Swallowfield, May 2, 1854.
My Dear Friend: Long before this time, you will, I hope, have
received the sheets of "Atherton." It has met with an enthusiastic
reception from the English press, and certainly the friends who have
written to me on the subject seem to prefer the tale which fills the
first volume to anything that I have done. I hope you will like
it,--I am sure you will not detect in it the gloom of a
sick-chamber. Mr. May holds out hopes that the summer may do me
good. As yet the spring has been most unfavorable to invalids, being
one combined series of east-wind, so that instead of getting better
I am every day weaker than the last, unable to see more than one
person a day, and quite exhausted by half an hour's conversation. I
hope to be a little better before your arrival, dearest friend,
because I must see you; but any stranger--even Mr. Hawthorne--is
quite out of the question.
You may imagine how kind dear Mr. Bennoch has been all through this
long trial, next after John Ruskin and his admirable father the
kindest of all my friends, and that is saying much.
God bless you. Love to all my friends, poets, prosers, and the dear
----, who are that most excellent thing, readers. I wonder if you
ever received a list of people to whom to send one or other of my
works? I wrote such with little words in my own hand, but writing is
so painful and difficult, and I am always so uncertain of your
getting my letters, that I cannot attempt to send another. There was
one for Mrs. Sparks. I am sure of liking Dr. Parsons's book,--quite
sure. Once again, God bless you! Little Henry grows a nice boy.
Ever most affectionately yours, M.R.M.
Swallowfield, July 12, 1854.
Dearest Mr. Fields: Our excellent friend Mr. Bennoch will have told
you from how painful a state of anxiety your most welcome letter
relieved us. You have done quite right, my beloved friend, in
returning to Boston. The voyage, always so trying to you, would,
with your health so deranged, have been most dangerous, and next
year you will find all your friends, except one, as happy to see and
to welcome you. Even if you had arrived now our meeting would have
been limited to minutes. Dr. Parsons will tell you that fresh
feebleness in a person so long tried and so aged (sixty-seven) must
have a speedy termination. May Heaven prolong your valuable life,
dear friend, and grant that you may be as happy yourself as you have
always tried to render others!
I rejoice to hear what you tell me of "Atherton." Here the
reception has been most warm and cordial. Every page of it was
written three times over, so that I spared no pains, but I was
nearly killed by the terrible haste in which it was finished, and I
do believe that many of the sheets were sent to me without ever
being read in the office. I have corrected one copy for the third
English edition, but I cannot undertake such an effort again, so, if
(as I venture to believe) it be destined to be often reprinted by
you, you must correct it from _that_ edition. I hope you sent a copy
to Mr. Whittier from me. I had hoped you would bring one to Mr.
Hawthorne and Mr. De Quincey, but I must try what I can do with Mr.
Hurst, and must depend on you for assuring these valued friends that
it was not neglect or ingratitude on my part.
Mr. Boner, my dear and valued friend, wishes you and dear Mr.
Ticknor to print his "Chamois-Hunting" from a second edition which
Chapman and Hall are bringing out. I sent my copy of the work to Mr.
Bennoch when we were expecting you, that you might see it. It is a
really excellent book, full of interest, with admirable plates,
which you could have, and, speaking in your interest, as much as in
his, I firmly believe that it would answer to you in money as well
as in credit to bring it out in America. Also Mrs. Browning (while
in Italy) wrote to me to inquire if you would like to bring out a
new poem by her, and a new work by her husband. I told her that I
could not doubt it, but that she had better write duplicate letters
to London and to Boston. Our poor little boy is here for his
holidays. His excellent mother and step-father have nursed me rather
as if they had been my children than my servants. Everybody has been
most kind. The champagne, which I believe keeps me alive, is dear
Mr. Bennoch's present; but you will understand how ill I am when I
tell you that my breath is so much affected by the slightest
exertion that I cannot bear even to be lifted into bed, but have
spent the last eight nights sitting up, with my feet supported on a
leg-rest. This from exhaustion, not from disease of the lungs.
Give the enclosed to Dr. Parsons. You know what I have always
thought of his genius. In my mind no poems ever crossed the Atlantic
which approached his stanzas on Dante and on the death of Webster,
and yet you have great poets too. Think how glad and proud I am to
hear of the honor he has done me. I wish you had transcribed the
verses.
God bless you, my beloved friend! Say everything for me to all my
dear friends, to Dr. Parsons, to Dr. Holmes, to Mr. Whittier, to
Professor Longfellow, to Mr. Taylor, to Mr. Stoddard, to Mrs.
