Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume I Part 13

'While E. F. G. was at Boulge, he always got up early, eat his small breakfast, stood at his desk reading or writing all the morning, eat his dinner of vegetables and pudding, walked with his Skye terrier, and then often finished the day by spending the evening with us or the Bartons. He did not visit with the neighbouring gentlefolks, as he hated a set dinner party.'

_To F. Tennyson_.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, _February_ 24/44.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

I got your letter all right. But you did not tell me where to direct to you again; so I must send to the Poste Restante at Florence. I have also heard from Morton, to whom I despatched a letter yesterday: and now set about one to you. As you live in two different cities, one may write about the same things to both. You told me of the Arno being frozen, and even Italian noses being cold: he tells me the Spring is coming. I tell you that we have had the mildest winter known; but as good weather, when it does come in England, is always unseasonable, and as an old proverb says that a green Yule makes a fat kirk-yard, so it has been with us: the extraordinary fine season has killed heaps of people with influenza, debilitated others for their lives long, worried everybody with colds, etc. I have had three influenzas: but this is no wonder: for I live in a hut with walls as thin as a sixpence: windows that don't shut: a clay soil safe beneath my feet: a thatch perforated by lascivious sparrows over my head. Here I sit, read, smoke, and become very wise, and am already quite beyond earthly things. I must say to you, as Basil Montagu once said, in perfect charity, to his friends: 'You see, my dear fellows, I like you very much, but I continue to advance, and you remain where you are (you see), and so I shall be obliged to leave you behind me. It is no fault of mine.' You must begin to read Seneca, whose letters I have been reading: else, when you come back to England, you will be no companion to a man who despises wealth, death, etc. What are pictures but paintings--what are auctions but sales! All is vanity. Erige animum tuum, mi Lucili, etc. I wonder whether old Seneca was indeed such a humbug as people now say he was: he is really a fine writer. About three hundred years ago, or less, our divines and writers called him the divine Seneca; and old Bacon is full of him. One sees in him the upshot of all the Greek philosophy, how it stood in Nero's time, when the G.o.ds had worn out a good deal. I don't think old Seneca believed he should live again.

Death is his great resource. Think of the _rocococity_ of a gentleman studying Seneca in the middle of February 1844 in a remarkably damp cottage.

I have heard from Alfred also, who hates his water life--[Greek text] he calls it--but hopes to be cured in March. Poor fellow, I trust he may.

He is not in a happy plight, I doubt. I wish I lived in a pleasant country where he might like to come and stay with me--but this is one of the ugliest places in England--one of the dullest--it has not the merit of being bleak on a grand scale--pollard trees over a flat clay, with regular hedges. I saw a stanza in an old book which seemed to describe my condition rather--

Far from thy kyn cast thee: Wrath not thy neighbour next thee, In a good corn country rest thee, And sit down, Robin, and rest thee. {152}

Funny advice, isn't it? I am glad to hear Septimus is so much improved.

I beg you will felicitate him from me: I have a tacit regard of the true sort for him, as I think I must have for all of the Tennyson build. I see so many little natures about that I must draw to the large, even if their faults be on the same scale as their virtues. You and I shall I suppose quarrel as often as we meet: but I can quarrel and never be the worse with you. How we pulled against each other at Gravesend! You would stay--I wouldn't--then I would--then we did. Do you remember the face of that girl at the Bazaar, who kept talking to us and looking all round the room for fresh customers--a way women have--that is, a way of doing rather gracefully? Then the gentleman who sang Ivy green; a very extraordinary accentuation, it seemed to me: but I believe you admired it very much. Really, if these little excursions in the company of one's friends leave such a pleasant taste behind in the memory, one should court them oftener. And yet then perhaps the relish would grow less: it is the infrequency that gives them room to expand. I shall never get to Italy, that seems clear. My great travel this year will be to Carlisle.

Quid prosit ista tua longa peregrinatio, etc. Travelling, you know, is a vanity. The _soul_ remains the same. An amorem possis fugare, an libidinis exsiccari, an timorem mortis depellere? What then will you say to Pollock's being married! I hear he is to be. Ad matrimonium fugis?

