A Letter Book Part 17

JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)

A good deal has already been said of Keats in the Introduction; but a little more may be pardoned on that most remarkable correspondence with his brother and sister-in-law which is there mentioned, and which it is hoped may be fairly sampled here. There is nothing quite like it: and one can only be thankful to the Atlantic (which here at least can have "disappointed" n.o.body worth mentioning) for causing the separation that brought it about. The inspirations which it shows were happily double. We do not know very much about George Keats, but John's family affection was of the keenest, and this was the only member of the family who was, in all the circ.u.mstances, likely to sympathise thoroughly with the poet in his poetry as in other things. Georgiana is said to have been personally attractive and mentally gifted beyond the common: and there is no doubt that this excited something more than mere family devotion in such an impressionable person as Keats. The combined reagency of these relatives has given us what we have from no other English poet--for the simple reason that no other English poet has had such a chance of giving it to us. The only thing to regret is that it could not continue longer: and that is only a necessary operation of Fate. The particular pa.s.sage chosen here is one of the best known perhaps, but it is also one of the most illuminating: for it gives at once Keats's natural and simple interest in ordinary things, with no mere trivialities: his _real_ att.i.tude (so different from that long attributed to him!) as regards the attacks of critics, and his pa.s.sion for beauty apart from mere hedonism. The "Charmian" was at one time supposed to be Miss Brawne: but this was an error. She was a Miss Jane c.o.x, and nothing is heard of her afterwards.

37. TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS

[October 14 or 15, 1818]

I came by ship from Inverness, and was nine days at Sea without being sick. A little qualm now and then put me in mind of you; however, as soon as you touch the sh.o.r.e, all the horrors of sickness are soon forgotten, as was the case with a lady on board, who could not hold her head up all the way. We had not been in the Thames an hour before her tongue began to some tune--paying off, as it was fit she should, all old scores. I was the only Englishman on board. There was a downright Scotchman, who, hearing that there had been a bad crop of potatoes in England, had brought some triumphant specimens from Scotland. These he exhibited with national pride to all the ignorant lightermen and watermen from the Nore to the Bridge. I fed upon beef all the way; not being able to eat the thick porridge which the Ladies managed to manage, with large, awkward, horn spoons into the bargain. Reynolds has returned from a six-weeks' enjoyment in Devonshire; he is well, and persuades me to publish my "Pot of Basil" as an answer to the attacks made on me in "Blackwood's Magazine" and the "Quarterly Review." There have been two Letters in my defence in the Chronicle and one in the Examiner, copied from the Exeter Paper, and written by Reynolds. I do not know who wrote those in the Chronicle. This is a mere matter of the moment--I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death. Even as a Matter of present interest the attempt to crush me in the "Quarterly" has only brought me more into notice, and it is a common expression among book-men, "I wonder the Quarterly should cut its own throat." It does me not the least harm in Society to make me appear little and ridiculous: I know when a man is superior to me and give him all due respect; he will be the last to laugh at me; and as for the rest I feel that I make an impression upon them which insures me personal respect while I am in sight, whatever they may say when my back is turned.

The Misses ---- are very kind to me, but they have lately displeased me much, and in this way: Now I am coming the Richardson! On my return, the first day I called, they were in a sort of taking or bustle about a Cousin of theirs, who, having fallen out with her Grandpapa in a serious manner, was invited by Mrs. ---- to take asylum in her house. She is an East-Indian, and ought to be her grandfather's heir. At the time I called, Mrs. ---- was in conference with her upstairs, and the young ladies were warm in her praises downstairs, calling her genteel, interesting and a thousand other pretty things to which I gave no heed, not being partial to nine-days' wonders--Now all is completely changed--they hate her, and from what I hear she is not without faults of a real kind: but she has others, which are more apt to make women of inferior charms hate her. She is not a Cleopatra, but is, at least, a Charmian. She has a rich Eastern look; she has fine eyes and fine manners. When she comes into the room she makes an impression the same as the Beauty of a Leopardess. She is too fine and too conscious of herself to repulse any Man who may address her; from habit she thinks that nothing _particular_. I always find myself more at ease with such a woman: the picture before me always gives me a life and animation which I cannot possibly feel with anything inferior. I am at such times too much occupied in admiring to be awkward or in a tremble: I forget myself entirely, because I live in her. You will, by this time, think that I am in love with her, so, before I go any further, I will tell you I am not. She kept me awake one night, as a tune of Mozart's might do. I speak of the thing as a pastime and an amus.e.m.e.nt, than which I can feel none deeper than a conversation with an imperial woman, the very "yes"

