swallowfield, Saturday Night.

I write you two notes at once, my dear friend, whilst the

recollection of your conversation is still in my head and the

feeling of your kindness warm on my heart. To write, to thank you

for a visit which has given me so much pleasure, is an impulse not

to be resisted. Pray tell Mr. and Mrs. Bennoch how delighted I am to

make their acquaintance and how earnestly I hope we may meet often.

They are charming people.

Another motive that I had for writing at once is to tell you that

the more I think of the title of the forthcoming book, the less I

like it; and I care more for it, now that you are concerned in the

matter, than I did before. "Personal Reminiscences" sounds like a

bad title for an autobiography. Now this is nothing of the sort. It

is literally a book made up of favorite scraps of poetry and prose;

the bits of my own writing are partly critical, and partly have

been interwoven to please Henry Chorley and give something of

novelty, and as it were individuality, to a mere selection, to take

off the dryness and triteness of extracts, and give the pen

something to say in the work as well as the scissors. Still, it is a

book founded on other books, and since it pleased Mr. Bentley to

object to "Readings of Poetry," because he said nobody in England

bought poetry, why "Recollections of Books," as suggested by Mr.

Bennett, approved by me, and as I believed (till this very day)

adopted by Mr. Bentley, seemed to meet exactly the truth of the

case, and to be quite concession enough to the exigencies of the

trade. By the other title we exposed ourselves, in my mind, to all

manner of danger. I shall write this by this same post to Mr.

Bennett, and get the announcement changed, if possible; for it seems

to me a trick of the worst sort. I shall write a list of the

subjects, and I only wish that I had duplicates, and I would send

you the articles, for I am most uncomfortable at the notion of your

being taken in to purchase a book that may, through this misnomer,

lose its reputation in England; for of course it will be attacked as

an unworthy attempt to make it pass for what it is not....

Now if you dislike it, or if Mr. Bentley keep that odious title,

why, give it up at once. Don't pray, pray lose money by me. It would

grieve me far more than it would you. A good many of these are about

books quite forgotten, as the "Pleader's Guide" (an exquisite

pleasantry), "Holcroft's Memoirs," and "Richardson's

Correspondence." Much on Darley and the Irish Poets, unknown in

England; and I think myself that the book will contain, as in the

last article, much exquisite poetry and curious prose, as in the

forgotten murder (of Toole, the author's uncle) in the State Trials.

But it should be called by its right name, as everything should in

this world. God bless you!

Ever faithfully yours,