Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume II Part 26

Early he rose, and look'd with many a sigh, On the red Light that fill'd the Eastern sky, etc.

Where, as he says, the Decay and gloom of Nature seem reflected in--nay, as it were, to take a reflection from--the Hero's troubled Soul. In the Autumn Scene which Mr. Woodberry quotes, {282} and contrasts with those of other more imaginative Poets, would not a more imaginative representation of the scene have been out of character with the English Country Squire who sees and reflects on it? As would have been more evident if Mr. W. had quoted a line or two further--

While the dead foliage dropt from loftier trees The Squire beheld not with his wonted ease, But to his own reflections made reply, And said aloud--'Yes, doubtless we must die.'

[Greek text]--

This Dramatic Picture touches me more than Mr. Arnold.

One thing more I will say, that I do not know where old Wordsworth condemned Crabbe as un-poetical (except in the truly 'priggish' candle case) though I doubt not that Mr. Woodberry does know. We all know that of Crabbe's 'Village' one pa.s.sage was one of the first that struck young Wordsworth: and when Crabbe's son was editing his Father's Poems in 1834, old Wordsworth wrote to him that, because of their combined Truth and Poetry, those Poems would last as long at least as any that had been written since, including Wordsworth's own. And Wordsworth was too honest, as well as too exclusive, to write so much even to a Son of the dead Poet, without meaning all he said.

I should not have written all this were it not that I think so much of Mr. Woodberry's Paper; but I doubt I could not persuade him to think more of my old Man than he sees good to think for himself. I rejoice that he thinks even so well of the Poet: even if his modified Praise does not induce others to try and think likewise. The verses he quotes--

Where is that virtue which the generous boy, etc. {283}

made my heart glow--yes, even out at my Eyes--though so familiar to me.

Only in my private Copy, instead of

When Vice had triumph--_who his tear bestow'd_ On injured merit--

in place of that '_bestowed Tear_,' I cannot help reading

When Vice and Insolence in triumph rode, etc.

which is, of course, only for myself, and you, it seems: for I never mentioned that, and some scores of such impudencies.

_To R. C. Trench_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.

_May_ 9/80.

MY DEAR LORD,

You are old enough, like myself, to remember People reading and talking of Crabbe. I know not if you did so yourself; but you know that no one, unless as old as ourselves, does so now. As he has always been one of my Apollos, in spite of so many a cracked string, I wanted to get a few others to listen a little as I did; and so printed the Volume which I send you: printed it, not by way of improving, or superseding, the original, but to entice some to read the original in all its length, and (one must say) uncouth and wearisome '_longueurs_' and want of what is now called 'Art.' These Tales are perhaps as open to that charge as any of his; and, moreover, not princ.i.p.ally made up of that 'sternest' stuff which Byron celebrated as being most characteristic of him. When writing these Tales, the Poet had reached his Grand Climacteric, and liked to look on somewhat of the sunnier side of things; more on the Comedy than the Tragedy of Human Life: and hence these Tales are, with all their faults, the one work of his which leaves me (ten years past my Grand Climacteric also) with a pleasant Impression. So I tried to make others think; but I was told by Friends whose Judgment I could trust that no Public would listen to me. . . . And so I paid for my printing, and kept my Book to be given away to some few as old as myself, and brought up in somewhat of another Fashion than what now reigns. And so I now take heart to send it to you whose Poems and Writings prove that you belong to another, and, as I think, far better School, whether you care for Crabbe or not. I dare say you will feel bound to acknowledge the Book; but pray do so, if at all, by a simple acknowledgment of its receipt; I mean, so far as I am concerned in it: any word about Crabbe I shall be very glad to have if you care to write it; but I always maintain it best to say nothing, unless to find fault, with what is sent to one in this Book Line. And so to be done by.

