_egare_ at the time of writing: a condition which I well remember saying
to Spedding long ago that one of his temperament might likely fall into.
And now I see that Mrs. Oliphant hints at something of the sort. Hers I
think an admirable Paper: {311} better than has yet been written, or (I
believe) is likely to be written by any one else. . . . I must think
Carlyle's judgments mostly, or mainly, true; but that he must have 'lost
his head' if not when he recorded them, yet when he left them in any
one's hands to decide on their publication. Especially when not about
Public Men, but about their Families. It is slaying the Innocent with
the Guilty. But of all this you have doubtless heard in London more than
enough. 'Pauvre et triste Humanite!' One's heart opens again to him at
the last: sitting alone in the middle of her Room. 'I want to die.' 'I
want--a Mother.' 'Ah mamma Letizia!' Napoleon is said to have murmured
as he lay. By way of pendant to this recurs to me the Story that when
Ducis was wretched his Mother would lay his head on her Bosom--'Ah, mon
homme! mon pauvre homme!' . . .
And now I have written more than enough for yourself and me: whose Eyes
may be the worse for it to-morrow. I still go about in Blue Glasses, and
flinch from Lamp and Candle. Pray let me know about your own Eyes, and
your own Self; and believe me always sincerely yours
LITTLEGRANGE.
_May_ 8, [1881].
If still at Leamington, you look upon a sight which I used to like well;
that is, the blue Avon (as in this weather it will be) roaming through
buttercup meadows all the way to Warwick; unless those meadows are all
built over since I was there some forty years ago. . . .
I am got back to my Sevigne! who somehow returns to me in Spring; fresh
as the Flowers. These latter have done but badly this Spring: cut off or
withered by the Cold: and now parched up by this blazing Sun and dry
Wind.
_From another Letter in the same year_.
It has been what we call down here 'smurring' rather than raining, all
day long, and I think that Flower and Herb already show their gratitude.
My Blackbird (I think it is the same I have tried to keep alive during
the Winter) seems also to have 'wetted his Whistle,' and what they call
the 'Cuckoo's mate' with a rather harsh scissor note announces that his
Partner may be on the wing to these Latitudes. You will hear of him at
Mr W. Shakespeare's, it may be. {313} There must be Violets, white and
blue, somewhere about where he lies, I think. They are generally found
in a Churchyard, where also (the Hunters used to say) a Hare: for the
same reason of comparative security I suppose.
_To Miss S. F. Spedding_.
LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_July /81_.
. . . As I am so very little known to yourself, or your Mother, I did not
choose to trouble you with any of my own feelings about your Uncle's
Death. But I am not sorry to take this opportunity of saying, and, I
know, truly, there was no one I loved and honoured more; that, though I
had not seen him for more than twenty years, I was always thinking of him
all the while: always feeling that I could apply to him for a wise word I
needed for myself; always knowing that I might light upon some wiser word
than any one else's in some Review, etc., and _now_ always thinking I
have lost all that. I say that I have not known, no, nor heard of, any
mortal so prepared to step unchanged into the better world we are
promised--Intellect, and Heart, and such an outer Man to them as I
remember.
WOODBRIDGE: _July_ 31, [1881].
. . . I rejoice to hear of a Collection, or Reprint, of his stray works.
. . . I used to say he wrote 'Virgilian Prose.' One only of his I did
not care for; but that, I doubt not, was because of the subject, not of
the treatment: his own printed Report of a Speech he made in what was
called the 'Quinquaginta Club' Debating Society (not the Union) at
Cambridge about the year 1831. This Speech his Father got him to recall
and recompose in Print; wishing always that his Son should turn his
faculties to such public Topics rather than to the Poets, of whom he had
seen enough in Cumberland not to have much regard for: Shelley, for one,
at one time stalking about the mountains, with Pistols, and other such
Vagaries. I do not think he was much an Admirer of Wordsworth (I don't
know about Southey), and I well remember that when I was at M_e_rehouse
(as Miss Bristowe would have us call it) with A. Tennyson in 1835, Mr.
Spedding grudged his Son's giving up much time and thought to
consultations about Morte d'Arthur's, Lords of Burleigh, etc., which were
then in MS. He more than once questioned me, who was sometimes present
at the meetings: 'Well, Mr. F., and what is it? Mr. Tennyson reads, and
Jem criticizes:--is that it?' etc. This, while I might be playing Chess
with dear Mrs. Spedding, in May, while the Daffodils were dancing outside
the Hall door.
