Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume II Part 16

MY DEAR DONNE,

There being a change of servants in Market Hill, Woodbridge, I came here for a week, bringing Tacitus {164} in my Pocket. You know I don't pretend to judge of History: I can only say that you tell the Story of Tacitus' own Life, and of what he has to tell of others, very readably indeed to my Thinking: and so far I think my Thinking is to be relied on.

Some of the Translations from T. by your other hands read so well also that I have wished to get at the original. But I really want an Edition such as you promised to begin upon. Thirty years ago I thought I could make out these Latins and Greeks sufficiently well for my own purpose; I do not think so now; and want good help of other men's Scholarship, and also of better Eyes than my own.

I am not sure if you were ever at this place: I fancy you once were. It is duller even than it used to be: because of even the Fishing having almost died away. But the Sea and the Sh.o.r.e remain the same; as to Nero, in that famous pa.s.sage {165} I remember you pointed out to me: not quite so sad to me as to him, but not very lively. I have brought a volume or two of Walpole's Letters by way of amus.e.m.e.nt. I wish you were here; and I will wait here if you care to come. Might not the Sea Air do you good?

_To T. Carlyle_.

WOODBRIDGE, _Septr._ 8/73.

MY DEAR CARLYLE,

Enclosed is the Naseby Lawyer's answer on behalf of the Naseby Trustees.

I think it will seem marvellous in your Eyes, as it does in mine.

You will see that I had suggested whether moving the _Obelisk_, the 'foolish Obelisk,' might not be accomplished in case The Stone were rejected. You see also that my Lawyer offers his mediation in the matter if wished. I cannot believe the Trustees would listen to this Scheme any more than to the other. Nor do I suppose you would be satisfied with the foolish Obelisk's Inscription, which warns Kings not to exceed their just Prerogative, nor Subjects [to swerve from] their lawful Obedience, etc., but does not say that it stands on the very spot where the Ashes of the Dead told of the final Struggle.

I say, I do not suppose any good will come of this second Application.

The Trouble is nothing to me; but I will not trouble this Lawyer, Agent, etc., till I hear from you that you wish me to do so. I suppose you are now away from Chelsea; I hope among your own old places in the North. For I think, and I find, that as one grows old one returns to one's old haunts. However, my letter will reach you sooner or later, I dare say: and, if one may judge from what has pa.s.sed, there will be no hurry in any future Decision of the 'Three Incomprehensibles.'

I have nothing to tell of myself; having been nowhere but to that Naseby.

I am among my old haunts: so have not to travel. But I shall be very glad to hear that you are the better for having done so; and remain your ancient Bedesman,

E. F. G.

_From T. Carlyle_.

THE HILL, DUMFRIES, N.B.

13 _Sep._, 1873.

DEAR FITZGERALD,

There is something at once pathetic and ridiculous and altogether miserable and contemptible in the fact you at last announce that by one caprice and another of human folly perversity and general length of ear, our poor little enterprize is definitively forbidden to us. Alas, our poor little 'inscription,' so far as I remember it, was not more criminal than that of a number on a milestone; in fact the whole adventure was like that of setting up an authentic _milestone_ in a tract of country (spiritual and physical) mournfully in want of measurement; that was _our_ highly innocent offer had the unfortunate Rulers of the Element in that quarter been able to perceive it at all! Well; since they haven't, one thing at least is clear, that our attempt is finished, and that from this hour we will devoutly give it up. That of shifting the now existing pyramid from Naseby village and rebuilding it on Broadmoor seems to me entirely inadmissible;--and in fact unless _you_ yourself should resolve, which I don't counsel, on marking, by way of foot-note, on the now existing pyramid, accurately how many yards off and in what direction the real battle ground lies from it, there is nothing visible to me which can without ridiculous impropriety be done.

The trouble and bother you have had with all this, which I know are very great, cannot be repaid you, dear old friend, except by my pious thankfulness, which I can well a.s.sure you shall not be wanting. But actual _money_, much or little, which the surrounding blockheads connected with this matter have first and last cost you, this I do request that you will accurately sum up that I may pay the half of it, as is my clear debt and right. This I do still expect from you; after which _Finis_ upon this matter for ever and a day. . . .

Good be ever with you, dear FitzGerald, I am and remain Yours truly (_Signed_) T. CARLYLE.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

[16 _Dec._ 1873.]

