before, only half a score two-edged swords: and these long flat blades
are not forged with us. But I think the cutlasses can be struck more
vigorously into the enemies' bodies, and so we shall use them. And at
need we shall have bludgeons--for the wild olive trees are good with
us.[60] Some of our men have single-bladed axes at their belts with
which those of us who have no defensive armour shall chop their[61]
shields and make them fight on equal terms. The fight will, at a guess,
come off to-morrow: for when some of the foe had fallen in with scouts
of ours and pursuing them at their best speed had found them too good to
catch, they bade them tell us what pleased us mightily--if indeed we may
no more have to wander in the footsteps of those fellows who made off
into the wastes of the interior. For they said they were going to stay
where they were and wanted to find out what sort of fellows _we_ were,
who dared to separate ourselves so many days' journey from our own place
that we might fight with men of war, nomads in way of life, and whose
civil polity was like our discipline in war-time. Therefore, as one who
by God's help shall to-morrow conquer--nay, conquer again if needful
(for I would say nothing of bad omen) I commit to thee the care of my
children: for it is fitting that thou, their uncle, shouldest carry over
thine affection to them.
LETTER CXXIV
"But if oblivion be the lot of the dead in Hades yet will _I_, even
there, remember" my dear Hypatia. Beset as I am by the sufferings of my
country, and sick, as I see daily weapons of war about me and men
slaughtered like altar-victims; drawing as I do breath infected by
rotting corpses; expecting myself a similar fate, (for who can be
hopeful when the very atmosphere is weighed down and dusky with the
shadow of carnivorous birds?) yet do I cling to my country. For what
else would my feeling be, born and bred as I am, and with the not
ignoble tombs of my fathers before my eyes? For thee alone does it seem
to me that I could neglect my country, and if I could get leisure, force
myself to run away.[62]
LATIN LETTERS.--PLINY (62-114)
The most famous letters of the younger Pliny are those which
describe his country houses, that which gives account of his
uncle's death in the great eruption of Vesuvius, and his
correspondence with Trajan. But the first mentioned are
rather long and require a good deal of technical
annotation;[63] the second is to be found in many books; and
the letters which make up the third (except those concerning
Christianity, which are again to be found in many places)
are mostly short and on points of business merely. The one I
have chosen is extremely characteristic, in two respects, of
the author and of Roman ways generally. It shows Pliny's
good-nature and right feeling, but it shows also a certain
"priggishness" with which he has been specially and
personally charged, but which, to speak frankly, he shared
with a great many of his famous countrymen. Priggishness was
almost unknown among the Greeks--though one may suspect its
presence among those Spartans who have told so few tales of
themselves. But it flourished at Rome, and was one of
Rome's many--and one of her worst--legacies to us moderns.
Secondly, the letter is amusing because one thinks what an
English judge would surely think and would probably say, if
counsel for a lady were to inform the court _uberius et
latius_ what an extremely good opinion that lady's father
had of him, the learned speaker. A minor but still
interesting difference is in Pliny's slight hesitation about
taking a brief against a consul-elect. The subtleties of
Roman etiquette are endless.
PLINIUS TO HIS ASINIUS GALLUS--HEALTH
You both advise[64] and ask me to take up the cause of Corellia in her
absence against C. Caecilius, Consul elect. I am obliged to you for
advising me but I complain of your _asking_. I ought to be advised that
I may know the fact, but not asked to do what it would be most
disgraceful for me _not_ to do. Could I doubt about protecting the
daughter of Corellius? True, there is between me and him against whom
you call on me, not exactly close friendship but still some friendship.
There is also to be taken into account the man's worth and the honour to
which he is destined, a thing which I ought to hold in the greater
respect that I have myself already enjoyed it. For it is natural that
things which one has oneself attained, one should wish to be regarded
with the greatest respect. But when I think that I am to help Corellius'
daughter, all this appears idle and empty. I seem to see the man than
whom our age had no one more dignified, more pious, of an acuter mind;
the man whom, when I had begun to like him out of admiration I admired
more, contrary to what usually happens, the more thoroughly I knew him.