_To C. E. Norton_.
WOODBRIDGE. _August_ 5/81.
MY DEAR NORTON,
I am sorry that you felt bound to write me so fully about the Play when,
as you tell me, you had so much other work on your hands. Any how, do
not trouble yourself to write more. If you think my Version does as
well, or better, without any introduction, why, tear that out; all,
except (if you like the Verse well enough to adopt it) the first sentence
of Dedication to yourself: adding your full name and Collegiate Honours
whenever you care so to do.
Your account of your Harvard original in the Atlantic Monthly was quite
well fitted for its purpose: a general account of it for the general
reader, without going into particulars which only the Scholar would
appreciate.
I believe I told you that thirty years ago at least I advised our
Trinity's Master, then only Greek Professor, to do the like with one of
the Greek Tragedies, in what they call their Senate-house, well fitted
for such a purpose. But our Cambridge is too well fed, and slow to stir;
and I not important enough to set it a-going.
By the way, I have been there for two days; not having seen the place for
those same thirty years, except in passing through some ten years ago to
Naseby Field, for the purpose of doing Carlyle's will in setting up a
memorial Stone with his Inscription upon it. But the present owners of
the Place would not consent: and so that simple thing came to nothing.
Well, I went again, as I say, to Cambridge a month ago; not in my way to
Naseby, but to my friend George Crabbe's (Grandson of my Poet) in
Norfolk. I went because it was Vacation time, and no one I knew up
except Cowell and Aldis Wright. Cowell, married, lives in pleasant
lodging with trees before and behind, on the skirts of the town; Wright,
in 'Neville's Court,' one side of which is the Library, all of Wren's
design, and (I think) very good. I felt at home in the rooms there,
walled with Books, large, and cool: and I was lionized over some things
new to me, and some that I was glad to see again. Now I am back again,
without any design to move; not even to my old haunts on our neighbouring
Sea-coast. The inland Verdure suits my Eyes better than glowing sand and
pebble: and I suppose that every year I grow less and less desirous of
moving.
I will scarce touch upon the Carlyle Chapter: except to say that I am
sorry Froude printed the Reminiscences; at any rate, printed them before
the Life which he has begun so excellently in the 'Nineteenth Century'
for July. I think one can surely see there that Carlyle might become
somewhat crazed, whether by intense meditation or Dyspepsy or both:
especially as one sees that his dear good Mother was so afflicted. But
how beautiful is the Story of that home, and the Company of Lads
travelling on foot to Edinburgh; and the monies which he sends home for
the paternal farm: and the butter and cheese which the Farm returns to
him. Ah! it is from such training that strength comes, not from
luxurious fare, easy chairs, cigars, Pall Mall Clubs, etc. It has all
made me think of a very little Dialogue {317} I once wrote on the matter,
thirty years ago and more, which I really think of putting into shape
again: and, if I do, will send it to you, by way of picture of what our
Cambridge was in what I think were better days than now. I see the
little tract is overdone and in some respects in bad taste as it is. Now,
do not ask for this, nor mention it as if it were of any importance
whatsoever: it is not, but if pruned, etc., just a pretty thing, which
your Cambridge shall see if I can return to it.
By the by, I had meant to send you an emendation of a passage in my
Tyrannus which you found fault with. I mean where OEdipus, after putting
out his eyes, talks of seeing those in Hades he does not wish to see. I
knew it was not Greek: but I thought that a note would be necessary to
explain what the Greek was: and I confess I do not care enough for their
Mythology for that. But, if you please, the passage (as I remember it)
might run:
Eyes, etc.,
Which, having seen such things, henceforth, he said,
Should never by the light of day behold
Those whom he loved, nor in the after-dark
Of Hades, those he loathed, to look upon.
All this has run me into a third _screed_, you see: a word we used at
School, only calling it '_screet_'--'I say, do lend me a screet of
paper,' meaning, a quarter of a foolscap sheet.
WOODBRIDGE. _Jan._ 18/82.
