My Dear Friend: I cannot enough thank you for your most kind and
charming letter. Your letters, and the thoughts of you, and the hope
that you will coax your partners into the hazardous experiment of
letting you come to England, help to console me under this long
confinement; for here I am at near Easter still a close prisoner
from the consequences of the accident that took place before
Christmas. I have only once left my room, and that only to the
opposite chamber to have this cleaned, and I got such a chill that
it brought back all the pain and increased all the weakness. But
when fine weather--warm, genial, sunny weather--comes, I will get
down in some way or other, and trust myself to that which never
hurts any one, the honest open air. Spring, and even the approach of
spring, has upon me something the effect that England has upon you.
It sets me dreaming,--I see leafy hedges in my dreams, and flowery
banks, and then I long to make the vision a reality. I remember that
Fanchon's father, Flush, who was a famous sporting dog, used, at the
approach of the covering season, to quest in his sleep, doubtless by
the same instinct that works in me. So, as soon as the sun tells the
same story with the primroses I shall make a descent after some
fashion, and no doubt, aided by Sam's stalwart arm, successfully. In
the mean while I have one great pleasure in store, be the weather
what it may; for next Saturday or the Saturday after I shall see
dear Mr. Bennoch. We have not met since November, although he has
written to me again and again. He will take this letter, and I
trouble you with a note to kind Mrs. Sparks, who is about to send
me, or rather who has sent me, some American cracknels, which have
not yet arrived. To-day, too, I had a charming letter from
Lasswade,--not _the_ letter, the pamphlet one, but one full of
kindness from father and daughter, written by Miss Margaret to ask
after me with a reality of interest which one feels at once. It gave
me pleasure in another way too; Mr. De Quincey is of my faith and
delight in the Emperor! Is not that delightful? Also he holds in
great abomination that blackest of iniquities ----, my heresy as to
which nearly cost me an idolator t'other day, a lady from Essex, who
came here to take a house in my neighborhood to be near me. She was
so shocked that, if we had not met afterwards, when I regained my
ground a little by certain congenialities she certainly would have
abjured me forever. Well! no offence to Mrs. ----. I had rather in a
literary question agree with Thomas De Quincey than with her and
Queen Victoria, who, always fond of strong not to say coarse
excitements, is amongst ----'s warm admirers. I knew you would like
the Emperor's marriage. I heard last week from a stiff English lady,
who had been visiting one of the Empress's ladies of honor, that one
day at St. Cloud she shot thirteen brace of partridges; "but," added
the narrator, "she is so sweet and charming a creature that any man
might fall in love with her notwithstanding." To be sure Mr.
Thackeray liked you. How could he help it? Did not he also like Dr.
Holmes? I hope so. How glad I should be to see him in England, and
how glad I shall be to see Mr. Hawthorne! He will find all the best
judges of English writing admiring him to his heart's content,
warmly and discriminatingly; and a consulship in a bustling town
will give him the cheerful reality, the healthy air of every-day
life, which is his only want. Will you tell all these dear friends,
especially Mr. and Mrs. W----, how deeply I feel their affectionate
sympathy, and thank Mr. Whittier and Professor Longfellow over and
over again for their kind condolence? Tell Mr. Whittier how much I
shall prize his book. He has an earnest admirer in Buckingham
Palace, Marianne Skerrett, known as the Queen's Miss Skerrett, the
lady chiefly about her, and the only one to whom she talks of books.
Miss Skerrett is herself a very clever woman, and holds Mr. Whittier
to be not only the greatest, but the _one_ poet of America; which
last assertion the poet himself would, I suspect, be the very first
to deny. Your promise of Dr. Parsons's poem is very delightful to
me. I hold firm to my admiration of those stanzas on Webster.
Nothing written on the Duke came within miles of it, and I have no
doubt that the poem on Dante's bust is equally fine.... Mr. Justice
Talfourd has just printed a new tragedy. He sent it to me from
Oxford, not from Reading, where he had passed four days and never
gave a copy to any mortal, and told me, in a very affectionate
letter which accompanied it, that "it was at present a very private
sin, he having only given eight or ten copies in all." I suppose
that it will be published, for I observe that the "not published" is
written, not printed, and that Moxon's name is on the title-page. It
is called "The Castilian,"--is on the story of a revolt headed by
Don John de Padilla in the early part of Charles the Fifth's reign,
and is more like Ion than either of his other tragedies. I have just
been reading a most interesting little book in manuscript, called
"The Heart of Montrose." It is a versification in three ballads of a
very striking letter in Napier's "Life and Times of Montrose," by
the young lady who calls herself Mary Maynard. It is really a little
book that ought to make a noise, not too long, full of grace and of
interest, and she has adhered to the true story with excellent
taste, that story being a very remarkable union of the romantic and
the domestic. I am afraid that my other young poet, ----, is dying
of consumption; those fine spirits often fall in that way. I have
just corrected my book for a cheaper edition. Mr. Bentley is very
urgent for a second series, and I suppose I must try. I shall get
you to write for me to Mr. Hector Bossange when you come, for come
you must. My eyes begin to feel the effects of this long confinement
to one smoky and dusty room.