Miser! Scaevola noster dicere solebat, etc. Excuse my overflowing with philosophy. I am going this evening to eat toasted cheese with that celebrated poet Bernard Barton. And I must soon stir, and look about for my great coat, brush myself, etc. It blows a harrico, as Theodore Hook used to say, and will rain before I get to Woodbridge. Those poor mistaken lilac buds there out of the window! and an old Robin, ruffled up to his thickest, sitting mournfully under them, quite disheartened. For you must know the mild winter is just giving way to a remarkably severe spring. . . . I wish you were here to smoke a pipe with me. I play of evenings some of Handel's great choruses which are the bravest music after all. I am getting to the true John Bull style of music. I delight in Handel's Allegro and Penseroso. Do you know the fine pompous joyous chorus of 'These pleasures, Mirth, if thou canst give, etc.'? Handel certainly does in music what old Bacon desires in his Essay on Masques, 'Let the songs be loud and cheerful, not puling, etc.' One might think the Water music was written from this text.

About this time FitzGerald was engaged in collecting information for Carlyle on the subject of Cromwell's Lincolnshire campaign, and it is to this he refers in the following fragment of a letter to Mrs. Charlesworth and the letters which follow.

But as Carlyle is like to make good use of what we can find him, and make a good English Hero of Oliver--something of a Johnsonian figure--I hope you will try and pester these Lincoln ladies and gentlemen. I wrote to Livesey: who once, he says, had a butler named Oliver Cromwell. That is the nearest approach to history I make through him.

My brother John, after being expected every day this week, wrote positively to say he could not come to day: and accordingly was seen to drive up to the Hall two hours ago. *

Believe me, dear Mrs. Charlesworth, yours thankfully,

E. FITZGERALD.

* N.B. I am not at the Hall: but in the Cottage. Pray give my compliments to all your party

_March_ /44.

BOULGE [1844].

DEAR MRS. CHARLESWORTH,

Contributions from the fens or anywhere else will be good. We must get out all from the Allenbys. I think I remember in Carlyle's notes that the _hill_ in Winsby (where the farm house is) was the scene of a daring attack of Cromwell's: but my memory is bad. Your correspondent says that bones, spurs, and _urns_ have been found there: the latter look rather as if the hill were of _Roman note_. I should like it to be clearly told, _exactly where_ the relics were dug up: whether on the hill or on the level said to extend from the hill to the west. Mrs. Allenby's first letter says _that_ was probably the field of battle: her son says the hill itself was. Also, _exactly what the relics were_. These two points are the chief I can see to need thorough sifting. I sent Carlyle the letter: he is now I dare say groaning over it. I have threatened to turn the correspondence entirely into his hands: so Miss Charlesworth may expect that. I go to town (I hope for a very short time) next week. John is yet here: we all like his wife much. Farewell. Yours ever thankfully,

E. FITZGERALD.

Poor old Mrs. Chaplin {155} is dead! I have found an old lady here to replace her.

BOULGE, Friday [1844].

DEAR MRS. CHARLESWORTH,

I am sorry for the trouble you have. But I must hope that all that is to be got from such good authority as the Allenbys will be got, as to Winsby. _Slash Lane_ promises very well. From the Allenbys let us be content to reap Winsby field _only_: as it seems they once farmed it, and let us get as good an account as possible of the look of the field, Slash Lane, the records and traditions of the place, and what remains were dug up, and _exactly where_; for that generally shows where the stress of the battle was. It is best to keep people to one point: else they wander off into generalities: as for instance what the Lady tells of War Scythes hung up in Horncastle Church: which, cruel as Oliver was, we must refer back to an earlier warfare than his, I doubt. Pray thank Miss Charlesworth: and believe me yours ever,

E. FITZGERALD.

BOULGE, _March_ 5/44.

DEAR MRS. CHARLESWORTH,

I have heard again from Carlyle who has sent me, a letter from Dr.

Cookson, which I am to burn or send, as I think best. Before I do so, I should be glad to speak to Miss Charlesworth on the matter again: and as my brother is going off on one of his comet excursions to-morrow (at least so he purposed an hour ago) I shall go with him to Ipswich, unless it snows, etc., and shall walk to Bramford. My humble request therefore is nothing more than that you will be so good as to lock up Miss C. till I have come and consulted as to what is best to be done: and how best to address this Doctor: whom I conclude she knows.