MY DEAR NORTON,
At last I took heart, and Eyes, to return to the OEdipus of this time
last year; and have left none of your objections unattended to, if not
all complied with. Not but that you may be quite as right in objecting
as I in leaving things as they were: but as I believe I said (right or
wrong) a little obscurity seems to me not amiss in certain places,
provided enough is left clear, I mean in matter of Grammar, etc. But I
see that you have good reason to object in other cases: and, on looking
at the Play again, I also discover more, too many perhaps to have heart
or Eyes to devote to their rectification. The Paper on which the second
Part is printed will not endure Ink, which also daunts me: nevertheless,
I send you a Copy pencilled, rather than references and alterations
written by way of Letter: I hope the least trouble to you of either
Alternative. . . .
I scarcely know what I have written, but I know it must be bad MS.; all
which I ought in good manners to rectify, or re-write. I think you in
America think more of Calligraphy than we here do: a really polite
accomplishment, I always maintain: and yet 'deteriora sequor.' But you
know that my eyes are not very active: and now my hand is less than
usually so, possessed as I am with a Devil of a Chill (in spite, or in
consequence, of warm wet weather) attended with something of Bronchitis,
I think. . . .
I forget if I told you in my last of my surprising communication with the
Spanish Ambassador who sent me the Calderon medal, I doubt not at Mr.
Lowell's instance. But I think I must have told you. Cowell came over
to me here on Monday: he, to whom a Medal is far more due than to me;
always reading, and teaching, Calderon at Cambridge now (as he did to me
thirty years ago), in spite of all his Sanskrit Duties. I wish I could
send him to you across the Atlantic, as easily as Arbuthnot once bid Pope
'toss Johnny Gay' to him over the Thames. Cowell is greatly delighted
with Ford's '_Gatherings in Spain_,' a Supplement to his Spanish
Handbook, and in which he finds, as I did, a supplement to Don Quixote
also. If you have not read, and cannot find, the Book, I will toss it
over the Atlantic to you, a clean new Copy, if that be yet procurable, or
my own second-hand one in default of a new. . . .
_To Mrs. Kemble_.
[_Jan._ 1882.]
I see my poor little Aconites--'New Year's Gifts'--still surviving in the
Garden-plot before my window: 'still surviving,' I say, because of their
having been out for near a month agone. I believe that Messrs. Daffodil,
Crocus and Snowdrop are putting in appearance above ground, but (old
Coward) I have not put my own old Nose out of doors to look for them. I
read (Eyes permitting) the Correspondence between Goethe and Schiller
(translated) from 1798 to 1806, extremely interesting to me, though I do
not understand, and generally skip, the more purely AEsthetic Parts:
which is the Part of Hamlet, I suppose. But in other respects, two such
men so freely discussing together their own, and each other's, works
interest me greatly. At night, we have the Fortunes of Nigel; a little
of it, and not every night: for the reason that I do not wish to eat my
Cake too soon. The last night but one I sent my Reader to see Macbeth
played by a little Shakespearian company at a Lecture Hall here. He
brought me one new Reading; suggested, I doubt not by himself, from a
remembrance of Macbeth's tyrannical ways: 'Hang out our _Gallows_ on the
outward walls.' Nevertheless, the Boy took great Interest in the Play,
and I like to encourage him in Shakespeare rather than in the Negro
Melodists.
_To C. E. Norton_.
WOODBRIDGE. _Jan._ 25/82.
MY DEAR NORTON,
I forgot in my last letter to beg you not to write for the mere purpose
of acknowledging the revised OEdipus who was to travel along with it. You
know that I am glad to hear from you at any time when you are at leisure,
not otherwise; and I shall take for granted that you think my alterations
are improvements, so far as they go. And that is enough.
I herewith enclose you a sort of Choral Epilogue for the second Part,
which you can stick in or not as you will. I cannot say much for it: but
it came together in my head after last writing to you, while I was pacing
up and down a Landing-place in my house, to which I have been confined
for the last ten days by a Bronchial Cold. But for which I should have
been last week in London for the purpose of seeing a very dear old,
coaevally old, Friend, {322} who has been gradually declining in Body and
Mind for the last three years.
Yours always sincerely
LITTLEGRANGE.
_To W. A. Wright_.
_Friday_ [24 _February_ 1882].
MY DEAR WRIGHT,
I went to London this day week: saw my poor Donne (rather better than I
had expected to find him--but all declining) three times: and came
home--glad to come home!--on Monday. Mrs. Kemble, Edwards (Keene at the
latter Lady's) and my old Nursey friends, all I saw beside, in the human
way, save Streetfarers, Cabmen, etc. The Shops seemed all stale to me:
the only Exhibition I went to (Old Masters) ditto. So I suppose that I
have lost my Appetite for all but dull Woodbridge Life. I have not lost
my Cold--nor all its bronchial symptoms; but may do so--as I get a little
older.
