A Letter Book Part 5

Now when I remember this, I see I must take care not in any way to disappoint the trust in me of this most fore-thoughtful man. Therefore I will come to Corellia's help without the least delay and will not refuse to undergo inconveniences: though I think I shall secure not merely pardon but even praise from the very person who as you say is bringing a new action as against a woman, if it should happen to me to say these same things in court more amply and fully than the narrow room of a letter permits, either to excuse or indeed commend myself. Farewell.

LETTER OF THE "DARK" AGES

SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS (431?-482-4)

Caius Sollius Sidonius Apollinaris is one of the most interesting figures of the troubled and obscure period intervening between the fall of the Roman Empire _proper_ and the rise of mediaeval Europe. He was born at Lyons, married Papianilla, daughter of Flavius Avitus, who was to be one of the ephemeral "Emperors" of the West and the Decadence, but was not injured by his father-in-law's dethronement, and enjoyed various civil honours and posts.

In 471, though a married layman, he was peremptorily made a bishop, and accordingly took orders, put away his wife, and discharged his sacred duties as creditably as he had discharged his profane ones. Sidonius was a not contemptible poet, and an interesting letter-writer. Like most literary men of his cla.s.s he was given to what we call flattery; and this Ecdicius, of whom he made a sort of Dark Age Admirable Crichton, was his brother-in-law, an Emperor's son, and Count or Duke (the t.i.tles were often interchangeable) of the district. But it is fair to say that Gregory of Tours, the accepted historian of the period, and living only in the next century, makes the exploit over the Goths even more signal--for he reduces the troopers to _ten_. The Arverni (inhabitants of Auvergne and its neighbourhood) were the strongest tribe in Southern Gaul when the Romans first came into contact with them, retained much prominence in Caesar's time, and had not lost individuality, if they had lost independence, by this (5th) century. The mixture of "Arms"

and the "Gown" is noteworthy.

BOOK III. LETTER III

SIDONIUS TO HIS ECDICIUS--HEALTH

If ever, now you are longed for by my Arvernians, whose love for you subdues them remarkably, and indeed for all sorts of reasons. First, because a man's native land has the greatest part in creating affection for him.[66] Then, because in your time you are about the only mortal who was longed for before his birth as much as he was rejoiced in after it.... I say nothing of such things--common to all, but no mean incitement to affection--as that you crawled as a child on the same turf with them. I pa.s.s over the gra.s.s which you first trod, the river you first swam, the woods you broke through in hunting. I leave out the fact that it was here you first played ball[67] and backgammon,[68] that you hawked, coursed, rode, shot with the bow. I omit the fact that for the sake of your boyish presence students of letters came hither from all parts; and that it was due to you as an individual that our n.o.bility, anxious to shed the slough of Celtic speech, imbued itself now with the style of oratory, now with the measures of the Muse. And this specially kindled the love of the community[69] that you forbade those whom you had already made Latins[70] to remain barbarians.[71] For it could never slip the memory of our citizens what and how great you seemed, to every age and rank and s.e.x on the half-ruined mounds of our walls, when, accompanied by scarcely eighteen hors.e.m.e.n, you cut your way through some thousands of Goths in full daylight and (which posterity will hardly believe) in the open field. A well trained army stood aghast at the sound of your name and the sight of your person: so that the leaders of the enemy, in their astonishment, hardly knew how many were their followers, how few yours. Their line was then withdrawn to the brow of a steep hill; it had before been gathered together to storm, but on your appearance was not deployed for battle. Meanwhile you, having slain some of their best men whom not sloth but courage had made the rearmost of the troop, occupied the level ground alone, though such a fight gave you not so many comrades as your table is wont to contain guests. And when you returned to the town at your leisure what came to meet you in the way of official compliments, applause, tears, rejoicings can be better guessed than described. One might see in the crammed halls of the s.p.a.cious palace that happy ovation for your thronged return. Some caught up the dust of your footsteps to kiss it: others took out the horses'

curbs stained with blood and foam; others prepared the stands for the saddles drenched with the horses' sweat; others, when you were about to put off your helmet, unbuckled the clasps of its plated chin-straps, or busied themselves with unlacing your greaves. Yet others counted the notches on the swords, blunted with slaughter, or measured with livid[72] fingers the rings of the corslets, slashed or pierced by weapons.[73]