So far had I written, dearest friend, when this day (March 26)
brought me your most kind and welcome letter enclosed in another
from dear Mr. Bennoch. Am I to return Dr. Parsons's? or shall I
keep it till you come to fetch it? Tell the writer how very much I
prize his kindness, none the less that he likes (as I do) my
tragedies, that is, one of them, the best of my poor doings. The
lines on the Duchess are capital, and quite what she deserves; but I
think those the worst who, in so true a spirit of what Carlyle would
call flunkeyism, consent to sign any nonsense that their names may
figure side by side with that of a duchess, and they themselves find
(for once) an admittance to the gilded saloons of Stafford House.
For my part, I well-nigh lost an admirer the other day by taking a
common-sense view of the question. A lady (whose name I never heard
till a week ago) came here to take a house to be near me. (N.B.
There was none to be had.) Well, she was so provoked to find that I
had stopped short of the one hundredth page of ----, and never
intended to read another, that I do think, if we had not discovered
some sympathies to counterbalance that grand difference--As I live,
I have told you that story before! Ah! I am sixty-six, and I get
older every day! So does little Henry, who is at home just now, and
longing to put the clock forward that he may go to America. He is a
boy of great promise, full of sound sense, and as good as good can
be. I suppose that he never in his life told an untruth, or broke a
promise, or disobeyed a command. He is very fond of his little
sister; and not at all jealous either--to the great praise of that
four-footed lady be it said--is Fanchon, who watches over the
cradle, and is as fond of the baby in her way as Henry in his.
So far from paying me copyright money, all that I ever received from
Mr. B---- was two copies of his edition of "Our Village," one of
which I gave away, and of the other some chance visitor has taken
one of the volumes. I really do think I shall ask him for a copy or
two. How can I ever thank you enough for your infinite kindness in
sending me books! Thank you again and again. Dear Mr. Bennoch has
been making an admirable speech, in moving to present the thanks of
the city to Mr. Layard. How one likes to feel proud of one's
friends! God bless you!
Ever most faithfully yours, M.R.M.
Kind Mrs. Sparks's biscuits arrived quite safe. How droll some of
the cookery is in "The Wide, Wide World"! It would try English
stomachs by its over-richness. I wonder you are not all dead, if
such be your _cuisine_.
Swallowfield, May 3, 1853.
How shall I thank you enough, dear and kind friend, for the copy of
---- that arrived here yesterday! Very like; only it wanted what
that great painter, the sun, will never arrive at giving, the actual
look of life which is the one great charm of the human countenance.
Strange that the very source of light should fail in giving that
light of the face, the smile. However, all that can be given by that
branch of art has been given. I never before saw so good a
photographic portrait, and for one that gives more I must wait until
John Lucas, or some American John Lucas, shall coax you into
sitting. I sent you, ten days ago, a batch of notes, and a most
unworthy letter of thanks for one of your parcels of gift-books; and
I write the rather now to tell you I am better than then, and hope
to be in a still better plight before July or August, when a most
welcome letter from Mr. Tuckerman has bidden us to expect you to
officiate as Master of the Ceremonies to Mr. Hawthorne, who, welcome
for himself, will be trebly welcome for such an introducer.
Now let me say how much I like De Quincey's new volumes. The "Wreck
of a Household" shows great power of narrative, if he would but take
the trouble to be right as to details; the least and lowest part of
the art, that of interesting you in his people, he has. And those
"Last Days of Kant," how affecting they are, and how thoroughly in
every line and in every thought, agree with him or not, (and in all
that relates to Napoleon I differ from him, as in his overestimate
of Wordsworth and of Coleridge), one always feels how thoroughly and
completely he is a gentleman as well as a great writer; and so much
has _that_ to do with my admiration, that I have come to tracing
personal character in books almost as a test of literary merit:
Charles Boner's "Chamois-Hunting," for instance, owes a great part
of its charm to the resolute truth of the writer, and a great
drawback from the attraction of "My Novel" seems to me to be derived
from the _blasé_ feeling, the unclean mind from whence it springs,
felt most when trying after moralities.
Amongst your bounties I was much amused with the New York magazines,
the curious turning up of a new claimant to the
Louis-the-Seventeenth pretension amongst the Red Indians, and the
rappings and pencil-writings of the new Spiritualists. One should
wonder most at the believers in these two branches of faith, if that
particular class did not always seem to be provided most abundantly
whenever a demand occurs. Only think of Mrs. Browning giving the
most unlimited credence to every "rapping" story which anybody can
tell her! Did I tell you that the work on which she is engaged is a
fictitious autobiography in blank verse, the heroine a woman artist
(I suppose singer or actress), and the tone intensely modern? You
will see that "Colombe's Birthday" has been brought out at the
Haymarket. Mr. Chorley (Robert Browning's most intimate friend)
writes me word that Mrs. Martin (Helen Faucit, at whose persuasion
it was acted) told him that it had gone off "better than she
expected." Have you seen Alexander Smith's book, which is all the
rage just now? I saw some extracts from his poems a year and a half
ago, and the whole book is like a quantity of extracts put together
without any sort of connection, a mass of powerful metaphor with
scarce any lattice-work for the honeysuckles to climb upon. Keats
was too much like this; but then Keats was the first. Now this book,
admitting its merit in a certain way, is but the imitation of a
school, and, in my mind, a bad school. One such poem as that on the
bust of Dante is worth a whole wilderness of these new writers, the
very best of them. Certainly nothing better than those two pages
ever crossed the Atlantic.
