Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) Part 6

'Before the Autumn closed, When Nature, ere her Winter Wars, reposed When from our Garden, as we looked above, No Cloud was seen; and nothing seem'd to move; When the wide River was a Silver Sheet, And upon Ocean slept the unanchor'd fleet: When the wing'd Insect settled in our Sight, And waited Wind to recommence her flight.'

And then, the Lady who believes her young Lover dead, and has vowed eternal Celibacy, sees him advancing, a portly, well to do, middle aged man: and swears she won't have him: and does have him, etc.

Which reminds me that I want you to tell me if people in America read Crabbe.

Farewell, dear Mrs. Kemble, for the present: always yours

E. F.G.

Have you the Robin in America? One is singing in the little bit Garden before me now.

XXII.

59 MONTAGU SQUARE, LONDON, W.

5 _Oct._/74.

MY DEAR FITZ,

It is very good of Mrs. Kemble to wish to tell me a story about Macready, and I shall be glad to know it.

Only--she should know that I am not writing his life--but editing his autobiographical reminiscences and diaries--and unless the anecdote could be introduced to explain or ill.u.s.trate these, it would not be serviceable for my present purpose.

But for its own sake and for Macready's I should like to be made acquainted with it.

I am making rapid way with the printing--in fact have got to the end of what will be Vol. I. in slip--so that I hope the work may be out by or soon after Christmas, if the engravings are also ready by that time.

It will be, I am sure, most interesting--and will surprise a great many people who did not at all know what Macready really was.

You last heard of me at Clovelly--where we spent a delightful month--more rain than was pleasant--but on the whole charming. I think I told you that Annie Thackeray was there for a night--and that we bound her over not to make the reading public too well acquainted with the place, which would not be good for it.

Since then--a fortnight at St. Julians--and the same time at Tunbridge Wells--I coming up to town three times a week--

Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis, {56}

and as there are other points of resemblance--so it is natural that the Gates of Justice should be open even during the Vacation--just a little ajar--with somebody to look after it, which somebody it has been my lot to be this year.

T. Wells was very pleasant--I like the old-fashioned place--and can always people the Pantiles (they call it the Parade now) with Dr. Johnson and the d.u.c.h.ess of Kingston, and the Bishop of Salisbury and the foreign baron, and the rest. {57a}

Miladi and Walter are at Paris for a few days. I am keeping house with Maurice--Yours, W. F. Pk.

We have J. S.'s {57b} seventh volume--and I am going to read it--but do not know where he is himself. I have not seen the 'white, round object--which is the head of him' for some time past--not since--July.--

XXIII.

WOODBRIDGE: _Novr._ 17/74.

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Your Letter about Megreedy, as Thackeray used to call him, is very interesting: I mean as connected with your Father also. Megreedy, with all his flat face, managed to look well as Virginius, didn't he? And, as I thought, well enough in Macbeth, except where he _would_ stand with his mouth open (after the Witches had hailed him), till I longed to pitch something into it out of the Pit, the dear old Pit. How came _he_ to play Henry IV. instead of your Father, in some Play I remember at C. G., though I did not see it? How well I remember your Father in Falconbridge (Young, K. John) as he looked sideway and upward before the Curtain fell on his Speech.

Then his Petruchio: I remember his looking up, as the curtain fell at the end, to where he knew that Henry had taken me--some very upper Box. And I remember too his standing with his Hunting spear, looking with pleasure at pretty Miss Foote as Rosalind. He played well what was natural to him: the gallant easy Gentleman--I thought his Charles Surface rather c.u.mbrous: but he was no longer young.

Mrs. Wister quite mistook the aim of my Query about Crabbe: I asked if he were read in America for the very reason that he is not read in England.

