I only posted my last long letter four days ago: and how far shall I get
with this? Like the other, I keep it in Sir W. Ouseley, and note down a
bit now and then. When the time for the Mail comes, the sheet shall go
whether full or not. I had a letter from your Mother telling me she had
heard from you--all well--but the Heats increasing. I suppose the
Crocuses we see even in these poor little Gardens hereabout would wither
in a Glance of your Sun. Now the black Trees in the Regent's Park
opposite are beginning to show green Buds; and Men come by with great
Baskets of Flowers; Primroses, Hepaticas, Crocuses, great Daisies, etc.,
calling as they go, 'Growing, Growing, Growing! All the Glory going!' So
my wife says she has heard them call: some old Street cry, no doubt, of
which we have so few now remaining. It will almost make you smell them
all the way from Calcutta. 'All the Glory going!' What has put me upon
beginning with this Sheet so soon is, that, (having done my Will for the
present with the Mantic--one reason being that I am afraid to meddle more
with N. Newton's tender MS., and another reason that I now lay by what I
have sketched out so as to happen on it again one day with fresh eyes)--I
say, this being shelved, I took up old Hafiz again, and began with him
where I left off in November at Brighton. And this morning came to an
ode we did together this time two years ago when you were at Spiers' in
Oxford. . . . How it brought all back to me! Oriel opposite, and the
Militia in Broad Street, and the old Canary-coloured Sofa and the Cocoa
or Tea on the Table! . . .
I should think Bramford begins to look pretty about this time, hey, Mr.
Cowell? And Mrs. Cowell? There is a house there constantly advertised
to let in the Papers. I think that one by the Mill; not the pleasant
place where _Trygaeus_ {322} looked forth on the Rail! 'The Days are
gone when Beauty bright, etc.' . . .
Spedding has been once here in near three months. His Bacon keeps coming
out: his part, the Letters, etc., of Bacon, is not come yet; so it
remains to be seen what he will do then: but I can't help thinking he has
let the Pot boil too long. Well, here is a great deal written to-day:
and I shall shut up the Sheet in Ouseley again. March 30. Another
reason for thinking the _mahi_ which supports the world to be only a
_myth_ of the simple Fish genus is that the stage next above him is
_Gau_, the Bull, as the Symbol of _Earth_. It seems to me one sees this
as it were pictured in those Assyrian Sculptures; just some waving lines
and a fish to represent Water, etc. And it hooks on, I think, to Max
Muller's Theory in that Essay {323a} of his. Saturday, April 4. Why, we
are creeping toward another Post day! another 25th when the 'Via
Marseilles' Letters go off! And I now renew this great Sheet, because in
returning to old Hafiz two or three days ago, I happened on a line which
you will confer with a Tetrastich of Omar's. . . . Donne has got the
Licenser's Post; given him in the handsomest way by Lord Bredalbane to
whom the Queen as handsomely committed it. The said Donne has written an
Article on Calderon in Fraser, {323b} in which he says very handsome
things of me, but is not accurate in what he says. I suppose it was he
wrote an Article in the Saturday Review some months ago to the same
effect; but I have not asked him. I find people like that Calderon book.
By the bye again, what is the passage I am to write out for you from the
Volume you gave me, the old Bramford Volume, 'E. B. Cowell, Bramford,
Aug. 20, 1849?' Tell me, and I will write it in my best style: I have
the Volume here in my room, and was looking into it only last night; at
that end of the Magico which we read together at Elmsett! I don't know
if I could translate it now that the '_aestus'_ caught from your sympathy
is gone! . . . April 5. In looking into the 'Secreto Agravio' I see an
Oriental superstition, which was likely enough however to be a poetical
fancy of any nation: I mean, the Sun turning Stone to Ruby, etc. Enter
Don Luis: 'Soy mercador, y trato en los Diamantes, que hoy son Piedras, y
rayos fueron antes de Sol, que perficiona e ilumina rustico Grano en la
abrasada Mina.' The Partridge in the Mantic tells something of the same;
he digs up and swallows Rubies which turn his Blood to Fire inside him
and sparkle out of his Eyes and Bill. This volume of Calderon is marked
by the Days on which you finished several Plays, all at Bramford!
Wednesday, April 8. I have been reading the 'Magico' over and
remembering other days; I saw us sitting at other tables reading it. Also
I am looking over old AEschylus--Agamemnon--with Blackie's Translation. .
. . Is it in Hafiz we have met the Proverb (about _pregnant_ Night)
which Clytemnestra also makes her Entry with [264, 5]? [Greek ttext]. I
think one sees that the Oriental borrowed this Fancy, which smacks of the
Grecian Personification of Mother Night. What an Epitaph for a Warrior
are those two Greek words by which the Chorus express all that returns to
Mycenae of the living Hero who went forth [435]--[Greek text]!
Well; and I have had a Note from Garcin de Tassy whom I had asked if he
knew of any Copy of Omar Khayyam in all the Paris Libraries: he writes 'I
have made, by means of a Friend, etc.' But I shall enclose his Note to
amuse you. Now what I mean to do is, in return for his politeness to me,
to copy out as well as I can the Tetrastichs as you copied them for me,
and send them as a Present to De Tassy. Perhaps he will edit them. I
should not wish him to do so if there were any chance of your ever doing
it; but I don't think you will help on the old Pantheist, and De Tassy
really, after what he is doing for the Mantic, deserves to make the
acquaintance of this remarkable little Fellow. Indeed I think you will
be pleased that I should do this. Now for some more AEschylus. Friday,
April 17. I have been for the last five days with my Brother at
Twickenham; during which time I really copied out Omar Khayyam, in a way!
and shall to-day post it as a '_cadeau'_ to Garcin de Tassy in return for
his Courtesy to me. I am afraid, a bad return: for my MS. is but badly
written and it would perhaps more plague than profit an English 'savant'
to have such a present made him. But a Frenchman gets over all this very
lightly. Garcin de Tassy tells me he has printed four thousand lines of
the Mantic. And here is April running away and it will soon be time to
post you another Letter! When I once get into the Country I shall have
less to write you about than now; and that, you see, is not much.
Tuesday, April 21. Yours and your wife's dear good Letters put into my
hand as I sit in the sunshine in a little Balcony outside the Windows
looking upon the quite green hedge side of the Regent's Park. For Green
it is thus early, and such weather as I never remember before at this
Season. Well, your Letters, I say, were put into my hand as I was there
looking into AEschylus under an Umbrella, and waiting for Breakfast. My
wife cried a good deal over your wife's Letter, I think, I think so. Ah
me! I would not as yet read it, for I was already sad; but I shall
answer hers to me which I did read indeed with many thoughts: perhaps I
can write this post; at least I will clear off this letter to you, my
dear Cowell.