EARLY MEDIAEVAL LETTER (TWELFTH CENTURY)

Of the other persons mentioned in this letter besides the widowed d.u.c.h.ess and King Louis VII., the first is Ralph, Count of (Peronne and) Vermandois, a leper. The lady's name was Eleanor, and she also was probably a widow; the d.u.c.h.ess's son Hugh was third of that name as Duke of Burgundy. Ivo, Count of Soissons, was the guardian of the Count of Vermandois, incapacitated legally by his plague.

The proposed marriage did not come off. The business-like tone of the letter will only surprise those who do not really know the "Ages of Romance." I owe the selection of it to my friend the Rev. W. Hunt, D.Litt., who came to my aid in the dearth of books of this period which circ.u.mstances imposed on me.

To Louis[74] most excellent King of the Franks by the grace of G.o.d, and her most beloved Lord, Mary, d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy--health and due respect. It is known to your Majesty that my son is your liegeman, and, if it please you, your kinsman also. Whatsoever he can do is yours: and if he could do more it were yours. And so I all the more confidently ask your highest affection for my son. For it has been told me that Count Ralph of Peronne has a certain marriageable sister who, as has been reported to me and her own people, would be a suitable wife for my son.

For this reason, most beloved Lord, I and he ask that you would look to this matter yourself and speak about it to the Count of Soissons, and settle how this marriage may be contracted. You must know that though my son might marry in another kingdom, I greatly prefer that he should take a wife in yours, rather than in any other. The nearer he becomes connected with you the more will he be yours and altogether a profit to you.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It may of course be "ill.u.s.trated" in the other sense by a second use of the pen; and we shall have instances of this kind to notice.

[2] As has often been pointed out Ben Jonson's exquisite "Drink to me only with thine eyes" is a verse-paraphrase or mosaic from this writer's prose.

[3] Pliny, if he did not always "write for publication," deliberately "published," as we should say, his letters. Indeed, he is one of the first to use the word in this sense, even if he uses it immediately of an oration not a letter. Some think Cicero meant publication; and he was very likely to do so.

[4] The Latin statesman, like the Greek bishop, condescends to write about wine and even more fully. One of the most interesting and informing things on the subject is his discourse on _vinum acinaticium_, a sort of Roman Imperial Tokay made from grapes kept till the frost had touched them.

[5] Genuine letters of Sappho would have been of the first interest to compare with those of Heloise, and the "Portuguese Nun" and Mademoiselle de Lespina.s.se. Diotima's might have been as disappointing as George Eliot's: but by no means must necessarily have been so. Aspasia's, sometimes counterfeited, ought to have been good.

[6] It is part of the plan to give, as a sort of Appendix to the Introduction, and extension of it towards the main body of text, some specimens of Greek, Roman (cla.s.sical and post-cla.s.sical) and Early Mediaeval letter-writing, translated for the purpose by the present writer. The _continuity_ of literary history is a thing which deserves to be attended to, especially when there is an ever-growing tendency to confine attention to things modern--albeit so soon to be antiquated! I owe the last of these specimens, in the Latin from which I translate it, to the kindness of my friend the Rev. W. Hunt, D.Litt., to whom I had recourse as not myself having access to a large library at the moment, and who has a.s.sisted me in other parts of this book.

[7] Yet others, as to authenticity, have, I believe, been rejected by all competent scholarship.

[8] Benjamin Constant and Madame de Charriere.

[9] Some of us think Blake a great poet; but this is scarcely a general opinion, and he does not appear till the century was three parts over.

Burns (whose own letters by the way do him little justice) hardly comes in.

[10] Especially the most popular and voluminous if not the most important of all--the periodical and the novel.

[11] The danger being of many sorts--usually in the direction of various kinds of _excess_. A _quietly_ tragic letter may be a masterpiece: perhaps there is no finer example than one to be again referred to, of Mrs. Carlyle's.

