Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books Part 21

Reading away at Mrs. Browning lately has very much confirmed my notion that the fault of her things is lack of condensation. They are almost without exception too long. I doubt if one should ever leave less than fifty per cent. of a situation to one's readers' own imagination, if one aims at the highest cla.s.s of readers. That swan song to Camoens from his dying lady would have been very perfect in FIVE verses. As it is, one gets tired even of the exquisite refrain "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen" (an expression he had used about her eyes in a song, and which haunts her).

The other night we had Sergeant d.i.c.kinson up. He has lately settled in the village. He was in the Light Cavalry Charge at Balaklava (17th Lancers), and also at Alma, Inkerman, and Sebastopol. He has also the Mutiny Medal and Good Conduct and Service one, so he is a good specimen. Curious luck, he never had a _scratch_ (!). Says he has had far "worse wounds" performing in Gyms., as he was a good swordsman, etc. He told us some _dear_ tales of old Sir Colin Campbell. He said his men idolized him, but their wives rather more so, and if any of them failed to send home remittances, the spouses wrote straight off to Sir Colin, who had up "Sandy or Wully" for remonstrance, and stopped his grog "till I hear again from your wife, man."

On one occasion he saw a drummer-boy drunk, and a sergeant near. Sir Colin: "Sergeant, does yon boy belong to your company?"

Sergeant: "He does not, sir."

"Does he draw a rum allowance?"

"He does, sir."

"Well, away to the Captain of his company, and say it's my orders that the oldest soldier in this bairn's company is to draw his rum, till he feels convinced it's for the lad's benefit that he should tak it himsel'--and that'll not be just yet awhile I'm thinking."

Some brilliant tales too of the wit and gallantry of Irish comrades, several of whom wore the kilt. And almost neatest of all, a story of coming across a fellow-villager among the Highlanders:

"But I were fair poozled He came from t' same place as me, and a clever Yorkshireman too, and he were talking as Scotch as any of 'em.

So I says, 'Why I'm beat! what are YOU talking Scotch for, and you a Knaresborough man?' 'Whisht! whisht! d.i.c.kinson,' he says, 'we mun A' be Scotch in a Scotch regiment--or there's no living.'"...

February 19, 1880.

I have been re-reading the _Legend of Montrose_ and the _Heart of Midlothian_ with _such_ delight, and poems of both the Brownings, and Ruskin, and _The Woman in White_, and _Tom Brown's Schooldays_, etc., etc.!!! I have got two volumes of _The Modern Painters_ back with me to go at.

What a treat your letters are! Bits are _nearly_ as good as being there. The sunset you saw with Miss C----, and the shadowy groups of the masquers below in the increasing mists of evening, painted itself as a whole on to my brain--in the way _scenes_ of Walter Scott always did. Like the farewell to the Pretender in _Red Gauntlet_, and the black feather on the quicksand in _The Bride of Lammermuir_.

March 1, 1880.

The ball must have been a grand sight, but I think, judging from the list, that your dress as Thomas the Rhymer stands out in marked _individuality_. Nothing shows more how few people are at all _original_ than the absence of any thing striking or quaint in most of the characters a.s.sumed at a Fancy Ball. This, however, is Pampering the Pride of you members of the Mutual Admiration Society. You must not become cliquish--no not Ye Yourselves!!!!

Above all _you_ must never lose that gracious quality (for which I have so often given you a prize) of patience and sympathy with small musicians and jangling pianos in the houses of kind and hospitable Philistines. Besides, I like you to be largely gracious and popular.

All the same I confess that it is a grievance that music (and sherry!) are jointly regarded as necessary to be supplied by all hosts and hostesses--whether they can give you them good or not! People do not cram their bad drawings down your throats in similar fashion, Still what is, is--and Man is more than Music--and I have never felt the real mastership you hold in music more than when you have beaten a march out of some old tub for kindness' sake with a little gracious bow at the end! Don't you remember my telling you about that wisp of an organist whom Mr. R---- petted till he didn't know his shock head from his clumsy heels, and the insufferable airs he gave himself at their party over the piano, and the audience, and the lights, and silence, and what he would or would not play to the elderly merchants.

And of all the amateur-and-water performances!!! I have heard enough good playing to be able to gauge him!...