For I did know him thoroughly; he kept nothing hid from me, neither
jocular nor serious, neither sad nor glad. I was quite a young man: but
already he held me in honour and I will dare to say respect--as if I
were his contemporary. He gave me his vote and interest in my standings
for honours; he, when I entered upon them, was my introducer and
companion; when I carried them out, my adviser and guide. In fact, in
every business of mine, though he was an old man and in weak health, he
was as forward as if he were young and strong. How much he furthered my
reputation, privately, publicly, and even with the Chief of the State!
For when by chance, in the presence of the Emperor Nerva, the
conversation had turned on young men of worth, and several persons spoke
in praise of me, he kept silence for a little, which gave him the more
authority. Then in the weighty manner you know, "I must needs," he said,
"say all the less about Secundus[65] because he never does anything but
by my advice." By saying this he gave me the credit (which it would have
been extravagant in me to hope for) of never doing anything in other
than the wisest way, seeing that I always acted on the advice of the
wisest man. Moreover, when dying, he said to his daughter, as she is
wont to declare, "I have provided you, as if I were myself to live
longer, many friends: but for the chief of them Secundus and Cornutus."
Now when I remember this, I see I must take care not in any way to
disappoint the trust in me of this most fore-thoughtful man. Therefore I
will come to Corellia's help without the least delay and will not refuse
to undergo inconveniences: though I think I shall secure not merely
pardon but even praise from the very person who as you say is bringing
a new action as against a woman, if it should happen to me to say these
same things in court more amply and fully than the narrow room of a
letter permits, either to excuse or indeed commend myself. Farewell.
LETTER OF THE "DARK" AGES
SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS (431?-482-4)
Caius Sollius Sidonius Apollinaris is one of the most
interesting figures of the troubled and obscure period
intervening between the fall of the Roman Empire _proper_
and the rise of mediaeval Europe. He was born at Lyons,
married Papianilla, daughter of Flavius Avitus, who was to
be one of the ephemeral "Emperors" of the West and the
Decadence, but was not injured by his father-in-law's
dethronement, and enjoyed various civil honours and posts.
In 471, though a married layman, he was peremptorily made a
bishop, and accordingly took orders, put away his wife, and
discharged his sacred duties as creditably as he had
discharged his profane ones. Sidonius was a not contemptible
poet, and an interesting letter-writer. Like most literary
men of his class he was given to what we call flattery; and
this Ecdicius, of whom he made a sort of Dark Age Admirable
Crichton, was his brother-in-law, an Emperor's son, and
Count or Duke (the titles were often interchangeable) of the
district. But it is fair to say that Gregory of Tours, the
accepted historian of the period, and living only in the
next century, makes the exploit over the Goths even more
signal--for he reduces the troopers to _ten_. The Arverni
(inhabitants of Auvergne and its neighbourhood) were the
strongest tribe in Southern Gaul when the Romans first came
into contact with them, retained much prominence in Caesar's
time, and had not lost individuality, if they had lost
independence, by this (5th) century. The mixture of "Arms"
and the "Gown" is noteworthy.
BOOK III. LETTER III
SIDONIUS TO HIS ECDICIUS--HEALTH
If ever, now you are longed for by my Arvernians, whose love for you
subdues them remarkably, and indeed for all sorts of reasons. First,
because a man's native land has the greatest part in creating affection
for him.[66] Then, because in your time you are about the only mortal
who was longed for before his birth as much as he was rejoiced in after
it.... I say nothing of such things--common to all, but no mean
incitement to affection--as that you crawled as a child on the same turf
with them. I pass over the grass which you first trod, the river you
first swam, the woods you broke through in hunting. I leave out the fact
that it was here you first played ball[67] and backgammon,[68] that you
hawked, coursed, rode, shot with the bow. I omit the fact that for the
sake of your boyish presence students of letters came hither from all
parts; and that it was due to you as an individual that our nobility,
anxious to shed the slough of Celtic speech, imbued itself now with the
style of oratory, now with the measures of the Muse. And this specially
kindled the love of the community[69] that you forbade those whom you
had already made Latins[70] to remain barbarians.[71] For it could never
slip the memory of our citizens what and how great you seemed, to every
age and rank and sex on the half-ruined mounds of our walls, when,
accompanied by scarcely eighteen horsemen, you cut your way through some
thousands of Goths in full daylight and (which posterity will hardly
