I must write you a second Letter (which will reach you, I suppose, by the
same Post as that which I posted on Thursday Jan. 22) to tell you that
not half an hour after I had posted that first Letter, arrived yours! And
now, to make the Coincidence stranger, your Brother Charles, who is now
with us for two days, tells me that very Thursday Jan. 24 (? 22) is your
Birthday! I am extremely obliged to you for your long, kind, and
interesting Letter: yes, yes: I should have liked to be on the Voyage
with you, and to be among the Dark People with you even now. Your
Brother Charles, who came up yesterday, brought us up your Home Letter,
and read it to us last night after Tea to our great Satisfaction. I
believe that in my already posted Letter I have told you much that you
enquire about in yours received half an hour after: of my poor Studies at
all events. This morning I have been taking the Physiognomy of the 19th
Birds. . . . There are, as I wrote you, very pleasant stories. One, of
a Shah returning to his Capital, and his People dressing out a Welcome
for him, and bringing out Presents of Gold, Jewels, etc., all which he
rides past without any Notice, till, coming to the Prison, the Prisoners,
by way of their Welcome, toss before him the Bloody Heads and Limbs of
old and recent Execution. At which the Shah for the first time stops his
Horse--smiles--casts Largess among the Prisoners, etc. And when asked
why he neglected all the Jewels, etc., and stopped with satisfaction at
such a grim welcome as the Prisoners threw him, he says, 'The Jewels,
etc., were but empty Ostentation--but those bloody Limbs prove that my
Law has been executed, without which none of those Heads and Carcases
would have parted Company, etc.' De Tassy notices a very agreeable Story
of Mahmud and the Lad fishing: and I find another as pleasant about
Mahmud consorting 'incog:' with a Bath-Stove-Keeper, who is so good a
Fellow that, at last, Mahmud, making himself known, tells the Poor Man to
ask what he will--a Crown, if he likes. But the poor Fellow says, 'All I
ask is that the Shah will come now and then to me as I am, and here where
I am; here, in this poor Place, which he has made illustrious with his
Presence, and a better Throne to me with Him, than the Throne of Both
Worlds without Him, etc.' You observed perhaps in De Tassy's Summary
that he notices an Eastern Form of William Tell's Apple? A Sultan doats
on a beautiful Slave, who yet is seen daily to pine away under all the
Shah's Favour, and being askt why, replies, 'Because every day the Shah,
who is a famous Marksman with the Bow, shoots at an Apple laid on my
Head, and always hits it; and when all the Court cries "Lo! the Fortune
of the King!" He also asks me why I turn pale under the Trial, he being
such a Marksman, and his Mark an Apple set on the Head he most doats
upon?' I am going to transcribe on the next Page a rough draft of a
Version of another Story, because all this will amuse you, I think. I
couldn't help running some of these Apologues into Verse as I read them:
but they are in a very rough state as yet, and so perhaps may continue,
for to correct is _the_ Bore.
When Yusuf from his Father's House was torn,
His Father's Heart was utterly forlorn;
And, like a Pipe with but one note, his Tongue
Still nothing but the name of Yusuf rung.
Then down from Heaven's Branches came the Bird
Of Heaven, and said 'God wearies of that Word.
Hast thou not else to do, and else to say?'
So Yacub's Lips were sealed from that Day.
But one Night in a Vision, far away
His Darling in some alien Home he saw,
And stretch'd his Arms forth; and between the Awe
Of God's Displeasure, and the bitter Pass
Of Love and Anguish, sigh'd forth an _Alas_!
And stopp'd--But when he woke The Angel came,
And said, 'Oh, faint of purpose! Though the Name
Of that Beloved were not uttered by
Thy Lips, it hung sequester'd in that Sigh.'
You see this is very imperfect, and I am not always quite certain of
always getting the right Sow by the Ear; but it is pretty anyhow. In
this, as in several other Stories, one sees the fierce vindictive
Character of the Eastern Divinity and Religion: a 'jealous God' indeed!
So there is another Story of a poor Hermit, who retires into the
Wilderness to be alone with God, and lives in a Tree; and there in the
Branches a little Bird has a Nest, and sings so sweetly that the poor old
Man's Heart is drawn to it in spite of Himself; till a Voice from Heaven
calls to Him--'What are you about? You have bought _Me_ with your
Prayers, etc., and I _You_ by some Largess of my Grace: and is this
Bargain to be cancelled by the Piping of a little Bird?' {316} So I
construe at least right or wrong. . . .
Monday Jan. 25 [? 26]. Like your Journal, you see, I spread my Letter
over more than a Day. On Saturday Night your Brother and I went to hear
Thackeray lecture on George III.--very agreeable to me, though I did not
think highly of the Lecture. . . . I should like to see Nizami's Shirin,
though I have not yet seen enough to care for in Nizami. Get me a MS. if
you can get a fair one; as also one of Attar's Birds; of which however
Garcin de Tassy gives hint of publishing a Text. There might be a good
Book made of about half the Text of the Original; for the Repetitions are
many, and the stories so many of them not wanted. What a nice Book too
would be the Text of some of the best Apologues in Jami, Jelaleddin,
Attar, etc., with literal Translations! . . .
I was with Borrow {317} a week ago at Donne's, and also at Yarmouth three
months ago: he is well, but not yet agreed with Murray. He read me a
long Translation he had made from the Turkish: which I could not admire,
and his Taste becomes stranger than ever.
24 PORTLAND TERRACE,
REGENT'S PARK.