Incapacity for every other kind of effort is giving me leisure for a feast of reading and _re-reading_ such as I have not indulged for years. Amongst other things I have read for the first time Black's _Strange Adventures of a Phaeton_--it is _very_ charming indeed, and if you haven't read it, some time you should. As a rule I detest German heroes _to English books_, but Von Rosen is irresistible! and the refrain outbreaks of his jealousy are really high art, when he unconsciously brings every subject back to the original motif--"but that young man of Twickenham--he is a most pitiful fellow--" you feel Dr. Wolff was never more simply sincere and self-deluded, than Von Rosen's belief that it is an abstract criticism. Also you know how tedious broken English in a novel is, as a rule. But Black has very artistically managed his hero's idioms so as to give great effect. And as we have a brain wave on about Womanhood you may like, as much as I have, V. Rosen's sketch of English women (to whom he gives the palm over those of other nations). Speaking of some others--"very nice to look at perhaps, and very charming in their ways perhaps, but not sensible, honest, frank like the English woman, _and not familiar with the seriousness of the world, and not ready to see the troubles of other people_. But your English-woman _who is very frank to be amused_, and can enjoy herself when there is a time for that, who is _generous in time of trouble and is not afraid_, and can be firm and active and yet very gentle, and who does not think always of herself, but is ready to help other people, and can look after a house and manage affairs--that is a better kind of woman I think--more to be trusted--more of a companion--oh, there is no comparison!"

It is very good, isn't it?--and he is mending the fire during this outburst, and keeps piling coal on coal as he warms with his subject.

I must also just throw you two quotations from Macaulay's most interesting _Life and Letters_. Quotations within quotations, for they are extracts.

"Antoni Stradivari has an eye That winces at false work and loves the true."

(BROWNING.)

"There is na workeman That can both worken wel and hastilie This must be done at leisure parfaitlie."

(CHAUCER.)

By the bye, the italics in Black's quotations are _mine_. Good wording I think.

But how one does go back with delight to Scott! I confess I think to have written the _Heart of Midlothian_ is to have put on record the existence of a moral atmosphere in one's own nation as grand as the ozone of mountains. WHAT a contrast to that of French novels (with no disrespect to the brilliant art and refreshing brain quickness of the latter); but Ruskin's appeal to the responsibility of those who wield Arts instead of Trades recurs to one as one under which Scott might have laid his hand upon his breast, and looked upwards with a clear conscience....

March 16, 1880.

I quite agree with you about an artlessness and roughness in Scott's work. I thought what I had dwelt on was the magnificent _tone_ of the _H. of Midlothian_. Also he has two of the first (first in rank and order if not first in degree) qualifications for a writer of fiction--Dramatism and individuality amongst his characters. He had (rather perhaps one should say), the quality which is _nascitur non fit_--Imagination. It is the great defect, _I think_, of some of our best modern writers. They are marvellously FIT and terribly little NASCITUR. It is why I can never concede the highest palm in her craft to G. Eliot. Her writing is glorious--Imagination limited--Dramatism--nil!

She draws people she has seen (Mrs. Poyser) like a photograph--she imagines a Daniel Deronda, and he is about "as natural as waxworks."

"I've been reading Jean Ingelow's _Fated to be Free_ lately, and it is a marvellous mixture of beauty and failure. But _lovely_ pa.s.sages.

Incisive as G. Eliot, and from the point of view of a tenderer mind and experience. This is beautiful, isn't it?

"Nature before it has been touched by man is almost always beautiful, strong, and cheerful in man's eyes; but nature, when he has once given it his culture and then forsaken it, has usually an air of sorrow and helplessness. He has made it live the more by laying his hand upon it and touching it with his life. It has come to relish of his humanity, and it is so flavoured with his thoughts, and ordered and permeated by his spirit, that if the stimulus of his presence is withdrawn it cannot for a long while do without him, and live for itself as fully and as well as it did before."

The double edge of the sentiment is very exquisite, and the truth of the natural fact very perfect as observation, and the book is full of such writing. But oh, dear! the confusion of plot is so maddening you have a delirious feeling that everybody is getting engaged to his half-sister or widowed stepmother, and keep turning back to make sure!

But the dramatism is very good and leads you on....

March 22, 1880.

... I am getting you a curious little present. It is Thos. a Kempis's _De Imitatione Christi_ in Latin _and Arabic_. A scarce edition printed in Rome. I think you will like to have it. That old Thomas was much more than a mere monk. A man for all time, his monasticism being but a fringe upon the robe of his wisdom and _honest_ Love of G.o.d. It will be curious to see how it lends itself to Arabic. Well, I fancy.

Being in very proverbial mould. Such verses as this (I quote roughly from memory):

"That which thou dost not understand when thou readest thou shalt understand in the day of thy visitation: for there be secrets of religion which are not known till they be felt and are not felt but in the Day of a great calamity!" (a piece of wisdom with application to other experiences besides religious ones). I think this will read well in the language of the East. As also "In omnibus rebus Respice Finem,"

etc.....

Tuesday.

I am quite foolishly disappointed. The a Kempis is gone already! It is a new Catalogue, and I fancied it was an out-o'-way chance. It seems Ridler has no other Arabic books whatever. He may not have known its value. It "went" for six shillings!!!

TO THE BISHOP OF FREDERICTON.

_131, Finborough Road, South Kensington._ March 23, 1880.