believe) in the open field. A well trained army stood aghast at the
sound of your name and the sight of your person: so that the leaders of
the enemy, in their astonishment, hardly knew how many were their
followers, how few yours. Their line was then withdrawn to the brow of a
steep hill; it had before been gathered together to storm, but on your
appearance was not deployed for battle. Meanwhile you, having slain some
of their best men whom not sloth but courage had made the rearmost of
the troop, occupied the level ground alone, though such a fight gave you
not so many comrades as your table is wont to contain guests. And when
you returned to the town at your leisure what came to meet you in the
way of official compliments, applause, tears, rejoicings can be better
guessed than described. One might see in the crammed halls of the
spacious palace that happy ovation for your thronged return. Some caught
up the dust of your footsteps to kiss it: others took out the horses'
curbs stained with blood and foam; others prepared the stands for the
saddles drenched with the horses' sweat; others, when you were about to
put off your helmet, unbuckled the clasps of its plated chin-straps, or
busied themselves with unlacing your greaves. Yet others counted the
notches on the swords, blunted with slaughter, or measured with
livid[72] fingers the rings of the corslets, slashed or pierced by
weapons.[73]
EARLY MEDIAEVAL LETTER (TWELFTH CENTURY)
Of the other persons mentioned in this letter besides the
widowed Duchess and King Louis VII., the first is Ralph,
Count of (Peronne and) Vermandois, a leper. The lady's name
was Eleanor, and she also was probably a widow; the
Duchess's son Hugh was third of that name as Duke of
Burgundy. Ivo, Count of Soissons, was the guardian of the
Count of Vermandois, incapacitated legally by his plague.
The proposed marriage did not come off. The business-like
tone of the letter will only surprise those who do not
really know the "Ages of Romance." I owe the selection of it
to my friend the Rev. W. Hunt, D.Litt., who came to my aid
in the dearth of books of this period which circumstances
imposed on me.
To Louis[74] most excellent King of the Franks by the grace of God, and
her most beloved Lord, Mary, Duchess of Burgundy--health and due
respect. It is known to your Majesty that my son is your liegeman, and,
if it please you, your kinsman also. Whatsoever he can do is yours: and
if he could do more it were yours. And so I all the more confidently ask
your highest affection for my son. For it has been told me that Count
Ralph of Peronne has a certain marriageable sister who, as has been
reported to me and her own people, would be a suitable wife for my son.
For this reason, most beloved Lord, I and he ask that you would look to
this matter yourself and speak about it to the Count of Soissons, and
settle how this marriage may be contracted. You must know that though my
son might marry in another kingdom, I greatly prefer that he should
take a wife in yours, rather than in any other. The nearer he becomes
connected with you the more will he be yours and altogether a profit to
you.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It may of course be "illustrated" in the other sense by a second use
of the pen; and we shall have instances of this kind to notice.
[2] As has often been pointed out Ben Jonson's exquisite "Drink to me
only with thine eyes" is a verse-paraphrase or mosaic from this writer's
prose.
[3] Pliny, if he did not always "write for publication," deliberately
"published," as we should say, his letters. Indeed, he is one of the
first to use the word in this sense, even if he uses it immediately of
an oration not a letter. Some think Cicero meant publication; and he was
very likely to do so.
[4] The Latin statesman, like the Greek bishop, condescends to write
about wine and even more fully. One of the most interesting and
informing things on the subject is his discourse on _vinum acinaticium_,
a sort of Roman Imperial Tokay made from grapes kept till the frost had
touched them.
[5] Genuine letters of Sappho would have been of the first interest to
compare with those of Heloise, and the "Portuguese Nun" and Mademoiselle
de Lespinasse. Diotima's might have been as disappointing as George
Eliot's: but by no means must necessarily have been so. Aspasia's,
sometimes counterfeited, ought to have been good.
[6] It is part of the plan to give, as a sort of Appendix to the
Introduction, and extension of it towards the main body of text, some
specimens of Greek, Roman (classical and post-classical) and Early
Mediaeval letter-writing, translated for the purpose by the present
writer. The _continuity_ of literary history is a thing which deserves
to be attended to, especially when there is an ever-growing tendency to
confine attention to things modern--albeit so soon to be antiquated! I
owe the last of these specimens, in the Latin from which I translate it,
to the kindness of my friend the Rev. W. Hunt, D.Litt., to whom I had
recourse as not myself having access to a large library at the moment,
and who has assisted me in other parts of this book.