Sparks, and above all to the excellent Mr. Ticknor and the dear
W----s.
Ever yours, M.R.M.
Swallowfield, July 28, 1854.
My Very Dear Friend: This is a sort of postscript to my last,
written instantly on the receipt of yours and sent through Mr. ----.
I hope you received it, for he is so impetuous that I always a
little doubt his care; at least it was when sent through him that
the loss of letters to and fro took place. However, I enjoined him
to be careful this time, and he assured me that he was so.
The purport of this is to add the name of my friend, Mr. Willmott,
to the authors who wish for the advantage of your firm as their
American publishers. I have begged him to write to you himself, and
I hope he has done so, or that he will do so. But he is staying at
Richmond with sick relatives, and I am not sure. You know his works,
of course. They are becoming more and more popular in England, and
he is writing better and better. The best critical articles in The
Times are by him. He is eminently a scholar, and yet full of
anecdote of the most amusing sort, with a memory like Scott, and a
charming habit of applying his knowledge. His writings become more
and more like his talk, and I am confident that you would find his
works not only most creditable, but most profitable. I would not
recommend you to each other if it were not for your mutual
advantage, so far as my poor judgment goes. On the 25th my Dramatic
Works are to be published here. I hope they have sent you the
sheets.
I have not heard yet from any American friend, except your
delightful letter and one from Grace Greenwood, but I hope I shall.
I prize the good word of such persons as Drs. Parsons and Holmes and
Professor Longfellow and John Whittier and many others. I am still
very ill.
The Brownings remain this year in Italy. If it be very hot, they
will go for a month or two to the Baths of Lucca, but their home is
Florence. She has taken a fancy to an American female sculptor,--a
girl of twenty-two,--a pupil of Gibson's, who goes with the rest of
the fraternity of the studio to breakfast and dine at a _café_, and
yet keeps her character. Also she believes in all your rappings.
God be with you, my very dear friend. I trust you are quite
recovered.
Always affectionately yours, M.R.M.
Swallowfield, August 21, 1854.
My Dear Mr. Fields: Mr. Bayard Taylor having sent me a most
interesting letter, but no address, I trouble you with my reply.
Read it, and you will perhaps understand that I am declining day by
day, and that, humanly speaking, the end is very near. Perhaps there
may yet be time for an answer to this....
I believe that one reason for your not quite understanding my
illness is, that you, if you have seen long and great sickness at
all, which is doubtful, have seen it with an utter prostration of
the mind and the spirits,--that your women are languid and
querulous, and never dream of bearing up against bodily evils by an
effort of the mind. Even now, when half an hour's visit is utterly
forbidden, and half that time leaves me panting and exhausted, I
never mention (except forced into it by your evident disbelief) my
own illness either in speaking or writing,--never, except to answer
Mr. May's questions, or to join my beloved friend, Mr. Pearson, in
thanking God for the visitation which I humbly hope was sent in his
mercy to draw me nearer to him; may he grant me grace to use
it!--for the rest, whilst the intelligence and the sympathy are
vouchsafed to me, I will write of others, and give to my friends, as
far as in me lies, the thoughts which would hardly be more worthily
bestowed on my own miserable body.
You will be sorry to find that the poor Talfourds are likely to be
very poor. A Reading attorney has run away, cheating half the town.
He has carried off £4,000 belonging to Lady Talfourd, and she
herself tells my friend, William Harness (one of her kindest
friends), that that formed the principal part of the Judge's small
savings, and, together with the sum for which he had insured his
life (only £5,000), was all which they had. Now there are five young
people,--his children,--the widow and an adopted niece, seven in
all, accustomed to every sort of luxury and indulgence. The only
glimpse of hope is, that the eldest son held a few briefs on circuit
and went through them creditably; but it takes many years in England
to win a barrister's reputation, and the poorer our young men are
the more sure they are to marry. Add the strange fact that since the
father's death (he having reserved his copyrights) not a single copy
of any of his books has been sold! A fortnight ago I had a great
fright respecting Miss Martineau, which still continues. James Payn,
who is living at the Lakes, and to whom she has been most kind, says
he fears she will be a great pecuniary sufferer by ----. I only hope
that it is a definite sum, and no general security or
partnership,--even that will be bad enough for a woman of her age,
and so hard a worker, who intended to give herself rest; but observe
these are only _fears_. I _know_ nothing. The Brownings are detained
in Italy, she tells me, for want of money, and cannot even get to
Lucca. This is my bad news,--O, and it is very bad that sweet Mrs.