Tennyson was in London, I heard: but in some grand Locality of Eaton
Square; so I did not venture down to him. But a day scarcely passes
without my thinking of him, in one way or other.
Browning told Mrs. Kemble he knew there was 'a grotesque side' to his
Society, etc., but he could not refuse the kind solicitations of his
Friends, Furnivall and Co. Mrs. K. had been asked to join: but declined,
because of her somewhat admiring him; nay, much admiring what he might
have done.
I enclose a note from Keene which appeals to you: I suppose that his
'fastous' means 'festuous,' or what is now called in Music 'Pompous.'
Charles' 'plump bass' is good. {323}
You had a bad cold when last you wrote: so you can tell me, if you
please, that you have shaken it off, as your Seniors cannot so easily do.
Let me know, of course, how the Master is, and give him my Love. Does he
know of Musurus Pasha's Translation of Dante's Inferno into Modern Greek?
I was so much interested in it from the Academy that I bought; and, so
far as I have seen through uncut leaves, do not repent of having done so.
The Academy also announced that an MS. account of Carlyle's Visit to
Ireland in 1849 was in Froude's hands for the Press. As T. C. stayed
some, if not the greater part of his time there at the country house of
my Uncle's Widow, I can only hope that he did not jot down much to offend
her surviving Children. Perhaps not: for they were, and are, all of them
(Mother dead) quite unpretending people, and T. C. himself not then so
savage as after his Wife's death. From Froude no mercy of reticence can
be expected.
You left here Rabisha {324a} and Groome's Book of Tracts {324b}: unless
you will be coming this way before long, I will send them to you.
You did not say whether you would undertake to look over Borrow's Books
and MSS., and I write his Step-daughter to that effect. But I hope you
will find it not inconvenient or unpleasant so to do: and am yours always
LITTLEGRANGE.
My Boy went to Macbeth at our Lecture Hall. What do you say to his
reading 'Hang out our Gallows on the outward Walls'?
_To H. Schutz Wilson_.
[1 _March_, 1882.]
MY DEAR SIR,
I must thank you sincerely for your thoughts about Salaman, in which I
recognize a good will toward the Translator, as well as liking for his
work.
Of course your praise could not but help that on: but I scarce think that
it is of a kind to profit so far by any review as to make it worth the
expense of Time and Talent you might bestow upon it. In Omar's case it
was different: he sang, in an acceptable way it seems, of what all men
feel in their hearts, but had not had exprest in verse before: Jami tells
of what everybody knows, under cover of a not very skilful Allegory. I
have undoubtedly improved the whole by boiling it down to about a Quarter
of its original size; and there are many pretty things in it, though the
blank Verse is too Miltonic for Oriental style.
All this considered, why did I ever meddle with it? Why, it was the
first Persian Poem I read, with my friend Edward Cowell, near on forty
years ago: and I was so well pleased with it then (and now think it
almost the best of the Persian Poems I have read or heard about), that I
published my Version of it in 1856 (I think) with Parker of the Strand.
When Parker disappeared, my unsold Copies, many more than of the sold,
were returned to me; some of which, if not all, I gave to little
Quaritch, who, I believe, trumpeted them off to some little profit: and I
thought no more of them.
But some six or seven years ago that Sheikh of mine, Edward Cowell, who
liked the Version better than any one else, wished it to be reprinted. So
I took it in hand, boiled it down to three-fourths of what it originally
was, and (as you see) clapt it on the back of Omar, where I still
believed it would hang somewhat of a dead weight; but that was Quaritch's
look-out, not mine. I have never heard of any notice taken of it, but
just now from you: and I believe that, say what you would, people would
rather have the old Sinner alone. Therefore it is that I write all this
to you. I doubt not that any of your Editors would accept an Article
from you on the Subject, but I believe also they would much prefer one on
many another Subject: and so probably with the Public whom you write for.
Thus 'liberavi animam meam' for your behoof, as I am rightly bound to do
in return for your Goodwill to me.
As to the publication of my name, I believe I could well dispense with
it, were it other and better than it is. But I have some unpleasant
associations with it: not the least of them being that it was borne,
Christian and Surname, by a man who left College just when I went there.