[7] Yet others, as to authenticity, have, I believe, been rejected by
all competent scholarship.
[8] Benjamin Constant and Madame de Charriere.
[9] Some of us think Blake a great poet; but this is scarcely a general
opinion, and he does not appear till the century was three parts over.
Burns (whose own letters by the way do him little justice) hardly comes
in.
[10] Especially the most popular and voluminous if not the most
important of all--the periodical and the novel.
[11] The danger being of many sorts--usually in the direction of various
kinds of _excess_. A _quietly_ tragic letter may be a masterpiece:
perhaps there is no finer example than one to be again referred to, of
Mrs. Carlyle's.
[12] Mr. Paul thinks that "the baby language" is terribly out of
character, and that there is "too much of it"; that Swift "would try to
make love though he did not know what love meant"; and that the whole
rings hollow and insincere. Others, women as well as men, have held that
the "little language" is only less pathetic than it is charming; that
Swift was one of the greatest, if one of the unhappiest lovers of the
world; and that the thing is as sincere as if it had been written in the
Palace of Truth and only hollow as is the space between Heaven and Hell.
[13] It should never be, but perhaps sometimes is, forgotten that
"Stella" was a lady of unusual wits, and of what Swift's greatest
decrier called in his own protegee Mrs. Williams "universal curiosity,"
that is to say not "inquisitiveness" but "intelligent interest." The
politics etc. are not mere selfish attention to what interests the
writer only.
[14] It must not be forgotten that she was Fielding's cousin. And after
the remark above on Swift it is pleasant and may be fair to say that Mr.
Paul is a hearty "Marian."
[15] Johnson is again the chief and by no means trustworthy witness for
this "insolence." But in the same breath he admitted that Chesterfield
was "dignified." Now dignity is almost as doubtfully compatible with
insolence as with impudence.
[16] It is difficult to think of anyone who has combined statesmanship
(Chesterfield's accomplishments in which are constantly forgotten),
social gifts and literary skill in an equal degree.
[17] Excluding of course purely historical and public things like the
trials of the '45 and the riots of '80.
[18] They were travelling together (always rather a test of friendship)
in Italy, and Horace, as he confesses, no doubt gave himself airs. But
it is pretty certain that Gray had not at this time, if he ever had,
that fortunate combination of good (or at least well-commanded) temper
and good breeding which enables a gentleman to meet such conduct with
conduct on his own side as free from petulant "touchiness" as from
ignoble parasitism.
[19] Gray was not, like Walpole, a richly endowed sinecurist. But to use
a familiar "bull" he seems never to have had anything to do, and never
to have done it when he had. His poems are a mere handful; his excellent
_Metrum_ is a fragment; and as Professor of History at Cambridge he
never did anything at all.
[20] They do not seem to have known each other personally. But (for
reasons not difficult to assign but here irrelevant) Johnson was on the
whole, though not wholly, unjust to Gray, and Gray seems to have
disliked and spoken rudely of Johnson.
[21] The varieties of what may be called literary _exercise_ which have
been utilised for educational or recreative purposes, are almost
innumerable. Has anyone ever tried "breaking up" a letter (such as those
to be given hereafter) into a conversation by interlarded comment,
questions, etc.?
[22] As far as the accidents are concerned. The essentials vary not.
Marianne is eternal, whether she faints and blushes, or jazzes and--does
not blush.
[23] One unfortunate exception, the _ex-post facto_ references to the
split with Lady Austin, may be urged by a relentless prosecutor. But
when William has to choose between Mary and Anna it will go hard but he
will _have_ to be unfair to one of them.
[24] This "swan's" utterances in poetry were quite unlike those of
Tennyson's dying bird: and her taste in it was appalling. She tells
Scott that the Border Ballads were totally destitute of any right to the
name.
[25] For a singular misjudgment on this point see Prefatory Note
_infra_.
[26] Particularly when he is able to apply the _Don Juan_ mood of
sarcastic if rather superficial life-criticism in which he was a real
master.