and "no" of whose life is to me a banquet. I don't cry to take the moon home with me in my pocket, nor do I fret to leave her behind me. I like her, and her like, because one has no _sensations_; what we both are is taken for granted. You will suppose I have by this had much talk with her--no such thing; there are the Misses ----on the look out. They think I don't admire her because I don't stare at her; they call her a flirt to me--what a want of knowledge! She walks across a room in such a manner that a man is drawn towards her with a magnetic power; this they call flirting! They do not know things; they do not know what a woman is. I believe, though, she has faults; the same as Charmian and Cleopatra might have had. Yet she is a fine thing, speaking in a worldly way; for there are two distinct tempers of mind in which we judge of things--the worldly, theatrical and pantomimical; and the unearthly, spiritual and ethereal. In the former, Buonaparte, Lord Byron and this Charmian hold the first place in our minds; in the latter, John Howard, Bishop Hooker rocking his child's cradle, and you, my dear sister, are the conquering feelings. As a man of the world I love the rich talk of a Charmian; as an eternal being I love the thought of you. I should like her to ruin me, and I should like you to save me.

"I am free from men of pleasure's cares, By dint of feelings far more deep than theirs."

This is "Lord Byron," and is one of the finest things he has said.

THE CARLYLES--THOMAS (1795-1881) AND JANE WELSH (1801-1866)

A paradoxer, even of a less virulent-frivolous type than that with which we have been recently afflicted, might sustain, for some little time at any rate, the argument against preservation of letters from the case of this eminent couple. If Mrs. Carlyle had not written hers, or if they had remained unknown, the whole sickening controversy about the character and married life of the pair might, as was said in the Introduction, never have existed. And if Carlyle himself had written none, persons of any intelligence would still have had a pretty adequate idea of him from his _Works_. On the other hand the addition to knowledge in his case is quite welcome: and in hers it practically gives us what we could hardly have known otherwise--one of the most remarkable of woman-natures, and one of the most striking confirmations of the merciless adage "Whom the G.o.ds curse, to them they grant the desires of their hearts." For she wanted above all things to be the wife of a man of genius--and she was. So the _pro_ and the _con_ in this matter may so far be set against each other.

But there remains to credit a considerable amount of most welcome and (notably in the instance specified in the Introduction) almost consummate literature of the epistolary kind. This instance itself is perhaps too tragic for our little collection: indeed it might help to spread the exaggerated idea of the writer's unhappiness which has been too prevalent already. There is some "metal more attractive"

in her letters, which perhaps, taken all round, put her with Madame de Sevigne and "Lady Mary" at the head of all _published_ women letter-writers. And Carlyle's annotations to them, when not too bilious or too penitent, show him almost at his best. His own (given below) to FitzGerald (the way in which epistolary literature interconnects itself has been noted) appears to me one of his most characteristic though least volcanic utterances. It was written while he was in the depths of what his wife called "the Valley of the Shadow of Frederick," (_i.e._ his vast book on that amiable monarch) and had retired to _extra_-solitude in consequence.

"Farlingay" refers to a recent stay in Suffolk with FitzGerald. As often with Carlyle, there may be more than one interpretation of his inverted commas at "gentleman" as regards Voltaire, to whom he certainly would not have allotted the word in its best sense. The phrase about Chaos and the Evil Genius is Carlyle shut up in narrow s.p.a.ce like the other genius or genie in the Arabian Nights. The "_awful jangle_ of bells" speaks his horror of any invading sound.

The "Naseby matter" refers to a monument which he and FitzGerald had planned, and which (with the precedent investigation as to the battle which F. had conducted years before for his _Cromwell_), occupies a good deal of FitzGerald's own correspondence. Indeed, it is thanks to Naseby that we possess this very letter. FitzGerald says elsewhere that he kept only these Naseby letters of all Carlyle's correspondence with him, destroying the rest, as he did Thackeray's and Tennyson's, lest "private personal history should fall into some unscrupulous hands." One admires the conduct while one feels the loss. As for the monument, it never came off: though it was talked about for some thirty years. Mrs. Carlyle's--one of the early and, despite complaints, cheerful time, the other later and, despite its resignation, from "the Valley of the Shadow"--require no annotation, save in respect of Carlyle's own on _Deerbrook_. He might well call it "poor": it is indeed one of the few novels by a writer of any distinction, which one tolerably voracious novel-reader has found incapable of being read. And this is curious: for she had written good stories earlier.

38. TO EDWARD FITZGERALD

ADDIs...o...b.. FARM, CROYDON.