{326} . . . What has become of him I know not: but he, among other
causes, has made me dislike my name, and made me sign myself (half in
fun, of course), to my friends, as now I do to you, sincerely yours
(THE LAIRD OF) LITTLEGRANGE,
where I date from.
_To C. E. Norton_.
_March_ 7, [1882].
MY DEAR NORTON,
You will receive by Post a volume of Translation of Dante's Inferno by
Musurus Pasha into Modern Greek. I was so much interested in a quotation
from it in our 'Academy' that I bought it for myself, and subsequently
thought that a copy might be acceptable to you, loving both Greek and
Dante as you do. Had not I bidden the London Publishers to send it
direct to you, I should have written your name and my own on the
fly-leaf. But you can do this for us both.
I have not as yet read much of it: for my Eyes are impatient of the Greek
letter; but the Language comes out before me as the worthiest
representative of the Italian: provided it be pronounced as we have
learned to pronounce it, not as the modern Greek man is said to do. I
always maintain that a Language is apt to sound better from a Foreigner,
who idealises the pronunciation. As to the structure of the language, I
doubt that I may prefer the modern to the ancient because of being
cleared of many [Greek text], etc., particles. I think I shall send a
Copy to Professor Goodwin. This is nearly all that I have to send across
the Atlantic to-day, which reminds me that I have just been quoting (in a
little thing {327} I may send you),
The fleecy Star that bears
Andromeda far off Atlantic Seas.
What a Line!
. . . It is, I think, worth your while to look at Dean Stanley's Volume
of Bishop Thirlwall's Letters; nay, even Dean Perowne's earlier volume,
if but to show how the pedantic Boy grew into the large-hearted Man, and
even Bishop: but, from the first, always sincere, just, and not
pretentious. I remember him at Cambridge: he, Fellow and Tutor, and I
undergraduate: and he took a little fancy to me, I think.
_To Hallam Tennyson_. {328}
WOODBRIDGE. _May_ 28 [1882].
MY DEAR HALLAM,
I believe I ought to be ashamed of reviving the little thing which
accompanies this Letter. My excuse must be that I have often been askt
for a copy when I had no more to give; and a visit to Cambridge last
summer, to the old familiar places, if not faces, made me take it up once
more and turn it into what you now see. I should certainly not send a
copy to you, or yours, but for what relates to your Father in it. He did
not object, so far as I know, to what I said of him, though not by name,
in a former Edition; but there is more of him in this, though still not
by name, nor, as you see, intended for Publication. All of this you can
read to him, if you please, at pp. 25 and 56. I do not ask him to say
that he approves of what is said, or meant to be said, in his honour; and
I only ask you to tell me if he disapproves of its going any further. I
owed you a letter in return for the kind one you sent me; and, if I do
not hear from you to the contrary, I shall take silence, if not for
consent, at least not for prohibition. I really did, and do, wish my
first, which is also my last, little work to record, for a few years at
least, my love and admiration of that dear old Fellow, my old Friend.
_To C. E. Norton_.
WOODBRIDGE. _June_ 9/82.
MY DEAR NORTON,
I told you, I think, but I scarce know when, that I would send you a very
little Tract of mine written forty years ago; and reformed into its
present shape in consequence of copies being askt for when I had none to
give. So a few days at Cambridge last Summer, among the old places,
though not faces, set me off. 'Et voila qui est fait,' and posted to you
along with this Letter, together with a Copy for Professor Goodwin. The
first and last of my little works: and I do think a pretty specimen of
'chisell'd Cherry-stone.' Having which opinion myself, I more than ever
deprecate any word of praise from any to whom I send it. Nay, I even
assume beforehand that you will like it too: and Professor Goodwin also
(so do not let him write): as my little tribute to my own old Cambridge
sent to you in your new. I think I shall send it to Mr. Lowell too. So
you see that I need no compliment, no, nor even acknowledgment of it. . . .
And now here is enough written. And yet I will enclose some pretty
Verses, {330a} some twenty years old, which I sent to 'Temple Bar,' which
repaid me (as I deserved) with a dozen copies. And I am always truly
yours
LITTLEGRANGE THE LAIRD.
Longfellow and Emerson! {330b}
WOODBRIDGE. _July_ 13/82.
MY DEAR NORTON,