God bless you, dear friend. Say everything for me to dear Mr. and
Mrs. W----, to Dr. Holmes, to Dr. Parsons, to Mr. Whittier, (how
powerful his new volume is!) to Mr. Stoddard, to Mrs. Sparks, to all
my friends.
Ever most affectionately yours, M.R.M.
I am writing on the 8th of May, but where is the May of the poets?
Half the morning yesterday it snowed, at night there was ice as
thick as a shilling, and to-day it is absolutely as cold as
Christmas. Of course the leaves refuse to unfold, the nightingales
can hardly be said to sing, even the hateful cuckoo holds his peace.
I am hoping to see dear Mr. Bennoch soon to supply some glow and
warmth.
Swallowfield, June 4, 1853.
I write at once, dearest friend, to acknowledge your most kind and
welcome letter. I am better than when I wrote last, and get out
almost every day for a very slow and quiet drive round our lovely
lanes; far more lovely than last year, since the foliage is quite as
thick again, and all the flowery trees, aloes, laburnums,
horse-chestnuts, acacias, honeysuckles, azalias, rhododendrons,
hawthorns, are one mass of blossoms,--literally the leaves are
hardly visible, so that the color, whenever we come upon park,
shrubbery, or plantation, is such as should be seen to be imagined.
In my long life I never knew such a season of flowers; so the wet
winter and the cold spring have their compensation. I get out in
this way with Sam and K---- and the baby, and it gives me exquisite
pleasure, and if you were here the pleasure would be multiplied a
thousand fold by your society; but I do not gain strength in the
least. Attempting to do a little more and take some young people to
the gates of Whiteknights, which, without my presence, would be
closed, proved too far and too rapid a movement, and for two days I
could not stir for excessive soreness all over the body. I am still
lifted down stairs step by step, and it is an operation of such time
(it takes half an hour to get me down that one flight of cottage
stairs), such pain, such fatigue, and such difficulty, that, unless
to get out in the pony-chaise, I do not attempt to leave my room. I
am still lifted into bed, and can neither turn nor move in any way
when there, am wheeled from the stairs to the pony-carriage, cannot
walk three steps, can hardly stand a moment, and in rising from my
chair am sometimes ten minutes, often longer. So you see that I am
very, very feeble and infirm. Still I feel sound at heart and clear
in head, am quite as cheerful as ever, and, except that I get very
much sooner exhausted, enjoy society as much as ever, so you must
come if only to make me well. I do verily believe your coming would
do me more good than anything.
I was much interested by your account of the poor English stage
coachman. Ah, these are bad days for stage coachmen on both sides
the Atlantic! Do you remember his name? and do you know whether he
drove between London and Reading, or between Reading and
Basingstoke?--a most useless branch railroad between the two latter
places, constructed by the Great Western simply out of spite to the
Southwestern, which I am happy to state has never yet paid its daily
expenses, to say nothing of the cost of construction, and has taken
everything off our road, which before abounded in coaches, carriers,
and conveyances of all sorts. The vile railway does us no earthly
good, we being above four miles from the nearest station, and you
may imagine how much inconvenience the absence of stated
communication with a market town causes to our small family,
especially now that I can neither spare Sam nor the pony to go
twelve miles. You must come to England and come often to see me,
just to prove that there is any good whatever in railways,--a fact I
am often inclined to doubt.
I shall send this letter to be forwarded to Mr. Bennett, and desire
him to write to you himself. He is, as you say, an "excellent
youth," although it is very generous in me to say so, for I do
believe that you came to see me since he has been. Dear Mr. Bennoch,
with all his multifarious business, has been again and again. God
bless him! ...To return to Mr Bennett. He has been engaged in a
grand battle with the trustees of an old charity school,
principally the vicar. His two brothers helped in the fight. They
won a notable victory. They were quite right in the matter in
dispute and the "excellent youth" came out well in various letters.
His opponent, the vicar, was Senior Wrangler at our Cambridge, the
very highest University honor in England, and tutor to the present
Lord Grey.
By the way, Mr. ---- wrote to me the other day to ask that I would
let him be here when Mr. Hawthorne comes to see me. I only answered
this request by asking whether he did not intend to come to see _me_
before that time, for certainly he might come to visit an old
friend, especially a sick one, for her own sake, and not merely to
meet a notability, and I am by no means sure that Mr. Hawthorne
might not prefer to come alone or with dear Mr. Bennoch; at all
events it ought to be left to _his_ choice, and besides I have not
lost the hope of your being the introducer of the great romancer,
and then how little should I want anybody to come between us. Begin
as they may, all my paragraphs slide into that refrain of Pray, pray
come!
I have written to you about other kindnesses since that note full of
hopes, but I do not think that I did write to thank you for dear Dr.
