"Catullus" and "The Scented Garden"
Bibliography:
78. Catullus translated 1890, printed 1894. 79. The Golden Ass and other
works left unfinished.
162. Switzerland 15th October 1888.
From London the Burtons proceeded first to Boulogne where Sir Richard
visited the haunts of his early manhood and called upon his old fencing
master, Constantin, who was hale and well, though over eighty; and then
to Geneva, where he delivered before the local Geographical Society
what proved to be his last public lecture. From Geneva he wrote several
letters to Mr. Payne. In that of November 21st, his mind running on the
Bandello, he says, "You would greatly oblige me by jotting down when you
have a moment to spare the names of reverends and ecclesiastics who have
written and printed facetious books. [603] In English I have Swift and
Sterne; in French Rabelais, but I want one more, also two in Italian and
two in German."
In reply, Mr. Payne sent him some twenty or thirty names in half a dozen
literatures. From Geneva the Burtons made their way first to Vevey,
where Sir Richard revelled in its associations with Ludlow, the English
regicide, and Rousseau; and then to Lausanne for the sake of his great
hero, Edward Gibbon; and on 12th March (1889) they were back again at
Trieste.
Writing to Mr. A. G. Ellis on May 8th, Burton enquires respecting
some engravings in the Museum brought over from Italy by the Duke
of Cumberland, and he finished humorously with, "What news of Mr.
Blumhardt? And your fellow-sufferer from leather emanations, the
Sanskiritist?" [604]--an allusion to the Oriental Room, under which, in
those days, was the book-binding department.
163. Mr. Letchford, August and September 1889.
In July, for Burton found it impossible to content himself long in
any place, the Burtons made another journey, this time through Western
Austria, being accompanied as usual by Dr. Baker and Lisa. After their
return, on September 13th, it was necessary for Burton to undergo two
operations; and Lady Burton, racked with anxiety and fearing the
worst, seemed, when all was successfully over, to have recovered from
a horrible nightmare. Then followed acquaintance with the gifted young
artist, Mr. Albert Letchford, and his beautiful and winning sister,
Daisy. Mr. Letchford became the Burtons' Court Painter, as it
were--frequently working in their house--and both he and his sister
admired--nay, worshipped Sir Richard down to the ground. Even as a
child, Albert Letchford was remarkable for his thoughtful look, and his
strong sense of beauty. In church one day he begged his mother to let
him run home and get his little sword, as there was such an ugly woman
there and he wished to cut her head off. As a youth he drew and studied
from morning to night, living in a world of his own creation--a world
of books and pictures. His letters were those of a poet and an artist.
Beauty of the mind, however, attracted him even more than beauty of the
body. Thus, he fell in love with his cousin Augusta, "though she had
the toothache, and her head tied up in a handkerchief." At seventeen he
studied art in Venice. From Venice he went to Florence, where he met
the Burtons and got from them introductions to all the best people,
including the Countess Orford and Mlle. de la Ramee (Ouida). We then
find him in Paris, in London, in Egypt, where he acquired that knowledge
of the East which helped him later when he illustrated The Arabian
Nights. Finally he settled at Trieste. "That wonderful man, Sir Richard
Burton, with the eyes of a tiger and the voice of an angel," writes Miss
Letchford, "loved my brother, for he found something more in him than in
others--he found a mind that could understand his own, and he often said
that Mr. Albert Letchford was about the only man that he was pleased
to see--the only one who never jarred on his nerves. To him did Sir
Richard, proud and arrogant to most people, open his soul, and from his
lips would come forth such enchanting conversation--such a wonderful
flow of words and so marvellous in sound that often I have closed my
eyes and listened to him, fancying, thus--that some wonderful learned
angel had descended from Heaven unto Earth."
Among the friends of the Burtons was the Princess of Thurn and Taxis,
who with her husband became one of Letchford's best patrons. The
princess won Sir Richard's heart by her intelligence, her beauty and
grace; and "his conversation was never so brilliant, and his witticisms
were never so sparkling as in her presence." One day another princess--a
foolish, vain woman--after making a number of insipid remarks, shook
hands with Sir Richard, lifting high her arm and elbow in the
fashion which was then just coming into vogue, but which has now lost
acceptance. [605] Sir Richard, while giving her his right hand, quietly
with his left put down her arm and elbow. The princess turned scarlet,
but she never after practised "the high shake." Miss Letchford sums up
Lady Burton as "a most beautiful and charming woman, with many lovely
ideas, but many foolish ones." Unfortunately she was guided entirely
by her confessor, a man of small mental calibre. One of the confessor's
ideas was to convert Sir Richard by dropping small charms into his
pockets. Sir Richard got quite used to finding these little images
about him; but they invariably made their way out of the window into the
garden. One of Lady Burton's little failings was the fear lest anybody
should come to the house in order to steal, and the servants had special
commands to admit none who did not look "a perfect gentleman or lady,"
with the result that one day they slammed the door in the face of the
Archduke Louis Salvator, simply because he did not happen to have a card
with him. After that Lady Burton's orders were less strict.