Kingsley must stay two years in Devonshire and cannot come home. I
expect to see him this week. John Ruskin is with his father and
mother in Switzerland, constantly sending me tokens of friendship.
Everybody writes or sends or comes; never was such kindness. The
Bennochs are in Scotland. He sends me charming letters, having, I
believe, at last discovered what every one else has known long.
Remember me to Mr. Ticknor. Say everything to my Athenian friends
all, especially to Dr. Holmes and Dr. Parsons.
Ever, dear friend, your affectionate M.R.M.
September 26, 1854.
My Very Dear Friend: Your most kind and interesting letter has just
arrived, with one from our good friend, Mr. Bennoch, announcing the
receipt of the £50 bill for "Atherton." More welcome even as a sign
of the prosperity of the book in a country where I have so many
friends and which I have always loved so well, than as money,
although in that way it is a far greater comfort than you probably
guess, this very long and very severe illness obliging me to keep a
third maid-servant. I get no sleep,--not on an average an hour a
night,--and require perpetual change of posture to prevent the skin
giving way still more than it does, and forming what we emphatically
call bed-sores, although I sit up night and day, and have no other
relief than the being, to a slight extent, shifted from one position
to another in the chair that I never quit. Besides this, there are
many other expenses. I tell you this, dear friend, that Mr. Ticknor
and yourself may have the satisfaction of knowing that, besides all
that you have done for many years for my gratification, you have
been of substantial use in this emergency. In spite of all this
illness, after being so entirely given over that dear Mr. Pearson,
leaving me a month ago to travel with Arthur Stanley for a month,
took a final leave of me, I have yet revived greatly during these
last three weeks. I owe this, under Providence, to my admirable
friend, Mr. May, who, instead of abandoning the stranded ship, as is
common in these cases, has continued, although six miles off, and
driving four pair of horses a day, ay, and while himself hopeless of
my case, to visit me constantly and to watch every symptom, and
exhaust every resource of his great art, as if his own fame and
fortune depended on the result. One kind but too sanguine friend,
Mr. Bennoch, is rather over-hopeful about this amendment, for I am
still in a state in which the slightest falling back would carry me
off, and in which I can hardly think it possible to weather the
winter. If that incredible contingency should arise, what a
happiness it would be to see you in April! But I must content myself
with the charming little portrait you have sent me, which is your
very self. Thank you for it over and over. Thank you, too, for the
batch of notices on "Atherton."....
Dr. Parsons's address is very fine, and makes me still more desire
to see his volume; and the letter from Dr. Holmes is charming, so
clear, so kind, and so good. If I had been a boy, I would have
followed their noble profession. Three such men as Mr. May, Dr.
Parsons, and Dr. Holmes are enough to confirm the predilection that
I have always had for the art of healing.
I have no good news to tell you of dear Mr. K----. His sweet wife
(Mr. Ticknor will remember her) has been three times at death's door
since he saw her here, and must spend at least two winters more at
Torquay. But I don't believe that he could stay here even if she
were well. Bramshill has fallen into the hands of a Puseyite parson,
who, besides that craze, which is so flagrant as to have made dear
Mr. K---- forbid him his pulpit, is subject to fits of raving
madness,--one of those most dangerous lunatics whom an age (in which
there is a great deal of false humanity) never shuts up until some
terrible crime has been committed. (A celebrated mad-doctor said the
other day of this very man, that he had "homicidal madness.") You
may fancy what such a Squire, opposing him in every way, is to the
rector of the parish. Mr. K---- told me last winter that he was
driving him mad, and I am fully persuaded that he would make a large
sacrifice of income to exchange his parish. To make up for this, he
is working himself to death, and I greatly fear that his excess of
tobacco is almost equal to the opium of Mr. De Quincey. With his
temperament this is full of danger. He was only here for two or
three days to settle a new curate, but he walked over to see me, and
I will take care that he receives your message. His regard for me
is, I really believe, sincere and very warm. Remember that all this
is in strict confidence. The kindness that people show to me is
something surprising. I have not deserved it, but I receive it most
gratefully. It touches one's very heart. Will you say everything for
me to my many kind friends, too many to name? I had a kind letter
from Mrs. Sparks the other day. The poets I cling to while I can
hold a pen. God bless you.
Ever yours, M.R.M.
Can you contrive to send a copy of your edition of "Atherton" to Mr.
Hawthorne? Pray, dear friend, do if you can.