Holmes's "Lecture on English Poetesses," or rather the analysis of a
lecture which sins only by over-gallantry. Ah, there is a difference
between the sexes, and the difference is the reverse way to that in
which he puts it! Tell him I sent his charming stanzas on Moore to a
leading member of the Irish committee for raising a monument to his
memory, and that they were received with enthusiasm by the Irish
friends of the poet. I have sent them to many persons in England
worthy to be so honored, and the very cleverest woman whom I have
ever known (Miss Goldsmid) wrote to me only yesterday to thank me
for sending her that exquisite poem, adding, "I think the stanza 'If
on his cheek, etc.,' contains one of the most beautiful similes to
be found in the whole domain of poetry." I also told Mrs. Browning
what dear Dr. Holmes said of her. The American poets whom she
prefers are Lowell and Emerson. Now I know something of Lowell and
of Emerson, but I hold that those lines on Dante's bust are amongst
the finest ever written in the language, whether by American or
Englishman; don't you? And what a grand Dead March is the poem on
Webster! ...Also Mrs. Browning believes in spirit-rapping
stories,--all,--and tells me that Robert Owen has been converted by
them to a belief in a future state. Everybody everywhere is turning
tables. The young Russells, who are surcharged with electricity, set
them spinning in ten minutes. In general, you know, it is usual to
take off all articles of metal. They, the other night, took a fancy
to remove their rings and bracelets, and, having done so, the table,
which had paused for a moment, began whirling again as fast as ever
the contrary way. This is a fact, and a curious one.
I have lent three volumes of your "De Quincey" to my young friend,
James Payn, a poet of very high promise, who has verified the Green
story, and taken the books with him to the Lakes. God grant, my dear
friend, that you may not lose by "Our Village"; that is what I care
for.
Ever faithfully yours, M.R.M.
Swallowfield, June 23, 1853.
Ah, my very dear friend, we shall not see you this summer, I am
sure. For the first time I clearly perceive the obstacle, and I feel
that unless some chance should detain Mr. Ticknor, we must give up
the great happiness of seeing you till next year. I wonder whether
your poor old friend will be alive to greet you then! Well, that is
as God pleases; in the mean time be assured that you have been one
of the chief comforts and blessings of these latter years of my
life, not only in your own friendship and your thousand kindnesses,
but in the kindness and friendship of dear Mr. Bennoch, which, in
the first instance, I mainly owe to you. I am in somewhat better
trim, although the getting out of doors and into the pony-carriage,
from which Mr. May hoped such great things, has hardly answered his
expectations. I am not stronger, and I am so nervous that I can only
bear to be driven, or more ignominiously still to be led, at a
foot's pace through the lanes. I am still unable to stand or walk,
unless supported by Sam's strong hands lifting me up on each side,
still obliged to be lifted into bed, and unable to turn or move when
there, the worst grievance of all. However, I am in as good spirits
as ever, and just at this moment most comfortably seated under the
acacia-tree at the corner of my house,--the beautiful acacia
literally loaded with its snowy chains (the flowering trees this
summer, lilacs, laburnums, rhododendrons, azalias, have been one
mass of blossoms, and none are so graceful as this waving acacia);
on one side a syringa, smelling and looking like an orange-tree; a
jar of roses on the table before me,--fresh-gathered roses, the
pride of Sam's heart; and little Fanchon at my feet, too idle to eat
the biscuits with which I am trying to tempt her,--biscuits from
Boston, sent to me by Mrs. Sparks, whose kindness is really
indefatigable, and which Fanchon ought to like upon that principle
if upon no other, but you know her laziness of old, and she
improves in it every day. Well that is a picture of the Swallowfield
cottage at this moment, and I wish that you and the Bennochs and the
W----s and Mr. Whipple were here to add to its life and comfort. You
must come next year and come in May, that you and dear Mr. Bennoch
may hear the nightingales together. He has never heard them, and
this year they have been faint and feeble (as indeed they were last)
compared with their usual song. Now they are over, and although I
expect him next week, it will be too late.
Precious fooling that has been at Stafford House! And our ---- who
delights in strong, not to say worse, emotions, whose chief pleasure
it was to see the lions fed in Van Amburgh's time, who went seven
times to see the Ghost in the "Corsican Brothers," and has every
sort of natural curiosity (not to say wonder) brought to her at
Buckingham Palace, was in a state of exceeding misery because she
could not, consistently with her amicable relations with the United
States, receive Mrs. ---- there. (Ah! our dear Emperor has better
taste. Heaven bless him!) From Lord Shaftesbury one looks for
unmitigated cant, but I did expect better things of Lord Carlisle.
How many names that both you and I know went there merely because
the owner of the house was a fashionable Duchess,--the Wilmers
("though they are my friends"), the P----s and ----! For my part, I
have never read beyond the first one hundred pages, and have a
certain malicious pleasure in so saying. Let me add that almost all
the clever men whom I have seen are of the same faction; they took
up the book and laid it down again. Do you ever reprint French
books, or ever get them translated? By very far the most delightful
work that I have read for many years is Sainte-Beuve's "Causeries du
Lundi," or his weekly feuilletons in the "Constitutionnel." I am
sure they would sell if there be any taste for French literature. It
is so curious, so various, so healthy, so catholic in its biography
and criticism; but it must be well done by some one who writes good
English prose and knows well the literary history of France. Don't
trust women; they, especially the authoresses, are as ignorant as
dirt. Just as I had got to this point, Mr. Willmot came to spend the
evening, and very singularly consulted me about undertaking a series
of English Portraits Littéraires, like Sainte-Beuve's former works.
