You see in what a brotherly way I commence my letter: not with the
frigid 'Sir' as if I were addressing one of a totally unkindred clay,
one of the drossy children of earth, with whom I have no relationship
and feel I could never have any familiarity. Have you ever felt that
the presence of a man without feeling made you a fool? I am always
dumb, or pusillanimous or (if I speak) ridiculous, in the company of
such a person. I love a reasoner, and do not by any means wish to be
flashing lightning, cloud-riding, or playing with stars. But a
marble-hearted companion, who, if you should by chance give way to an
impetuous fancy, or an extravagant imagination, looks at you with a
dead fish's eye, and asks you to write the name under your picture--I
would as soon ride in a post chaise with a lunatic, or sleep with a
corse. Never let me see the sign of such a man over an alehouse! It
would fright me away sooner than the report of a mad dog or a
scolding landlady. I would as soon enter the house if it hung out a
pestle and mortar. The fear of a drug in my posset would not repel me
so inevitably as the horror with which I should contemplate the
frost-bitten face of a portrait such as I have described. But perhaps
with all your feeling you will think my heart somewhat less sound
than a ripe medlar, if it be so unhealthily sensitive as what I have
said appears to indicate. There is, I grant, as in all other things,
a mean which ought to be observed. Recollect, however, I am not an
Englishman [Darley was an Irishman.] I should have answered your
letter long since, without waiting for your poems, in order to say
something handsome upon them, but have been so occupied with a myriad
of affairs that I have scarcely had a moment to sleep in. It is now
long, long past midnight, and all is as silent around my habitation
as if it were in the midst of a forest, or the plague had depopulated
London. After a day's hard labour at mathematical operations and
corrections I sit down to write to you these hasty and, I fear,
almost unreadable lines. Will you excuse them for the promise of
something better when I have more leisure to be point-device? Your
opinion of my geometry was very grateful, chiefly as it confirmed my
own--that there has been a great deal too much baby-making of the
English people by those who pretend to instruct them in science.
These persons write upon the Goody-two-shoes plan, and seem to look
upon their readers as infants who have not yet done drivelling. To
improve the reason is quite beside their purpose; they merely design
to titillate the fancy or provide talking matter for village oracles.
In not one of their systems do I perceive a regular progression of
reasoning whereby the mind may be led, from truth to truth, to
knowledge, as we ride step by step up to a fair temple on a goodly
hill of prospect. They jumble together heaps of facts, the most
wonder-striking they can get, which may indeed be said to confound
the imagination by their variety; but there is no ratiocinative
dependence between them, nor are they referred to demonstrative
principles, which would render people knowledgeable, as well as
knowing, of them. Each is a syllabus indeed, but not a science. It
tells many things but teaches none. There is little merit due to me
for perceiving this error, and none for avoiding it. Algebra is the
only true arithmetic. The latter is founded on the former in almost
all its rules, and one is just as easily learned as the other. If
arithmetic is to be taught rationally it must be taught
algebraically. With half the pains that a learner takes to make
himself master of the rule of three and fractions, he would acquire
as much algebra as would render every rule in arithmetic as easy as
chalking to an inn-keeper. I am apt to speak in the King Cambyses'
vein, but you understand what I wish to convey. As to the
continuation of the "Lives of the Poets," it is a work sadly wanting,
but I am not the person to supply the desideratum, even were my power
equal to the deed. Criticism is abomination in my sight. It is fit
only for the headsmen and hangmen of literature, fellows who live by
the agonies and death of others. You will say this is not the
criticism you mean, and that there is a different species (the only
genuine and estimable species) which has an eye to beauty rather than
defect, and which delights in glorifying true poetry rather than
debating it. Aye, but have you ever considered how much harder it is
to praise than to censure piquantly? I should ever be running into
the contemptuous or abusive style, as I did in the "Letters to
Dramatists." Besides, even in the best of poets, Shakspeare and
Milton, how much is there justly condemnable? On the inferior
luminaries, I should have to be continually pointing out spots and
blemishes. In short, as a vocation I detest criticism. It is a
species of fratricide with me, for I never can help cutting,
slashing, pinking, and carbonadoing--a most unnatural office for one
of the brotherhood, one who presumes to enrol himself among those
whom he conspires with the Jeffreys and Jerdans to mangle and
destroy. It is a Cain-like profession, and I deserve to be branded,
and condemned to wander houseless over the world, if ever I indulge
the murderous propensity to criticism. I was sorry to hear from
Taylor yesterday that you were not in good health. What can be the
matter with you, so healthfully situated and employed? Methinks you
should live the life of an oak-tree or a sturdy elm, that groans in a
storm, but only for pleasure. Do you meditate too much or sit too
immovably? Poetry, I mean the composition of it, does not always
sweeten the mind as much as the reading of it. There is always an
anxiety, a fervour, an impatience, a vaingloriousness attending it
which untranquillizes even in the sweetest-seeming moods of the poet.
Like the bee, he is restless and uneasy even in collecting his
sweets. Farewell, my dear Clare, and when you have leisure and
inclination, write to me again.
Sincerely yours,