Mr. Letchford's paintings include views of the neighbourhood, a portrait
of Burton which was exhibited in the Stanley Gallery, and a full-length
portrait of Burton fencing, [606] but he is best known by his series of
illustrations to The Arabian Nights.
164. To Dr. Tuckey.
On April 24th we find Burton writing to thank Dr. Charles Tuckey for
the gift of a copy of his Psycho-Therapeutics. "An old pupil of Dr.
Elliotson," [607] he says, "I am always interested in these researches,
and welcome the appearance of any addition to our scanty knowledge of
an illimitable field. Suggestion (what a miserable name!) perfectly
explains the stigmata of St. Francis and others without preter-natural
assistance, and the curative effect of a dose of Koran (a verset written
upon a scrap of paper, and given like a pill of p.q.). I would note that
the "Indian Prince" [608] was no less a personage than Ranjit Singh,
Rajah of the Punjab, that the burial of the Fakir was attested by
his German surgeon-general, and that a friend and I followed
Colonel Boileau's example in personally investigating the subject of
vivi-sepulture. In p. 10: The throngs of pilgrims to Mecca never think
of curing anything but their 'souls,' and the pilgrimage is often
fatal to their bodies. I cannot but take exception to such terms as
'psychology,' holding the soul (an old Egyptian creation unknown to the
early Hebrews) to be the ego of man, what differentiates him from
all other men, in fact, like the 'mind,' not a thing but a state or
condition of things. I rejoice to see Braid [609] duly honoured and
think that perhaps a word might be said of 'Electro-biology,' a term
ridiculous as 'suggestion' and more so. But Professor Yankee Stone
certainly produced all the phenomena you allude to by concentrating the
patient's sight upon his 'Electro-magnetic disc'--a humbug of copper and
zinc, united, too. It was a sore trial to Dr. Elliotson, who having been
persecuted for many years wished to make trial in his turn of a little
persecuting--a disposition not unusual." [610]
165. To Mr. Kirby 15th May 1889.
In a letter to Mr. W. F. Kirby, 15th May 1889, Burton, after referring
to a translation of the Kalevala, [611] upon which Mr. Kirby was then
engaged, says: "We shall not be in England this year. I cannot remove
myself so far from my books, and beside, I want a summer in Austria,
probably at Closen or some place north of Vienna. We had a long ten
months' holiday and must make up for time lost. The Scented Garden is
very hard work, and I have to pay big sums to copyists and so forth.
Yet it will, I think, repay the reader. What a national disgrace is this
revival of Puritanism with its rampant cant and ignoble hypocrisy! I
would most willingly fight about it, but I don't see my way." Writing
again on 6th November (1889) he says, "I like very much your idea of
visiting Sweden in the interests of the Kalevala. Perhaps you might
date the Preface from that part of the world. The Natural History of The
Nights would be highly interesting. Have you heard that Pickering and
Chatto, of Haymarket, London, are going to print 100 (photogravure)
illustrations of the Nights? When last in London I called on them. On
Friday week, 15th November, we start upon our winter's trip. From
here to Brindisi, await the P. and O., then to Malta (ten days), Tunis
(month), Tripoli and Algiers, where I hope at last to see the very last
of The Scented Garden."
166. Tunis and Algiers, November 1889 to March 1890.
At the time stated, Burton, Lady Burton, Dr. Baker and Lisa took steamer
for Brindisi, where they visited Virgil's house, and then made for
Malta. On December 20th they were at Tunis, and Sir Richard ransacked
the bazaar and button-holed people generally in order to get manuscripts
of The Scented Garden, but without success. Nobody had ever heard of it.
[612] At Carthage he recalled that rosy morning when Dido in "flowered
cymar with golden fringe" rode out with Aeneas to the hung, read
Salammbo, and explored the ruins; but Lady Burton had no eyes for
anything but convents, monks and nuns, though she certainly once took
Lisa to a harem, where they learnt how to make Tunisian dishes. The
biblical appearance of everything reminded Burton of his Damascus days.
Seeing a man in a burnous ploughing with oxen and a wooden plough on a
plain where there was no background, he said, "Look, there's Abraham!"
At Constantine, Sir Richard and Lady Burton celebrated their 29th, and
as it proved, their last wedding day. With Algiers, the next stopping
place, which boasted a cardinal's Moorish palace and a Museum, Burton
was in ecstasies, and said he wanted to live there always; but in less
than three weeks he was anxious to get as far away from it as possible.
