"Ravenna, January 2. 1821.
"Your entering into my project for the Memoir is pleasant to me.
But I doubt (contrary to my dear Made Mac F * *, whom I always
loved, and always shall--not only because I really _did_ feel
attached to her _personally_, but because she and about a dozen
others of that sex were all who stuck by me in the grand conflict
of 1815)--but I doubt, I say, whether the Memoir could appear in my
lifetime;--and, indeed, I had rather it did not; for a man always
_looks dead_ after his Life has appeared, and I should certes not
survive the appearance of mine. The first part I cannot consent to
alter, even although Made. de S.'s opinion of B.C. and my remarks
upon Lady C.'s beauty (which is surely great, and I suppose that I
have said so--at least, I ought) should go down to our
grandchildren in unsophisticated nakedness.
"As to Madame de S * *, I am by no means bound to be her
beadsman--she was always more civil to me in person than during my
absence. Our dear defunct friend, M * * L * *[26], who was too
great a bore ever to lie, assured me upon his tiresome word of
honour, that, at Florence, the said Madame de S * * was
open-_mouthed_ against me; and when asked, in _Switzerland_, _why_
she had changed her opinion, replied, with laudable sincerity, that
I had named her in a sonnet with Voltaire, Rousseau, &c. &c. and
that she could not help it through decency. Now, I have not
forgotten this, but I have been generous,--as mine acquaintance,
the late Captain Whitby, of the navy, used to say to his seamen
(when 'married to the gunner's daughter')--'two dozen, and let you
off easy.' The 'two dozen' were with the cat-o'-nine tails;--the
'let you off easy' was rather his own opinion than that of the
patient.
"My acquaintance with these terms and practices arises from my
having been much conversant with ships of war and naval heroes in
the year of my voyages in the Mediterranean. Whitby was in the
gallant action off Lissa in 1811. He was brave, but a
disciplinarian. When he left his frigate, he left a _parrot_, which
was taught by the crew the following sounds--(it must be remarked
that Captain Whitby was the image of Fawcett the actor, in voice,
face, and figure, and that he squinted).
"The Parrot _loquitur_.
"'Whitby! Whitby! funny eye! funny eye! two dozen, and let you off
easy. Oh you ----!'
"Now, if Madame de B. has a parrot, it had better be taught a
French parody of the same sounds.
"With regard to our purposed Journal, I will call it what you
please, but it should be a newspaper, to make it _pay_. We can call
it 'The Harp,' if you like--or any thing.
"I feel exactly as you do about our 'art[27],'but it comes over me
in a kind of rage every now and then, like * * * *, and then, if I
don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. As to that regular,
uninterrupted love of writing, which you describe in your friend, I
do not understand it. I feel it as a torture, which I must get rid
of, but never as a pleasure. On the contrary, I think composition a
great pain.
"I wish you to think seriously of the Journal scheme--for I am as
serious as one can be, in this world, about any thing. As to
matters here, they are high and mighty--but not for paper. It is
much about the state of things betwixt Cain and Abel. There is, in
fact, no law or government at all; and it is wonderful how well
things go on without them. Excepting a few occasional murders,
(every body killing whomsoever he pleases, and being killed, in
turn, by a friend, or relative, of the defunct,) there is as quiet
a society and as merry a Carnival as can be met with in a tour
through Europe. There is nothing like habit in these things.
"I shall remain here till May or June, and, unless 'honour comes
unlocked for,' we may perhaps meet, in France or England, within
the year.
"Yours, &c.
"Of course, I cannot explain to you existing circumstances, as they
open all letters.
"Will you set me right about your curst 'Champs Elysées?'--are they
'és' or 'ées' for the adjective? I know nothing of French, being
all Italian. Though I can read and understand French, I never
attempt to speak it; for I hate it. From the second part of the
Memoirs cut what you please."
[Footnote 26: Of this gentleman, the following notice occurs in the
"Detached Thoughts:"--"L * * was a good man, a clever man, but a bore.
My only revenge or consolation used to be setting him by the ears with
some vivacious person who hated bores especially,--Madame de S---- or
H----, for example. But I liked L * *; he was a jewel of a man, had he
been better set;--I don't mean _personally_, but less _tiresome_, for he
was tedious, as well as contradictory to every thing and every body.
Being short-sighted, when we used to ride out together near the Brenta
in the twilight in summer, he made me go _before_, to pilot him; I am
absent at times, especially towards evening; and the consequence of this
pilotage was some narrow escapes to the M * * on horseback. Once I led
him into a ditch over which I had passed as usual, forgetting to warn my
convoy; once I led him nearly into the river, instead of on the
_moveable_ bridge which incommodes passengers; and twice did we both run
against the Diligence, which, being heavy and slow, did communicate less
damage than it received in its leaders, who were _terra_fied by the
charge; thrice did I lose him in the grey of the gloaming, and was
obliged to bring-to to his distant signals of distance and
distress;--all the time he went on talking without intermission, for he
was a man of many words. Poor fellow! he died a martyr to his new
riches--of a second visit to Jamaica.
"'I'd give the lands of Deloraine
Dark Musgrave were alive again!'
that is,--
"I would give many a sugar cane
M * * L * * were alive again!"]
[Footnote 27: The following passage from the letter of mine, to which
the above was an answer, will best explain what follows:--With respect
to the newspaper, it is odd enough that Lord * * * * and myself had been
(about a week or two before I received your letter) speculating upon
your assistance in a plan somewhat similar, but more literary and less
regularly-periodical in its appearance. Lord * *, as you will see by his
volume of Essays, if it reaches you, has a very sly, dry, and pithy way
of putting sound truths, upon politics and manners, and whatever scheme
we adopt, he will be a very useful and active ally in it, as he has a
pleasure in writing quite inconceivable to a poor hack scribe like me,
who always feel, about my art, as the French husband did when he found a
man making love to his (the Frenchman's) wife:--' Comment,
Monsieur,--sans y être _obligé_!' When I say this, however, I mean it
only of the executive part of writing; for the imagining, the shadowing
out of the future work is, I own, a delicious fool's paradise."]
* * * * *