He will do it well, and I commended him to the charming "Causeries,"
and advised him to make that a weekly article, as no doubt he could.
It would only tell the better for the wide diffusion. He does, you
know, the best criticism of The Times. I have most charming letters
from Dr. Parsons and dear Mr. Whittier. His cordiality is
delightful. God bless you.
Ever yours, M.R.M.
(No date.)
Never, my dear friend, did I expect to like so well a man who came
in your place, as I do like Mr. Ticknor. He is an admirable person,
very like his cousin in mind and manners, unmistakably good. It is
delightful to hear him talk of you, and to feel that the sort of
elder brotherhood which a senior partner must exercise in a firm is
in such hands. He was very kind to little Harry, and Harry likes him
_next_ to you. You know he had been stanch in resisting all the
advances of dear Mr ----, who had asked him if he would not come to
him, to which he had responded by a sturdy "no!" He (Mr. Ticknor)
came here on Saturday with the dear Bennochs (N.B. I love him better
than ever), and the Kingsleys met him. Mr. Hawthorne was to have
come, but could not leave Liverpool so soon, so that is a pleasure
to come. He will tell you that all is arranged for printing with
Colburn's successors, Hurst and Blackett, two separate works, the
plays and dramatic scenes forming one, the stories to be headed by a
long tale, of which I have always had the idea in my head, to form
almost a novel. God grant me strength to do myself and my publishers
justice in that story! This whole affair springs from the fancy
which Mr. Bennoch has taken to have the plays printed in a collected
form during my lifetime, for I had always felt that they would be so
printed after my death, so that their coming out now seems to me a
sort of anachronism. The one certain pleasure that I shall derive
from this arrangement will be, having my name and yours joined
together in the American edition, for we reserve the early sheets.
Nothing ever vexed me so much as the other book not being in your
hands. That was Mr. ----'s fault, for, stiff as Bentley is, Mr.
Bennoch would have managed him..... Of a certainty my first strong
interest in American poetry sprang from dear Dr. Holmes's exquisite
little piece of scenery painting, which he delivered where his
father had been educated. You sent me that, and thus made the
friendship between Dr. Holmes and me; and now you are yourself--you,
my dearest American friend--delivering an address at the greatest
American University. It is a great honor, and one....
I suppose Mr. Ticknor tells you the book-news? The most striking
work for years is "Haydon's Life." I hope you have reprinted it, for
it is sure, not only of a run, but of a durable success. You know
that the family wanted me to edit the book. I shrank from a task
that required so much knowledge which could only be possessed by one
living in the artist world _now_, to know who was dead and who
alive, and Mr. Tom Taylor has done it admirably. I read the book
twice over, so profound was my interest in it. In his early days, I
used to be a sort of safety-valve to that ardent spirit most like
Benvenuto Cellini both in pen and tongue and person. Our dear Mr.
Bennoch was the providence of his later years. They tell me that
that powerful work has entirely stopped the sale of Moore's Life,
which, all tinsel and tawdry rags, might have been written by a
court newsman or a court milliner. I wonder whether they will print
the other six volumes; for the four out they have given Mrs. Moore
three thousand pounds. A bad account Mr. Tupper gives of ----. Fancy
his conceit! When Mr. Tupper praised a passage in one of his poems,
he said, "If I had known you liked it, I would have omitted that
passage in my new edition," and he has done so by passages praised
by persons of taste, cut them out bodily and left the sentences
before and after to join themselves how they could. What a bad
figure your President and Mr. ---- cut at the opening of your
Exhibition! I am sorry for ----, for, although he has quite
forgotten me since his aunt's book came out, he once stayed three
weeks with us, and I liked him. Well, so many of his countrymen are
over-good to me, that I may well forgive one solitary instance of
forgetfulness! Make my love to all my dear friends at Boston and
Cambridge. Tell Mrs. Sparks how dearly I should have liked to have
been at her side on _the_ Thursday. Tell Dr. Holmes that his kind
approbation of Rienzi is one of my encouragements in this new
edition. I had a long talk about him with Mr. Ticknor, and rejoice
to find him so young. Thank Mr. Whipple again and again for his
kindness.
Ever yours, M.R.M.
(No date.)
My Very Dear Friend: Mr. Hillard (whom I shall be delighted to see
if he come to England and will let me know when he can get
here)--Mr. Hillard has just put into verse my own feelings about
you. It is the one comfort belonging to the hard work of these _two_
books (for besides the Dramatic Works in two thick volumes, there
are prose stories in two also, and I have one long tale, almost a
novel, to write),--it is the one comfort of this labor that _I_
shall see our names together on one page. I have just finished a
long gossiping preface of thirty or forty pages to the Dramatic
Works, which is much more an autobiography than the Recollections,
and which I have tried to make as amusing as if it were ill-natured.