And in the October _Cornhill_ is an Article upon him (I hope not by Leslie Stephen), so ignorant and self-sufficient that I am more wroth than ever. The old Story of 'Pope in worsted stockings'--why I could cite whole Paragraphs of as fine texture as Moliere--incapable of Epigram, the Jackanapes says of 'our excellent Crabbe'--why I could find fifty of the very best Epigrams in five minutes. But now do you care for him? 'Honour bright?' as Sheridan used to say. I don't think I ever knew a Woman who did like C., except my Mother. What makes People (this stupid Reviewer among them) talk of worsted Stockings is because of having read only his earlier works: when he himself talked of his Muse as

'Muse of the Mad, the Foolish, and the Poor,' {59a}

the Borough: Parish Register, etc. But it is his Tales of the Hall which discover him in silk Stockings; the subjects, the Scenery, the Actors, of a more Comedy kind: with, I say, Paragraphs, and Pages, of fine Moliere style--only too often defaced by carelessness, disproportion, and 'longueurs' intolerable. I shall leave my Edition of Tales of the Hall, made legible by the help of Scissors and Gum, with a word or two of Prose to bridge over pages of stupid Verse. I don't wish to try and supersede the Original, but, by the Abstract, to get People to read the whole, and so learn (as in Clarissa) how to get it all under command. I even wish that some one in America would undertake to publish--in whole, or part by part--my 'Readings in Crabbe,' viz., Tales of the Hall: but no one would let me do the one thing I can do.

I think you must repent having encouraged such a terrible Correspondent as myself: you have the remedy in your own hands, you know. I find that the Bronchitis I had in Spring returns upon me now: so I have to give up my Night walks, and stalk up and down my own half-lighted Hall (like Chateaubriand's Father) {59b} till my Reader comes. Ever yours truly

E. F.G.

_Novr._ 21.

I detained this letter till I heard from Donne, who has been at Worthing, and writes cheerfully.

XXIV.

LOWESTOFT, _Febr._ 11/75.

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Will you please to thank Mr. Furness for the trouble he has taken about Crabbe. The American Publisher is like the English, it appears, and both may be quite right. They certainly are right in not accepting anything except on very good recommendation; and a Man's Fame is the best they can have for that purpose. I should not in the least be vext or even disappointed at any rejection of my Crabbe, but it is not worth further trouble to any party to send across the Atlantic what may, most probably, be returned with thanks and Compliments. And then Mr. Furness would feel bound to ask some other Publisher, and you to write to me about it. No, no! Thank him, if you please: you know I thank you: and then I will let the matter drop.

The Athenaeum told me there was a Paper by Carlyle in the January Fraser--on the old Norway Kings. Then People said it was not his: but his it is, surely enough (though I have no Authority but my own Judgment for saying so), and quite delightful. If missing something of his Prime, missing also all his former 'Sound and Fury,' etc., and as alive as ever.

I had thoughts of writing to him on the subject, but have not yet done so. But pray do you read the Papers: there is a continuation in the February Fraser: and 'to be continued' till ended, I suppose.

Your Photograph--Yes--I saw your Mother in it, as I saw her in you when you came to us in Woodbridge in 1852. That is, I saw her such as I had seen her in a little sixpenny Engraving in a 'Cottage Bonnet,' something such as you wore when you stept out of your Chaise at the Crown Inn.

My Mother always said that your Mother was by far the most witty, sensible, and agreeable Woman she knew. I remember one of the very few delightful Dinner parties I ever was at--in St. James' Place--(was it?) a Party of seven or eight, at a round Table, your Mother at the head of the Table, and Mrs. F. Kemble my next Neighbour. And really the (almost) only other pleasant Dinner was one you gave me and the Donnes in Savile Row, before going to see Wigan in 'Still Waters,' which you said was _your_ Play, in so far as you had suggested the Story from some French Novel.

I used to think what a deep current of melancholy was under your Mother's Humour. Not 'under,' neither: for it came up as naturally to the surface as her Humour. My mother always said that one great charm in her was, her Naturalness.

If you read to your Company, pray do you ever read _the_ Scene in the 'Spanish Tragedy' quoted in C. Lamb's Specimens--such a Scene as (not being in Verse, and quite familiar talk) I cannot help reading to my Guests--very few and far between--I mean by 'I,' one who has no gift at all for reading except the feeling of a few things: and I can't help stumbling upon Tears in this. n.o.body knows who wrote this one scene: it was thought Ben Jonson, who could no more have written it than I who read it: for what else of his is it like? Whereas, Webster one fancies might have done it. It is not likely that you do not know this wonderful bit: but, if you have it not by heart almost, look for it again at once, and make others do so by reading to them.

The enclosed Note from Mowbray D[onne] was the occasion of my writing thus directly to you. And yet I have spoken 'de omnibus other rebus'