_To Lord Houghton_. {285a}

WOODBRIDGE. _May_ 10_th_ 1880. {285b}

DEAR LORD HOUGHTON,

I think I have sent you a yearly letter of some sort or other for several years, so it has come upon me once again. I have nothing to ask of you except how you are. I should just like to know that, including 'yours'

in you. Just a very few words will suffice, and I daresay you have no time for more. I have so much time that it is evident I have nothing to tell, except that I have just entered upon a military career in so far as having become much interested in the battle of Waterloo, which I just remember a year after it was fought, when a solemn anniversary took place in a neighbouring parish where I was born, and the village carpenter came to my father to borrow a pair of Wellington boots for the lower limbs of a stuffed effigy of Buonaparte, which was hung on a gibbet, and guns and pistols were discharged at him, while we and the parson of the parish sat in a tent where we had beef and plum pudding and loyal toasts. To this hour I remember the smell of the new-cut hay in the meadow as we went in our best summer clothes to the ceremony. But now I am trying to understand whether the Guards or the 52nd Regiment deserved most credit for _ecraseing_ the Imperial Guard. {286} Here is a fine subject to address you on in the year 1880! Let it go for nothing; but just tell me how you are, and believe me, with some feeling of old, if not very close intimacy,

Yours sincerely, EDWARD FITZGERALD.

_To R. C. Trench_.

WOODBRIDGE. _May_ 18/80.

MY DEAR LORD,

I should have sent a line before now to thank you for your Calderon, had I not waited for some tidings of Donne from Mowbray, to whom I wrote some days ago. Not hearing from him, I suppose that he is out holyday-making somewhere; and therefore I will delay no longer.

You gave me your Calderon when it first came out, now some five and twenty years ago! I am always glad to know that it, or any of your writings, Prose or Verse, still flourish--which I think not many others of the kind will do after the Generation they are born in. I remember that you regretted having tried the asonante, and you now decide that Prose is best for English Translation. It may be so; in a great degree it must be so; but I think the experiment might yet be tried; namely, the short trochaic line, regardless of an a.s.sonant that will not speak in our thin vowels, but looped up at intervals with a strong monosyllabic rhyme, without which the English trochaic, a.s.sonant or not, is apt to fray out, or run away too watery-like without some such interruption; I mean when running to any considerable length, as I should think would be the case in Longfellow's Hiawatha; which I have not however seen since it appeared. Were I a dozen years younger I might try this with Calderon which I think I have found to succeed in some much shorter flights: but it is too late now, and you may think it well that it is so, with one who takes such great liberties with great Poets, himself pretending to be little more than a Versifier. I know not how it is with you who are really a Poet; and perhaps you may think I am as wrong about my trochee as about my iambic.

As for the modern Poetry, I have cared for none of the last thirty years, not even Tennyson, except in parts: pure, lofty and n.o.ble as he always is. Much less can I endure the _Gurgoyle_ school (I call it) begun, I suppose, by V. Hugo. . . . I do think you will find something better than that in the discarded Crabbe; whose writings Wordsworth (not given to compliment any man on any occasion) wrote to Crabbe's Son and Editor would continue as long at least as any Poetry written since, on account of its mingled 'Truth and Poetry.' And this includes Wordsworth's own.

So I must think my old Crabbe will come up again, though never to be popular.

This reminds me that just after I had written to you, Crabbe's Grandson, one of the best, most amiable, and most agreeable, of my friends, paid me a two days' Visit, and told me that a Nephew of yours was learning to farm with a Steward of Lord Walsingham at Merton in Norfolk, George Crabbe's own parish; I mean the living George, who spoke of your Nephew as a very gentlemanly young man indeed. I think _he_ will not gainsay what I write to you of his 'Parson.'

Your kind Letter has encouraged me to write all this. I felt some hesitation in addressing you again after an interval of some fifteen years, I think; and now I think I shall venture on writing to you once again before another year be gone, if we both live to see 1881 in, and out.

_To Charles Keene_.

WOODBRIDGE. _Sunday_.