_That_ work is dedicated to our dear Mr. Bennoch, another
consolation. I sent the dedication to dear Mr. Ticknor, but as his
letter of adieu did not reach me till two or three days after it was
written, and I am not quite sure that I recollected the number in
Paternoster Row, I shall send it to you here. "To Francis Bennoch,
Esq., who blends in his life great public services with the most
genial private hospitality; who, munificent patron of poet and of
painter, is the first to recognize every talent except his own,
content to be beloved where others claim to be admired; to him,
equally valued as companion and as friend, these volumes are most
respectfully and affectionately inscribed by the author." I write
from memory, but if this be not it, it is very like it, (and I beg
you to believe that my preface is a little better English than this
agglomeration of "its.")
Mr. Kingsley says that Alfred Tennyson says that Alexander Smith's
poems show fancy, but not imagination; and on my repeating this to
Mrs. Browning, she said it was exactly her impression. For my part I
am struck by the extravagance and the total want of finish and of
constructive power, and I am in hopes that ultimately good will come
out of evil, for Mr. Kingsley has written, he tells me, a paper
called "Alexander Pope and Alexander Smith," and Mr. Willmott, the
powerful critic of The Times, takes the same view, he tells me, and
will doubtless put it into print some day or other, so that the
carrying this bad school to excess will work for good. By the way,
Mr. ----, whose Imogen is so beautiful, sent me the other day a
terrible wild affair in that style, and I wrote him a frank letter,
which my sincere admiration for what he does well gives me some
right to do. He has in him the making of a great poet; but, if he
once take to these obscurities, he is lost. I hope I have not
offended him, for I think it is a real talent, and I feel the
strongest interest in him. My young friend, James Payn, went a
fortnight or three weeks ago to Lasswade and spent an evening with
Mr. De Quincey. He speaks of him just as you do, marvellously fine
in point of conversation, looking like an old beggar, but with the
manners of a prince, "if," adds James Payn, "we may understand by
that all that is intelligent and courteous and charming." (I suppose
he means such manners as our Emperor's.) He began by saying that his
life was a mere misery to him from nerves, and that he could only
render it endurable by a semi-inebriation with opium. (I always
thought he had not left opium off.).... On his return, James Payn
again visited Harriet Martineau, who talked frankly about _the_
book, exculpating Mr. Atkinson and taking all the blame to herself.
She asked if I had read it, and on finding that I had not, said, "It
was better so." There are fine points about Harriet Martineau. Mrs.
Browning is positively crazy about the spirit-rappings. She believes
every story, European or American, and says our Emperor consults the
mediums, which I disbelieve.
The above was written yesterday. To-day has brought me a charming
letter from Miss De Quincey. She has been very ill, but is now back
at Lasswade, and longing most earnestly to persuade her father to
return to Grasmere. Will she succeed? She sends me a charming
message from a brother Francis, a young physician settled in India.
She says that her sister told her her father was in bad spirits when
talking to Mr. Payn, which perhaps accounts for his confessing to
the continuing the opium-eating.
Mr. ---- brought me some proofs of his new volume of poems. I think
that if he will take pains he will be a real poet. But it is so
difficult to get young men to believe that correcting and
re-correcting is necessary, and he is a most charming person, and so
gets spoiled. I spoil him myself, God forgive me! although I advise
him to the best of my power. No signs of Mr. Hawthorne yet! Heaven
bless you, my dear friend.
Ever faithfully yours, M.R.M.
October, 1853.
My Very Dear Friend: I cannot thank you enough for the two charming
books which you have sent me. I enclose a letter for the author of
this very remarkable book of Italian travel, and I have written to
dear Mr. Hawthorne myself.
Since I wrote to you, dear Mr. Bennoch sent to me to look out what
letters I could find of poor Haydon's. I was half killed by the
operation, all my sins came upon me; for, lulling my conscience by
carelessness about bills and receipts, and by answering almost every
letter the day it comes, I am in other respects utterly careless,
and my great mass of correspondence goes where fate and K----
decree. We had five great chests and boxes, two huge hampers,
fifteen or sixteen baskets, and more drawers than you would believe
the house could hold, to look over, and at last disinterred
sixty-five. I did not dare read them for fear of the dust, but I
have no doubt they will be most valuable, for his letters were
matchless for talent and spirit. I hope you have reprinted the Life;
if so, of course you will publish the Correspondence. By the way,
it is a curious specimen of the little care our highest people have
for poetry of the ---- school, that Vice-Chancellor Wood, one of the
most accomplished men whom I have ever known, a bosom friend of
Macaulay, was with me last week, and had never heard of Alexander
Smith.
I continue terribly lame, and with no chance of amendment till the
spring, when you will come and do me good. Besides the lameness, I
am also miserably feeble, ten years older than when you saw me last.
I am working as well as I can, but very slowly. I send you a proof
of the Preface to the Dramatic Works (not knowing whether they have
sent you the sheets, or when they mean to bring it out). The few who
have seen this Introduction like it. It tells the truth about myself
and says no ill of other people. God bless you, dear friend. Say
everything for me to all friends, not forgetting Mr. Ticknor.