. . . What do you think I am reading? Voltaire's 'Pucelle': the Epic he was fitted for. It is poor in Invention, I think: but wonderful for easy Wit, and the Verse much more agreeable to me than the regularly rhymed Alexandrines. I think Byron was indebted to it in his Vision of Judgment, and Juan: his best works. There are fine things too: as when Grisbourdon suddenly slain tells his Story to the Devils in h.e.l.l where he unexpectedly makes his Appearance,

Et tout l'Enfer en rit d'a.s.sez bon coeur.

This is nearer the Sublime, I fancy, than anything in the Henriade. And one Canto ends:

J'ai dans mon temps possede des maitresses, Et j'aime encore a retrouver mon coeur--

is very pretty in the old Sinner. . . .

I am engaged in preparing to depart from these dear Rooms where I have been thirteen years, and don't know yet where I am going. {169}

_To John Allen_.

GRANGE FARM: WOODBRIDGE _Febr_: 21/74.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

While I was reading a volume of Ste. Beuve at Lowestoft a Fortnight ago, I wondered if you got on with him; j'avais envie de vous ecrire une pet.i.te Lettre a ce sujet: but I let it go by. Now your Letter comes; and I will write: only a little about S. B. however, only that: the Volume I had with me was vol. III. of my Edition (I don't know if yours is the same), and I thought you [would] like _all_ of three Causeries in it: Rousseau, Frederick the Great, and Daguesseau: the rest you might not so much care for: nor I neither.

Hare's Spain was agreeable to hear read: I have forgot all about it. His 'Memorials' were insufferably tiresome to me. You don't speak of Tichborne, which I never tire of: only wondering that the Lord Chief Justice sets so much Brains to work against so foolish a Bird. {170} The Spectator on Carlyle is very good, I think. As to Politics I scarce meddle with them. I have been glad to revert to Don Quixote, which I read easily enough in the Spanish: it is so delightful that I don't grudge looking into a Dictionary for the words I forget. It won't do in English; or _has not done_ as yet: the English colloquial is not the Spanish do. It struck me oddly that--of all things in the world!--Sir Thomas Browne's Language might suit.

They now sell at the Railway Stalls Milnes' Life of Keats for half a crown, as well worth the money as any Book. I would send you a Copy if you liked: as I bought three or four to give away.

You may see that I have changed my Address: obliged to leave the Lodging where I had been thirteen years: and to come here to my own house, while another Lodging is getting ready, which I doubt I shall not inhabit, as it will entail Housekeeping on me. But I like to keep my house for my Nieces: it is not my fault they do not make it their home.

Ever yours, E. F. G.

_To S. Laurence_.

GRANGE FARM, WOODBRIDGE.

_February_ 26/74.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . I am not very solicitous about the Likeness {171} as I might be of some dear Friend; but I was willing to have a Portrait of the Poet whom I am afraid I read more than any other of late and with whose Family (as you know) I am kindly connected. The other Portrait, which you wanted to see, and I hope have not seen, is by Phillips; and just represents what I least wanted, Crabbe's company look; whereas Pickersgill represents the Thinker. So I fancy, at least.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.

[_July_ 4/74.]

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . I am (for a wonder) going out on a few days' visit. . . . And, once out, I meditate a run to Edinburgh, only to see where Sir Walter Scott lived and wrote about. But as I have meditated this great Enterprize for these thirty years, it may perhaps now end again in meditation only. . . .

I am just finishing Forster's d.i.c.kens: very good, I think: only, he has no very nice perception of Character, I think, or chooses not to let his readers into it. But there is enough to show that d.i.c.kens was a very n.o.ble fellow as well as a very wonderful one. . . . I, for one, worship d.i.c.kens, in spite of Carlyle and the Critics: and wish to see his Gadshill as I wished to see Shakespeare's Stratford and Scott's Abbotsford. One must love the Man for that.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.

_July_ 23, [1874].

But I did get to Abbotsford, and was rejoiced to find it was not at all c.o.c.kney, not a Castle, but only in the half-castellated style of heaps of other houses in Scotland; the Grounds simply and broadly laid out before the windows, down to a field, down to the Tweed, with the woods which he left so little, now well aloft and flourishing, and I was glad. I could not find my way to Maida's Grave in the Garden, with its false Quant.i.ty,

Ad januam Domini, etc.

which the Whigs and Critics taunted Scott with, and Lockhart had done it.

'You know I don't care a curse about what I write'; nor about what was imputed to him. In this, surely like Shakespeare: as also in other respects. I will worship him, in spite of Gurlyle, who sent me an ugly Autotype of Knox whom I was to worship instead.