[12] Mr. Paul thinks that "the baby language" is terribly out of character, and that there is "too much of it"; that Swift "would try to make love though he did not know what love meant"; and that the whole rings hollow and insincere. Others, women as well as men, have held that the "little language" is only less pathetic than it is charming; that Swift was one of the greatest, if one of the unhappiest lovers of the world; and that the thing is as sincere as if it had been written in the Palace of Truth and only hollow as is the s.p.a.ce between Heaven and h.e.l.l.

[13] It should never be, but perhaps sometimes is, forgotten that "Stella" was a lady of unusual wits, and of what Swift's greatest decrier called in his own protegee Mrs. Williams "universal curiosity,"

that is to say not "inquisitiveness" but "intelligent interest." The politics etc. are not mere selfish attention to what interests the writer only.

[14] It must not be forgotten that she was Fielding's cousin. And after the remark above on Swift it is pleasant and may be fair to say that Mr.

Paul is a hearty "Marian."

[15] Johnson is again the chief and by no means trustworthy witness for this "insolence." But in the same breath he admitted that Chesterfield was "dignified." Now dignity is almost as doubtfully compatible with insolence as with impudence.

[16] It is difficult to think of anyone who has combined statesmanship (Chesterfield's accomplishments in which are constantly forgotten), social gifts and literary skill in an equal degree.

[17] Excluding of course purely historical and public things like the trials of the '45 and the riots of '80.

[18] They were travelling together (always rather a test of friendship) in Italy, and Horace, as he confesses, no doubt gave himself airs. But it is pretty certain that Gray had not at this time, if he ever had, that fortunate combination of good (or at least well-commanded) temper and good breeding which enables a gentleman to meet such conduct with conduct on his own side as free from petulant "touchiness" as from ign.o.ble parasitism.

[19] Gray was not, like Walpole, a richly endowed sinecurist. But to use a familiar "bull" he seems never to have had anything to do, and never to have done it when he had. His poems are a mere handful; his excellent _Metrum_ is a fragment; and as Professor of History at Cambridge he never did anything at all.

[20] They do not seem to have known each other personally. But (for reasons not difficult to a.s.sign but here irrelevant) Johnson was on the whole, though not wholly, unjust to Gray, and Gray seems to have disliked and spoken rudely of Johnson.

[21] The varieties of what may be called literary _exercise_ which have been utilised for educational or recreative purposes, are almost innumerable. Has anyone ever tried "breaking up" a letter (such as those to be given hereafter) into a conversation by interlarded comment, questions, etc.?

[22] As far as the accidents are concerned. The essentials vary not.

Marianne is eternal, whether she faints and blushes, or jazzes and--does not blush.

[23] One unfortunate exception, the _ex-post facto_ references to the split with Lady Austin, may be urged by a relentless prosecutor. But when William has to choose between Mary and Anna it will go hard but he will _have_ to be unfair to one of them.

[24] This "swan's" utterances in poetry were quite unlike those of Tennyson's dying bird: and her taste in it was appalling. She tells Scott that the Border Ballads were totally dest.i.tute of any right to the name.

[25] For a singular misjudgment on this point see Prefatory Note _infra_.

[26] Particularly when he is able to apply the _Don Juan_ mood of sarcastic if rather superficial life-criticism in which he was a real master.

[27] _I.e._ "violently and vulgarly absurd."

[28] It may, however, be suggested that the extraordinary _bluntness_ (to use no stronger word) of both is almost sufficiently evidenced in the fact that in his last edition of Keats Mr. Forman committed the additional outrage of distributing these letters according to their dates among the rest. The isolation of the agony gives almost the only possible excuse for revealing it.

[29] It is of course true that Sh.e.l.ley himself did not at first quite appreciate Keats. But _Adonais_ cancels the deficit and leaves an almost infinite balance in favour. One can only hope that, had the circ.u.mstances been reversed, Keats would have set the account right as triumphantly.

[30] This tendency makes it perhaps desirable to observe that in the _particular_ context of the _Belle Dame_ there is nothing whatever to cavil at.

[31] The recent centenary saw, as usual, with much welcome appreciation some uncritical excesses.

[32] In not a few cases they may be said to have been deliberately _un_prepared--intended though not labelled as "private and confidential."

[33] In which, be it remembered, the "Life-and-Letters" system only came in quite late.