Ever yours, M.R.M.
Swallowfield, November 8, 1853.
My Very Dear Friend; Your letters are always delightful to me, even
when they are dated Boston; think what they will be when they are
dated London. In my last I sent you a very rough proof of my Preface
(I think Mr. Hurst means to call it Introduction), which you will
find autobiographical to your heart's content; I hope you will like
it. To-day I enclose the first rough draft of an account of my first
impression of Haydon. Don't print it, please, because I suppose they
mean it for a part of the Correspondence when it shall be published.
I looked out for those sixty-five long letters of Haydon's,--as
long, perhaps, each, as half a dozen of mine to you,--and doubtless
I have many more, but I was almost blinded by the dust in hunting up
those, my eyes having been very tender since I was shut up in a
smoky room for twenty-two weeks last winter. I find now that Messrs.
Longman have postponed the publication of the Correspondence in the
fear that it would injure the sale of the Memoirs, the book having
had a great success here. By the enclosed, which is as true and as
like as I could make it, you will see that he was a very brilliant
and charming person. I believe that next to having been heart-broken
by the committee and the heartlessness of his pupil ----, and
enraged by the passion for that miserable little wretch, Tom Thumb,
that the real cause of his suicide was to get his family provided
for. It succeeded. By one way and another they had £440 a year
between the four; but although the poor father never complained,
you will see by his book what a selfish wretch that ---- was.....
My tragedies are printed, and the dramatic scenes, forming, with the
preface, two volumes of above four hundred pages each. But I don't
think they are to come out till the prose work, and that is not a
quarter finished. I am always a most slow and laborious writer (that
Preface was written three times over throughout, and many parts of
it five or six), and of course my ill health does not improve my
powers of composition. This wet summer and autumn have been terribly
against me. I am lamer even than when Mr. Ticknor saw me, and
sometimes cannot even dip the pen in the ink without holding it in
my left hand. Thank God my head is spared, and my heart is, I think,
as young as ever.
I had a letter to-day from Mr. Chorley; he has been staying all the
autumn with Sir William Molesworth, now a Cabinet Minister, but he
complains terribly about his own health, notwithstanding he has a
play coming out at the Olympic, which Mr. Wigan has taken. Mrs.
Kingsley, a most sweet person, has a cough which has forced them to
send her to the sea. You shall be sure to see both him and Mr.
Willmott if I can compass it; but we live, each of us, seven miles
apart, and these country clergymen are so tied to their parish that
they are difficult to catch. However, they both come to see me
whenever they can, and we must contrive it. You will like both in
different ways. Mr. Willmott is one of the most agreeable men in the
world, and Mr. Kingsley is charming. I have another dear friend, not
an author, whom I prefer to either,--Hugh Pearson. He made for
himself a collection of De Quincey, when a lad at Oxford. You would
like him, I think, better than anybody; but he too is a country
clergyman, living eight miles off. Poor Mr. Norton! His letters were
charming. He is connected in my mind with Mrs. Hemans, too, to whom
he was so kind. You must say everything for me to dear Mrs. Sparks.
I seem most ungrateful to her, but I really have little power of
writing letters just now. Did I tell you that Mr. ---- sent me a
poem called ----, which I am very sorry that he ever wrote. It has
shocked Mr. Bennoch even more than it did me. You must get him to
write more poems like ----. A young friend of mine has brought out a
little volume in which there is striking evidence of talent; but
none of these young writers take pains. How very pretty is that
scrap on a country church! Mrs. Browning is at Florence, but is
going to Rome. She says that your countryman, Mr. Story, has made a
charming statuette, I think of Beethoven, or else of Mendelssohn,
which ought to make his reputation. She is crazy about mediums. She
says (but I have not heard it elsewhere) that Thackeray and Dickens
are to winter at Rome, and Alfred Tennyson at Florence. Mrs.
Trollope has quite recovered, and receives as usual. How full of
beauty Mr. Hillard's book is! thank him for it again and again. Did
I tell you that they are going to engrave a portrait of me by
Haydon, now belonging to Mr. Bennoch, for the Dramatic Works? God
bless you, my very dear friend. Say everything for me to Mr. Ticknor
and Dr. Holmes and Dr. Parsons, and all my friends in Boston. Little
Henry grows a very sensible, intelligent boy, and is a great
favorite at his school. He is getting on with French.
Once more, ever yours, M.R.M.
1854.
(January, 1854.)
My Beloved Friend: They who correspond with sick people must be
content to receive such letters as are sent from hospitals. For many
weeks I have been wholly shut up in my own room, getting with
exceeding difficulty from the bed to the fireside, quite unable to
stir either in the chair or in the bed, but much less miserable up
than when in bed. The terrible cold of last summer did not allow me
to gain any strength, so that although the fire in my room is kept
up night and day, yet a severe attack of influenza came on and would
have carried me off, had not Mr. May been so much alarmed at the
state of the pulse and the general feebleness as to order me two
tablespoonfuls of champagne in water once a day, and a teaspoonful
of brandy also in water, at night, which undoubtedly saved my life.