[27] _I.e._ "violently and vulgarly absurd."
[28] It may, however, be suggested that the extraordinary _bluntness_
(to use no stronger word) of both is almost sufficiently evidenced in
the fact that in his last edition of Keats Mr. Forman committed the
additional outrage of distributing these letters according to their
dates among the rest. The isolation of the agony gives almost the only
possible excuse for revealing it.
[29] It is of course true that Shelley himself did not at first quite
appreciate Keats. But _Adonais_ cancels the deficit and leaves an almost
infinite balance in favour. One can only hope that, had the
circumstances been reversed, Keats would have set the account right as
triumphantly.
[30] This tendency makes it perhaps desirable to observe that in the
_particular_ context of the _Belle Dame_ there is nothing whatever to
cavil at.
[31] The recent centenary saw, as usual, with much welcome appreciation
some uncritical excesses.
[32] In not a few cases they may be said to have been deliberately
_un_prepared--intended though not labelled as "private and
confidential."
[33] In which, be it remembered, the "Life-and-Letters" system only came
in quite late.
[34] At the very moment when this is being written a considerable new
body of them is announced for sale.
[35] The word "restraint" may be misunderstood: but it is intended to
indicate something of the general difference between "classical" ages on
the one side and "romantic" or "realist" on the other.
[36] Chesterfield's deafness might, without frivolity, be brought in. It
is a hindrance to conversation, but none to letter-writing.
[37] Or at least expression of themselves.
[38] Idly: because he himself expressly and repeatedly disclaims _mere_
"translation."
[39] Dryden, in reference to Shadwell.
[40] "The Great God Pan" piece ("A Musical Instrument"), one of the
last, was perhaps her _very_ best. But he may have been thinking of
_Poems before Congress_, which are poor enough.
[41] Lucy, daughter of that curious Quaker banker's clerk Bernard
Barton, whose poetry is negligible, but who must have had some strong
personal attraction. For he was a favourite correspondent of two of the
greatest of contemporary letter-writers, Lamb and FitzGerald, though he
constantly misunderstood their letters; he received from Byron--on an
occasion likely to provoke one of the "noble poet's" outbursts of
pseudo-aristocratic insolence--a singularly wise and kindly answer; and
having as a perfect stranger lectured Sir Robert Peel he was--invited to
dinner!
[42] Some have attempted to make a distinction, alleging that there are
Franceses who can be called "Fanny" and others who can not. But it is
doubtful whether this holds. Of two great proficients of "letter-stuff"
in overlapping generations Fanny Burney was eminently a "Fanny." Fanny
Kemble, though always called so, was not.
[43] She was the niece of Mrs. Siddons and of John Kemble, generally
considered the greatest tragic actor and actress we have had; the
daughter of Charles Kemble, a player and manager of long practice and
great ability; while she had yet another uncle and any number of more
distant relations in the profession.
[44] See Prefatory Note on her letters _infra_, for an illustration of
what is said of her here and of Mrs. Carlyle a little further.
[45] Gray may not produce this effect of slight repulsion on everyone:
but on the other hand it is pretty generally admitted that the more you
read Walpole the more does the prejudice, which Macaulay and others have
helped to create against him, crumble and melt.
[46] They grow more and more numerous; a fresh batch having been
announced while this Introduction was being written.
[47] I see that Mr. Paul also has made special reference to this letter
and no wonder. From the time of its first publication I have regarded it
as matchless. But it seems to me that while it is lawful to mention it,
it should not have been published and that to republish it here would be
at least questionable.
[48] The present writer remembers as a boy reading (he supposes in the
newspaper to which it was addressed but is not sure) this very
remarkable epistle of Reade's to an editor: "Sir, you have brains of
your own and good ones. Do not echo the bray of such a very small ass as
the...." There was more, but this was the gist of it. Whether it has
ever reappeared he cannot say.
[49] Anthony Trollope did not choose to make his Autobiography a
"Life-and-Letters." But he has used the inserted letter very freely and
sometimes with great effect in his novels, for instance Mr. Slope's to
Eleanor Harding in _Barchester Towers_.
[50] In his Essay mentioned in Preface.
[51] The "Answer to the Introductory Epistle" of _The Monastery_.