MY DEAR KEENE,

Your Letter reached me yesterday when I was just finishing my Sevigne; I mean, reading it over. I have plenty of Notes for an Introductory Argument and List of Dramatis Personae, and a clue to the course of her Letters, so as to set a new reader off on the right tack, with some previous acquaintance with the People and Places she lives among. But I shrink from trying to put such Notes into shape; all writing always distasteful to me, and now very difficult, at seventy odd. Some such Introduction would be very useful: people being in general puzzled with Persons, Dates, etc., if not revolted by the eternal, though quite sincere, fuss about her Daughter, which the Eye gradually learns to skim over, and get to the fun. I felt a pang when arriving at--

Ci git Marie de Rabutin-Chantal Marquise de Sevigne Decedee le 18 Avril 1696

still to be found, I believe, on a Tablet in the Church of Grignan in Provence. I have been half minded to run over to Brittany just to see Les Rochers; but a French 'Murray' informed me that the present owner will not let it be seen by Strangers attracted by all those 'papera.s.ses,'

as he calls her Letters. Probably I should not have gone in any case when it came to proof. . . .

I did not forget Waterloo Day. Just as I and my Reader Boy were going into the Pantry for some _grub_, I thought of young Ensign Leeke, not 18, who carried the Colours of that famous 52nd which gave the 'coup de grace' to the Imperial Guard about 8 p.m. and then marched to Rossomme, seeing the Battle was won: and the Colour-serjeant found some bread in some French Soldier's knapsack, and brought a bit to his Ensign, 'You must want a bit, Sir, and I am sure you have deserved it.' That was a Compliment worth having!

I have, like you, always have, and from a Child had, a mysterious feeling about that 'Sizewell Gap.' There were reports of kegs of Hollands found under the Altar Cloth of Theberton Church near by: and we Children looked with awe on the 'Revenue Cutters' which pa.s.sed Aldbro', especially remembering one that went down with all hands, 'The Ranger.'

They have half spoilt Aldbro'; but now that Dunwich is crossed out from my visiting Book by the loss of that fine fellow, {290} whom this time of year especially reminds me of, I must return to Aldbro' now and then. Why can't you go there with me? I say no more of your coming here, for you ought to be a.s.sured that you would be welcome at any time; but I never do ask any busy, or otherwise engaged man to come. . . .

Here is a good Warwickshire word--'I _sheered_ my Eyes round the room.'

So good, that it explains itself.

WHITE LION, ALDEBURGH.

_July_ 7/80.

MY DEAR KEENE,

I shall worry you with Letters: here is one, however, which will call for no answer. It is written indeed in acknowledgement of your packet of Drawings, received by me yesterday at Woodbridge.

My rule concerning Books is, that Giver and Taker (each in his turn) should just say nothing. As I am not an Artist (though a very great Author) I will say that Four of your Drawings seemed capital to me: I cannot remember the Roundabouts which they initialed: except two: 1. The lazy idle Boy, which you note as not being used; I suppose, from not being considered sufficiently appropriate to the Essay (which I forget), but which I thought altogether good; and the old Man, with a look of Edwards! 2. Little Boy in Black, very pretty: 3. (I forget the Essay) People looking at Pictures: one of them, the princ.i.p.al, surely a recollection of W. M. T. himself. Then 4. There was a bawling Boy: subject forgotten. I looked at them many times through the forenoon: and came away here at 2 p.m.

I do not suppose, or wish, that you should make over to me all these Drawings, which I suppose are the originals from which the Wood was cut.

I say I do not 'wish,' because I am in my 72nd year: and I now give away rather than accept. But I wished for one at least of your hand; for its own sake, and as a remembrance, for what short time is left me, of one whom I can sincerely say I regard greatly for himself, as also for those Dunwich days in which I first became known to him. 'Viola qui est dit.'

And I wish you were here, not for your own sake, for it is dull enough.

No Sun, no Ship, a perpetual drizzle; and to me the melancholy of another Aldbro' of years gone by. Out of that window there 'le pet.i.t' Churchyard sketched Thorpe headland under an angry Sunset of Oct. 55 which heralded a memorable Gale that washed up a poor Woman with a Babe in her arms: and old Mitford had them buried with an inscribed Stone in the old Churchyard, peopled with dead 'Mariners'; and Inscription and Stone are now gone. Yesterday I got out in a Boat, drizzly as it was: but to-day there is too much Sea to put off. I am to be home by the week's end, if not before. The melancholy of Slaughden last night, with the same Sloops sticking sidelong in the mud as sixty years ago! And I the venerable Remembrancer.