However, I only mean that if the day is pretty fair I may hope to find some of you at home: and Mr. Charlesworth well again.

Yours very truly,

E. FITZGERALD.

[19 CHARLOTTE STREET, RATHBONE PLACE,]

LONDON, _April_ 11/44.

DEAR MRS. CHARLESWORTH,

I last night smoked a pipe with Carlyle. He has had two large packets from Dr. Cookson, who shows alacrity enough to do what is asked, and may turn up something. But he has chiefly spoken of Winsby: and your Allenbys had so well cleared all that matter up with their map, etc., that the Doctor was going over needless ground. I hope we may be as successful with some other field: or rather that Cookson will antic.i.p.ate us and save us all trouble.

London is very hateful to me. I long to spread wing and fly into the kind clean air of the country. I see n.o.body in the streets half so handsome as Mr. Reynolds {157} of our parish: all clever, composed, satirical, selfish, well dressed. Here we see what the World is. I am sure a great City is a deadly Plague: worse than the illness so called that came to ravage it. I tried to persuade Carlyle to leave his filthy Chelsea, but he says his wife likes London. I get radishes to eat for breakfast of a morning: with them comes a savour of earth that brings all the delicious gardens of the world back into one's soul, and almost draws tears from one's eyes.

With renewed thanks believe me ever yours,

E. FITZGERALD.

_To Bernard Barton_.

19 CHARLOTTE ST., _April_ 11/44.

DEAR BARTON,

I am still indignant at this nasty place London. Thackeray, whom I came up to see, went off to Brighton the night after I arrived, and has not re- appeared: but I must wait some time longer for him. Thank Miss Barton much for the _kit_; if it is but a kit: my old woman is a great lover of cats, and hers has just _kitted_, and a wretched little blind puling tabby lizard of a thing was to be saved from the pail for me: but if Miss Barton's is a _kit_, I will gladly have it: and my old lady's shall be disposed of--not to the pail. Oh rus, quando te aspiciam? Construe that, Mr. Barton.--I am going to send down my pictures to Boulge, if I can secure them: they are not quite secure at present. If they vanish, I snap my fingers at them, Magi and all--there is a world (alas!) elsewhere beyond pictures--Oh, oh, oh, oh--

I smoked a pipe with Carlyle yesterday. We ascended from his dining room carrying pipes and tobacco up through two stories of his house, and got into a little dressing room near the roof: there we sat down: the window was open and looked out on nursery gardens, their almond trees in blossom, and beyond, bare walls of houses, and over these, roofs and chimneys, and roofs and chimneys, and here and there a steeple, and whole London crowned with darkness gathering behind like the illimitable resources of a dream. I tried to persuade him to leave the accursed den, and he wished--but--but--perhaps he _didn't_ wish on the whole.

When I get back to Boulge I shall recover my quietude which is now all in a ripple. But it is a shame to talk of such things. So Churchyard has caught another Constable. Did he get off our Debach boy that set the shed on fire? Ask him that. Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased, etc.

A cloud comes over Charlotte Street and seems as if it were sailing softly on the April wind to fall in a blessed shower upon the lilac buds and thirsty anemones somewhere in Ess.e.x; or, who knows?, perhaps at Boulge. Out will run Mrs. Faiers, and with red arms and face of woe haul in the struggling windows of the cottage, and make all tight. Beauty Bob {159} will cast a bird's eye out at the shower, and bless the useful wet.

Mr. Loder will observe to the farmer for whom he is doing up a dozen of Queen's Heads, that it will be of great use: and the farmer will agree that his young barleys wanted it much. The German Ocean will dimple with innumerable pin points, and porpoises rolling near the surface sneeze with unusual pellets of fresh water--

Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer cloud, Without our special wonder?

Oh this wonderful wonderful world, and we who stand in the middle of it are all in a maze, except poor Matthews of Bedford, who fixes his eyes upon a wooden Cross and has no misgiving whatsoever. When I was at his chapel on Good Friday, he called at the end of his grand sermon on some of the people to say merely this, that they believed Christ had redeemed them: and first one got up and in sobs declared she believed it: and then another, and then another--I was quite overset:--all poor people: how much richer than all who fill the London Churches. Theirs is the kingdom of Heaven!