I am surprised you think my scanty letters are worth encouraging,
especially with such long and excellent answers as that I have just got
from you. It has found its way down here: and oddly enough does your
Italian scenery, painted, I believe, very faithfully upon my inner eye,
contrast with the British barrenness of the Field of Naseby. Yet here
was fought a battle of some interest to Englishmen: and I am persuading
farmers to weed well the corn that grows over those who died there. No,
no; in spite of your Vesuviuses and sunshine, I love my poor dear brave
barren ugly country. Talk of your Italians! why, they are extinguished
by the Austrians because they don't blaze enough of themselves to burn
the extinguisher. Only people who deserve despotism are forced to suffer
it. We have at last good weather: and the harvest is just drawing to a
close in this place. It is a bright brisk morning, and the loaded
waggons are rolling cheerfully past my window. But since I wrote what is
above a whole day has passed: I have eaten a bread dinner: taken a lonely
walk: made a sketch of Naseby (not the least like yours of Castellamare):
played for an hour on an old tub of a piano: and went out in my dressing-
gown to smoke a pipe with a tenant hard by. That tenant (whose name is
Love, by the bye) was out with his folks in the stack yard: getting in
all the corn they can, as the night looks rainy. So, disappointed of my
projected 'talk about runts' and turnips, I am come back--with a good
deal of animal spirits at my tongue's and fingers' ends. If I were
transported now into your room at Castellamare, I would wag my tongue far
beyond midnight with you. These fits of exultation are not very common
with me: as (after leaving off beef) my life has become of an even grey
paper character: needing no great excitement, and as pleased with Naseby
as Naples. . . .
I am reading Schlegel's lectures on the History of Literature: a nice
just book: as also the comedies of Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar: the
latter very delightful: as also D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, a
good book. When I am tired of one I take up the other: when tired of
all, I take up my pipe, or sit down and recollect some of Fidelio on the
pianoforte. Ah Master Tennyson, we in England have our pleasures too. As
to Alfred, I have heard nothing of him since May: except that some one
saw him going to a packet which he believed was going to Rotterdam. . . .
When shall you and I go to an Opera again, or hear one of Beethoven's
Symphonies together? You are lost to England, I calculate: and I am
given over to turnips and inanity. So runs the world away. Well, if I
never see you again, I am very very glad I _have_ seen you: and got the
idea of a noble fellow all ways into my head. Does this seem like humbug
to you? But it is not. And that fine fellow Morton too. Pray write
when you can to me: and when my stars shine so happily about my head as
they do at this minute, when my blood feels like champagne, I will answer
you. . .
When you go to Florence, get to see a fresco portrait of Dante by Giotto:
newly discovered in some chapel there. Edgeworth saw it, and has brought
home a print which is (he says) a tolerable copy. It is a most awful
head: Dante, when about twenty-five years old. The likeness to the
common portraits of him when old is quite evident. All his great poem
seems in it: like the flower in the bud. I read the last cantos of the
Paradiso over and over again. I forget if you like him: but, if I
understand you at all, you must. Farewell!
P.S. Just heard from Edgeworth that Alfred is in London 'busy preparing
for the press'!!!
_To Bernard Barton_.
LONDON, _November_ 27/41.