15th Septr. 1855

Dear Fitzgerald,

I have been here ever since the day you last heard of me; leading the strangest life of absolute _Latrappism_; and often enough remembering Farlingay and you. I live perfectly alone, and without speech at all,--there being in fact n.o.body to speak to, except one austerely punctual housemaid, who does her functions, like an eight-day clock, generally without bidding. My wife comes out now and then to give the requisite directions; but commonly withdraws again on the morrow, leaving the monster to himself and his own ways. I have Books; a complete Edition of _Voltaire_, for one Book, in which I read for _use_, or for idleness oftenest,--getting into endless reflexions over it, mostly of a sad and not very utterable nature. I find V. a 'gentleman,'

living in a world partly furnished with such; and that there are now almost no 'gentlemen' (not quite _none_): this is one great head of my reflexions, to which there is no visible _tail_ or finish. I have also a Horse (borrowed from my fat Yeoman friend, who is at sea-bathing in Suss.e.x); and I go riding, at great lengths daily, over hill and dale; this I believe is really the main good I am doing,--if in this either there be much good. But it is a strange way of life to me, for the time; perhaps not unprofitable; To let _Chaos_ say out its say, then, and one's Evil Genius give one the very worst language he has, for a while.

It is still to last for a week or more. Today, for the first time, I ride back to Chelsea, but mean to return hither on Monday. There is a great circle of yellow light all the way from Shooter's Hill to Primrose Hill, spread round my horizon every night, I see it while smoking my pipe before bed (so bright, last night, it cast a visible shadow of me against the white window-shutters); and this is all I have to do with London and its _gases_ for a fortnight or more. My wife writes to me, there was an awful jangle of bells last day she went home from this; a Quaker asked in the railway, of some porter, 'Can thou tell me what these bells mean?'--'Well, I suppose something is up. They say Sebastopol is took, and the Rushans run away.'--_a la bonne heure_; but won't they come back again, think you?

On the whole I say, when you get your little Suffolk cottage, you must have in it a 'chamber in the wall' for me, _plus_ a pony that can trot, and a cow that gives good milk: with these outfits we shall make a pretty rustication now and then, not wholly _Latrappish_, but only _half_, on much easier terms than here; and I shall be right willing to come and try it, I for one party.--Meanwhile, I hope the Naseby matter is steadily going ahead; sale _completed_; and even the _monument_ concern making way. Tell me a little how that and other matters are. If you are at home, a line is rapidly conveyed hither, steam all the way: after the beginning of the next week, I am at Chelsea, and (I dare so) there is a fire in the evenings now to welcome you there. Shew face in some way or other.

And so adieu; for my hour of riding is at hand.

Yours ever truly,

T. CARLYLE.

39. TO MRS. WALSH,

CHELSEA: Sept. 5, 1836.

My dear Aunt,

Now that I am fairly settled at home again, and can look back over my late travels with the coolness of a spectator, it seems to me that I must have tired out all men, women and children that have had to do with me by the road. The proverb says 'there is much ado when cadgers ride.'

I do not know precisely what 'cadger' means, but I imagine it to be a character like me, liable to head-ache, to sea-sickness, to all the infirmities 'that flesh is heir to,' and a few others besides; the friends and relations of cadgers should therefore use all soft persuasions to induce them to remain at home.[119]

I got into that Mail the other night with as much repugnance and trepidation as if it had been a Phalaris' brazen bull, instead of a Christian vehicle, invented for purposes of mercy--not of cruelty. There were three besides myself when we started, but two dropped off at the end of the first stage, and the rest of the way I had, as usual, half of the coach to myself. My fellow-pa.s.senger had that highest of all terrestrial qualities, which for me a fellow-pa.s.senger can possess--he was silent. I think his name was Roscoe, and he read sundry long papers to himself, with the pondering air of a lawyer.

We breakfasted at Lichfield, at five in the morning, on muddy coffee and scorched toast, which made me once more lyrically recognise in my heart (not without a sign of regret) the very different coffee and toast with which you helped me out of my headache. At two there was another stop of ten minutes, that might be employed in lunching or otherwise. Feeling myself more fevered than hungry, I determined on spending the time in combing my hair and washing my face and hands with vinegar. In the midst of this solacing operation I heard what seemed to be the Mail running its rapid course, and quick as lightning it flashed on me, 'There it goes! and my luggage is on the top of it, and my purse is in the pocket of it, and here am I stranded on an unknown beach, without so much as a sixpence in my pocket to pay for the vinegar I have already consumed!'

Without my bonnet, my hair hanging down my back, my face half dried, and the towel, with which I was drying it, firm grasped in my hand, I dashed out--along, down, opening wrong doors, stumbling over steps, cursing the day I was born, still more the day on which I took a notion to travel, and arrived finally at the bar of the Inn, in a state of excitement bordering on lunacy. The barmaids looked at me 'with wonder and amazement.' 'Is the coach gone?' I gasped out. 'The coach? Yes!' 'Oh!

and you have let it away without me! Oh! stop it, cannot you stop it?'

and out I rushed into the street, with streaming hair and streaming towel, and almost brained myself against--the Mail! which was standing there in all stillness, without so much as a horse in it! What I had heard was a heavy coach. And now, having descended like a maniac, I ascended again like a fool, and dried the other half of my face, and put on my bonnet, and came back 'a sadder and a wiser woman.'