From Algiers he wrote to Mr. Payne (28th January 1890). After recording
his failure to obtain manuscripts of The Scented Garden at Tunis he
says: "To-day I am to see M. Macarthy, of the Algiers Bibliotheque
Musee; but I am by no means sanguine. This place is a Paris after Tunis
and Constantine, but like all France (and Frenchmen) in modern days
dirty as ditchwater. The old Gaulois is dead and damned, politics and
money getting have made the gay nation stupid as Paddies. In fact the
world is growing vile and bete, et vivent les Chinois! [613] A new
Magyar irruption would do Europe much good."
In a letter to Mr. A. G. Ellis, dated 12th February, 1890, he refers to
the anecdote of the famous Taymor al Wahsh, who, according to a Damascus
tradition, played polo with the heads of his conquered enemies. "Every
guide book," he continues, "mentions my Lord Iron's nickname 'The Wild
Beast,' and possibly the legend was invented by way of comment. He drove
away all the Persian swordsmiths, and from his day no 'Damascus blade'
has been made at Damascus. I have found these French colonies perfectly
casual and futile. The men take months before making up their minds
to do anything. A most profligate waste of time! My prime object in
visiting Tunis was to obtain information concerning The Scented Garden,
to consult MSS. &c. After a month's hard work I came upon only a single
copy, the merest compendium, lacking also Chapter 21, my chief Righah
(the absurd French R'irha) for a week or ten days [for the sake of
the baths] then return to Algiers, steam for Marseilles and return to
Trieste via the Riviera and Northern Italy--a route of which I am dead
sick. Let us hope that the untanned leather bindings have spared you
their malaria. You will not see me in England next summer, but after
March 1891, I shall be free as air to come and go." At Hammam R'irha,
Burton began in earnest his translation of Catullus, and for weeks
he was immersed in it night and day. The whole of the journey was a
pleasurable one, or would have been, but for the cruelty with which
animals were treated; and Burton, who detested cruelty in all forms, and
had an intense horror of inflicting pain, vented his indignation over
and over again against the merciless camel and donkey drivers.
As the party were steaming from Algiers to Toulon, a curious incident
occurred. Burton and Dr. Baker having sauntered into the smoke room
seated themselves at a table opposite to an old man and a young man who
looked like, and turned out to be, an Oxford don. Presently the don,
addressing the old man, told him with dramatic gesticulations the
venerable story about Burton killing two Arabs near Mecca, and he held
out his hand as if he were firing a pistol.
Burton, who had long known that the tale was in circulation but had
never before heard anyone relate it as fact, here interrupted with,
"Excuse me, but what was the name of that traveller?"
"Captain Burton," replied the don, "now Sir Richard Burton."
"I am Burton," followed Sir Richard, "and I remember distinctly every
incident of that journey, but I can assure you I do not remember
shooting anybody."
At that, the don jumped up, thanked him for giving the story denial,
and expressed his happiness at being able to make the great traveller's
acquaintance. [614]
On March 26th (1890) a week after his return to Trieste, Burton wrote to
Mr. A. G. Ellis: "It is very kind and friendly of you to write about The
Scented Garden MSS. I really rejoice to hear that you and Mr. Bendall
have escaped alive from those ground floor abominations stinking of half
rotten leather. I know the two Paris MSS. [of The Scented Garden]
(one with its blundering name): they are the merest abridgments, both
compressing Chapter 21 of 500 pages (Arabic) into a few lines. I must
now write to Gotha and Copenhagen in order to find out if the copies
there be in full. Can you tell me what number of pages they contain?
Salam to Mr. Bendall, and best wishes to you both. You will see me in
England some time after March 19th 1891."
At no work that he had ever written did Sir Richard labour so sedulously
as at The Scented Garden. Although in feeble health and sadly emaciated,
he rose daily at half-past five, and slaved at it almost incessantly
till dusk, begrudging himself the hour or two required for meals and
exercise. The only luxury he allowed himself while upon his laborious
task was "a sip of whiskey," but so engrossed was he with his work that
he forgot even that. It was no uncommon remark for Dr. Baker to make:
"Sir Richard, you haven't drunk your whiskey." One day, as he and Dr.
Baker were walking in the garden he stopped suddenly and said: "I have
put my whole life and all my life blood into that Scented Garden, and it
is my great hope that I shall live by it. It is the crown of my life."
"Has it ever occurred to you, Sir Richard," enquired Dr. Baker, "that in
the event of your death the manuscript might be burnt? Indeed, I think
it not improbable."
The old man turned to the speaker his worn face and sunken eyes and
said with excitement, "Do you think so? Then I will at once write to
Arbuthnot and tell him that in the event of my death the manuscript is
to be his."