It is the only good argument for what is called teetotalism that it
keeps more admirable medicines as medicine; for undoubtedly a
wine-drinker, however moderate, would not have been brought round by
the remedy which did me so much good. Miserably feeble I still am,
and shall continue till May or June (if it please God to spare my
life till then), when, if it be fine weather, Sam will lift me down
stairs and into the pony-chaise, and I may get stronger. Well, in
the midst of the terrible cough, which did not allow me to lie down
in bed, and a weakness difficult to describe, I finished "Atherton."
I did it against orders and against warning, because I had an
impression that I should not live to complete it, and I sent it
yesterday to London to dear Mr. Bennoch, so I suppose you will soon
receive the sheets. Almost every line has been written three times
over, and it is certainly the most cheerful and sunshiny story that
was ever composed in such a state of helplessness, feebleness, and
suffering; for the rheumatic pain in the chest not only rendered the
cough terrible (that, thank God, is nearly gone now), but makes the
position of writing one of misery. God grant you may like this
story! I shall at least say in the Preface that it will give me one
pleasure, that of having in the American title-page the names of
dear friends united with mine. Mind I don't know whether the story
be good or bad. I only answer for its having the youthfulness which
you liked in the preface to the plays. Well, dearest friend, just
when I was at the worst came your letter about the ducks and the
ducks themselves. Never were birds so welcome. My friend, Mr. May,
the cleverest and most admirable person whom I know in this
neighborhood, refuses all fees of any sort, and comes twelve miles
to see me, when torn to pieces by all the great folk round, from
pure friendship. Think how glad I was to have such a dainty to offer
him just when he had all his family gathered about him at Christmas.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me this great
pleasure, infinitely greater than eating it myself would have been.
They were delicious. How very, very good you are to me!
Has Mrs. Craig written to you to tell you of her marriage? I will
run the risk of repetition and tell you that it is the charming
Margaret De Quincey, who has married the son of a Scotch neighbor.
He has purchased land in Ireland, and they are about to live in
Tipperary,--a district which Irish people tell me is losing its
reputation for being the most disturbed in Ireland, but keeping that
for superior fertility. They are trying to regain a reputation for
literature in Edinburgh. John Ruskin has been giving a series of
lectures on art there, and Mr. Kingsley four lectures on the schools
of Alexandria.
Nothing out of Parliament has for very long made so strong a
sensation as our dear Mr. Bennoch's evidence on the London
Corporation. Three leading articles in The Times paid him the
highest compliments, and you know what that implies. I have myself
had several letters congratulating me on having such a friend. Ah!
the public qualities make but a part of that fine and genial
character, although I firmly believe that the strength is essential
to the tenderness. I always put you and him together, and it is one
of the compensations of my old age to have acquired such friends.
Have you seen Matthew Arnold's poems? They have fine bits. The
author is a son of Dr. Arnold.
God bless you! Say everything for me to my dear American friends,
Drs. Holmes and Parsons, Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Whittier, Mrs. Sparks,
Mr. Taylor, Mr. Whipple, Mr. and Mrs. Willard, and Mr. Ticknor.
Many, very many happy years to them and to you.
Always most affectionately yours, M.R.M.
P.S. I enclose some slips to be pasted into books for my different
American friends. If I have sent too many, you will know which to
omit. I must add to the American preface a line expressive of my
pleasure in joining my name to yours. I will send one line here for
fear of its not going. Mr. May says that those ducks were amongst
the few things thoroughly deserving their reputation, holding the
same place, as compared with our wild ducks, that the finest venison
does to common mutton. I cannot tell you how much I thank you for
enabling me to send such a treat to such a friend. You will send a
copy of the prose book or the dramas, according to your own
pleasure, only I should like the two dear doctors to have the plays.
Swallowfield, January 23, 1854.
I have always to thank you for some kindness, dearest Mr. Fields,
generally for many. How clever those magazines are, especially Mr.
Lowell's article, and Mr. Bayard Taylor's graceful stanzas! Just now
I have to ask you to forward the enclosed to Mr. Whittier. He sent
me a charming poem on Burns, full of tenderness and humanity, and
the indulgence which the wise and good can so well afford, and which
only the wisest and best can show to their erring brethren. I
rejoice to hear that he is getting well again. I myself am weaker
and more helpless every day, and the rheumatic pain in the chest
increases so rapidly, and makes writing so difficult, even the
writing such a note as this, that I cannot be thankful enough for
having finished "Atherton," for I am sure I could not write it now.
There is some chance of my getting better in the summer, if I can be
got into the air, and that must be by being let down in a chair
through a trap-door, like so much railway luggage, for there is not
the slightest power of helping myself left in me,--nothing, indeed,
but the good spirits which Shakespeare gave to Horatio, and Hamlet
envied him. Dearest Mr. Bennoch has made me a superb present,--two
portraits of our Emperor and his fair wife. He all intellect,--never
was a brow so full of thought; she all sweetness,--such a mouth was
never seen, it seems waiting to smile. The beauty is rather of
expression than of feature, which is exactly what it ought to be....