I did not find my husband at the 'Swan with Two Necks'; for we were in a quarter of an hour before the appointed time. So I had my luggage put on the backs of two porters, and walked on to Cheapside, where I presently found a Chelsea omnibus. By and by, however, the omnibus stopped, and amid cries of 'No room, sir,' 'Can't get in,' Carlyle's face, beautifully set off by a broad-brimmed white hat, gazed in at the door, like the Peri, who, 'at the Gate of Heaven, stood disconsolate.'

In hurrying along the Strand, pretty sure of being too late, amidst all the imaginable and unimaginable phenomena which the immense thoroughfare of a street presents, his eye (Heaven bless the mark!) had lighted on my trunk perched on the top of the omnibus, and had recognised it. This seems to me one of the most indubitable proofs of genius which he ever manifested. Happily, a pa.s.senger went out a little further on, and then he got in.

My brother-in-law had gone two days before, so my arrival was most well-timed. I found all at home right and tight; my maid seems to have conducted herself quite handsomely in my absence; my best room looked really inviting. A bust of Sh.e.l.ley (a present from Leigh Hunt), and a fine print of Albert Durer, handsomely framed (also a present) had still further ornamented it during my absence. I also found (for I wish to tell you all my satisfaction) every grate in the house furnished with a supply of coloured clippings, and the holes in the stair-carpet all darned, so that it looks like new. They gave me tea and fried bacon, and staved off my headache as well as might be. They were very kind to me, but, on my life, everybody is kind to me, and to a degree that fills me with admiration. I feel so strong a wish to make you all convinced how very deeply I feel your kindness, and just the more I would say, the less able I am to say anything.

G.o.d bless you all. Love to all, from the head of the house down to Johnny.

Your affectionate,

JANE W. CARLYLE.

40. TO MRS. STIRLING, HILL STREET, EDINBURGH.

5 CHEYNE ROW, CHELSEA: October 21, 1859.

You dear nice woman! there you are! a bright cheering apparition to surprise one on a foggy October morning, over one's breakfast--that most trying inst.i.tution for people who are 'nervous' and 'don't sleep!'

It (the photograph) made our breakfast this morning 'pa.s.s off,' like the better sort of breakfasts in Deerbrook,[120] in which people seemed to have come into the world chiefly to eat breakfast in every possible variety of temper!

Blessed be the inventor of photography! I set him above even the inventor of chloroform! It has given more positive pleasure to poor suffering humanity than anything that has 'cast[121] up' in my time or is like to--this art by which even the 'poor' can possess themselves of tolerable likenesses of their absent dear ones. And mustn't it be acting favourably on the morality of the country? I a.s.sure you I have often gone into my own room, in the devil's own humour--ready to answer at 'things in general,' and some things in particular--and, my eyes resting by chance on one of my photographs of long-ago places and people, a crowd of sad, gentle thoughts has rushed into my heart, and driven the devil out, as clean as ever so much holy water and priestly exorcism could have done! I have a photograph of Haddington church tower, and my father's tombstone in it--of every place I ever lived at as a home--photographs of old lovers! old friends, old servants, old dogs! In a day or two, you, dear, will be framed and hung up among the 'friends.'

And that bright, kind, indomitable face of yours will not be the least efficacious face there for exorcising my devil, when I have him! Thank you a thousand times for keeping your word! Of course you would--that is just the beauty of you, that you never deceive nor disappoint.

Oh my dear! my dear! how awfully tired I was with the journey home, and yet I had taken two days to it, sleeping--that is, attempting to sleep--at York. What a pity it is that Scotland is so far off! all the good one has gained there gets shaken off one in the terrific journey home again, and then the different atmosphere is so trying to one fresh from the pure air of Fife--so exhausting and depressing. If it hadn't been that I had a deal of housemaiding to execute during the week I was here before Mr. C. returned, I must have given occasion for newspaper paragraphs under the head of 'Melancholy Suicide.' But dusting books, making chair covers, and 'all that sort of thing,' leads one on insensibly to live--till the crisis gets safely pa.s.sed.

My dear! I haven't time nor inclination for much letter-writing--nor have you, I should suppose, but do let us exchange letters now and then.

A friendship which has lived on air for so many years together is worth the trouble of giving it a little human sustenance.

Give my kind regards to your husband--I like him--and believe me,