He wrote the letter the same day. Arbuthnot duly received it, and
several letters seem to have passed between them on the subject; but we
do not know whether Lady Burton was aware of the arrangement. All we can
say is that Arbuthnot believed she knew all about it.
It seems to have been at this time that Lady Burton prevailed upon her
husband to range himself nominally among the Catholics. "About a year
before her death," Mr. T. Douglas Murray writes to me, "Lady Burton
showed me a paper of considerable length, all of it in Sir R. Burton's
writing and signed by himself, in which he declared that he had lived
and would die a Catholic, adhering to all the rites and usages of the
Church." [615] Curiously enough, while bringing forward all the evidence
she could adduce to prove that Burton was a Christian, Lady Burton
makes no reference in her book to this paper. Perhaps it was because Sir
Richard continued to gibe at the practices of her church just as much
after his "conversion" as before. However, it gratified her to know
that if he was not a good Catholic, he was, at any rate, the next best
thing--a Catholic. An intimate friend of Burton to whom I mentioned this
circumstance observed to me, "I am sure, that Burton never in any way
accepted the idea of a personal God; but, rather than be perpetually
importuned and worried, he may have pretended to give in to Lady Burton,
as one does to a troublesome child."
Lady Burton tells us that during the last few years of his life he used
to lock the outer doors of his house twice a day and then engage in
private prayer; on the other hand, friends of Burton who knew him and
were with him almost to the last have received this statement with
skepticism.
Lady Burton's happiness was further increased by the present of a very
beautiful oil painting representing the Virgin Mary, done by Miss Emily
Baker, Dr. Baker's sister. It was generally known by the Burtons, from
the colour of its drapery, as "the Blue Madonna." [616]
167. Visit of Arbuthnot, Last Letter to Mr. Payne, May 1890.
On May 11th Mr. Arbuthnot paid a second visit to Trieste, and the
pleasure that the vent gave to Sir Richard is reflected in a letter to
Mr. Payne written the same month. "At last!" he says, "Arbuthnot has
brought the volume [Payne's Alaeddin] and the MS. [Zotenberg's MS. of
Zayn al-Asnam which Burton had lent to Mr. Payne]." He then goes on to
say that he has kicked up "an awful shindy with the Athenaeum Club,"
about something, just as if he had not been kicking up awful shindies
with all sorts of people ever since his schoolboy days at Tours. "I
am delighted," he goes on, "with the volume [Payne's Alaeddin] and
especially with the ascription, [617] so grateful in its friendly tone.
I have read every word with the utmost pleasure. We might agree to
differ about Cazotte. [618] I think you are applying to 1750 the
moralities of 1890. Arbuthnot's visit has quite set me up, like a whiff
of London in the Pontine marshes of Trieste. He goes to-day, d---- the
luck! but leaves us hopes of meeting during the summer in Switzerland or
thereabouts. He is looking the picture of health and we shall return him
to town undamaged. Best of good fortune to Bandello." [619]
Burton and Arbuthnot had spent many a delightful hour sitting out on
Burton's verandah, smoking, listening to the nightingales, and enjoying
sea and landscape. It must not be supposed that erotic literature was
the only subject upon which they conversed, though as hierarchs of
the Kama Shastra Society they naturally bestowed upon that and curious
learning considerable attention. Religion was also discussed, and
Arbuthnot's opinions may be gathered from the following citation from
his unpublished Life of Balzac which is now in my hands. "The great
coming struggle of the 20th century," he says, "will be the war between
Religion and Science. It will be a war to the death, for if Science wins
it will do away with the personal God of the Jews, the Christians and
the Muhammedans, the childish doctrine or dogma of future rewards and
punishments, and everything connected with the supernatural. It will
be shown that Law reigns supreme. The police representing Law and Order
will be of more importance than the clergy. Even now we might do away
with the latter, everybody becoming his own priest--a great economy.
None of us knows what happens to us after death, all we can do is to
hope for the best, and follow the three great Laws, viz., 1. Instruct
your mind. 2. Preserve your health. 3. Moderate your passions and
desires." Thus spake the Founder of the Kama Shastra Society.
On May 15th, Burton told Mr. Kirby all about the Algiers trip. "Plenty
to see and do," he says, "but I was not lucky about my MS. The Scented
Garden. No one seemed to know anything about it. Never advise any one
to winter in Algiers. All the settled English are selling their villas.
French mismanagement beats ours holler, and their hate and jealousy
of us makes their colonies penal settlements to us. We stay here [at
Trieste] till the weather drives us away--about the end of June." The
letter concludes with kindly enquiries respecting Professor Bendall,
[620] Mr. A. G. Ellis and Dr. Kirby (Mr. Kirby's son).