Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) Part 36

Against black Pagans, Turks, and Saracens, And toiled with works of war, retired himself To Italy, and there, at _Venice_, gave His body to that _pleasant_ country's earth, And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ, Under whose colours he had fought so long.

Before I left Venice, I had returned to you your late, and Mr.

Hobhouse's sheets of _Juan_. Don't wait for further answers from me, but address yours to Venice, as usual. I know nothing of my own movements; I may return there in a few days, or not for some time.

All this depends on circ.u.mstances. I left Mr. Hoppner very well....

My daughter Allegra was well too, and is growing pretty; her hair is growing darker, and her eyes are blue. Her temper and her ways, Mr.

Hoppner says, are like mine, as well as her features: she will make, in that case, a manageable young lady.

I have never heard anything of Ada, the little Electra of my Mycenae.... But there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should not live to see it.... What a long letter I have scribbled!

PS. Here, as in Greece, they strew flowers on the tombs. I saw a quant.i.ty of rose-leaves, and entire roses, scattered over the graves at Ferrara. It has the most pleasing effect you can imagine.

TO THE SAME

_In rebellious mood_

Bologna, 24 _Aug_. 1819.

I wrote to you by last post, enclosing a buffooning letter for publication, addressed to the buffoon Roberts, who has thought proper to tie a canister to his own tail. It was written off-hand, and in the midst of circ.u.mstances not very favourable to facetiousness, so that there may, perhaps, be more bitterness than enough for that sort of small acid punch:--you will tell me. Keep the _anonymous_, in any case: it helps what fun there may be. But if the matter grow serious about _Don Juan_, and you feel _yourself_ in a sc.r.a.pe, or _me_ either, _own that I am the author. I_ will never _shrink_, and if _you_ do, I can always answer you in the question of Guatimozin to his minister--each being on his own coals.

I wish that I had been in better spirits; but I am out of sorts, out of nerves, and now and then (I begin to fear) out of my senses. All this Italy has done for me, and not England: I defy all you, and your climate to boot, to make me mad. But if ever I do really become a Bedlamite, and wear a strait waistcoat, let me be brought back among you: your people will then be proper company.

I a.s.sure you what I here say and feel has nothing to do with England, either in a literary or personal point of view. All my present pleasures or plagues are as Italian as the opera. And, after all, they are but trifles; for all this arises from my 'Dama's' being in the country for three days (at Capofiume). But as I could never live but for one human being at a time (and, I a.s.sure you, _that one_ has never been _myself_, as you may know by the consequences, for the _selfish_ are _successful_ in life), I feel alone and unhappy.

I have sent for my daughter from Venice, and I ride daily, and walk in a garden, under a purple canopy of grapes, and sit by a fountain, and talk with the gardener of his tools, which seem greater than Adam's, and with his wife, and with his son's wife, who is the youngest of the party, and, I think, talks best of the three. Then I revisit the Campo Santo, and my old friend, the s.e.xton, has two--but _one_ the prettiest daughter imaginable; and I amuse myself with contrasting her beautiful and innocent face of fifteen with the skulls with which he has peopled several cells, and particularly with that of one skull, dated 1766, which was once covered (the tradition goes) by the most lovely features of Bologna--n.o.ble and rich. When I look at these, and at this girl--when I think of what _they were_, and what she must be--why then, my dear Murray, I won't shock you by saying what I think. It is little matter what becomes of us 'bearded men', but I don't like the notion of a beautiful woman's lasting less than a beautiful tree--than her own picture--her own shadow, which won't change so to the sun as her face to the mirror. I must leave off, for my head aches consumedly. I have never been quite well since the night of the representation of Alfieri's _Mirra_, a fortnight ago.

To PERCY BYSSHE Sh.e.l.lEY

_A trio of poets_

Ravenna, 26 _April_, 1821.

The child continues doing well, and the accounts are regular and favourable. It is gratifying to me that you and Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley do not disapprove of the step which I have taken, which is merely temporary.

I am very sorry to hear what you say of Keats--is it _actually_ true?

I did not think criticism had been so killing. Though I differ from you essentially in your estimate of his performances, I so much abhor all unnecessary pain, that I would rather he had been seated on the highest peak of Parna.s.sus than have perished in such a manner. Poor fellow! though with such inordinate self-love he would probably have not been very happy. I read the review of _Endymion_ in the _Quarterly_. It was severe,--but surely not so severe as many reviews in that and other journals upon others.

I recollect the effect on me of the _Edinburgh_ on my first poem; it was rage, and resistance, and redress--but not despondency nor despair. I grant that those are not amiable feelings; but, in this world of bustle and broil, and especially in the career of writing, a man should calculate upon his powers of _resistance_ before he goes into the arena.

Expect not life from pain nor danger free, Nor deem the doom of man reserved for thee.

You know my opinion of _that second-hand_ school of poetry. You also know my high opinion of your own poetry,--because it is of _no_ school. I read _Cenci_--but, besides that I think the _subject_ essentially _un_ dramatic, I am not an admirer of our old dramatists, _as models_. I deny that the English have hitherto had a drama at all.

Your _Cenci_, however, was a work of power, and poetry. As to _my_ drama, pray revenge yourself upon it, by being as free as I have been with yours.

I have not yet got your _Prometheus_, which I long to see. I have heard nothing of mine, and do not know that it is yet published. I have published a pamphlet on the Pope controversy, which you will not like. Had I known that Keats was dead--or that he was alive and so sensitive--I should have omitted some remarks upon his poetry, to which I was provoked by his _attack_ upon _Pope_, and my disapprobation of _his own_ style of writing.

You want me to undertake a great poem--I have not the inclination nor the power. As I grow older, the indifference--_not_ to life, for we love it by instinct--but to the stimuli of life, increases. Besides, this late failure of the Italians has latterly disappointed me for many reasons,--some public, some personal. My respects to Mrs. S.

PS. Could not you and I contrive to meet this summer? Could not you take a run here _alone_?

To LADY BYRON

_A plain statement of facts_

Pisa, 17 _Nov_. 1821,

I have to acknowledge the receipt of 'Ada's hair', which is very soft and pretty, and nearly as dark already as mine was at twelve years old, if I may judge from what I recollect of some in Augusta's possession, taken at that age. But it don't curl,--perhaps from its being let grow.

I also thank you for the inscription of the date and name, and I will tell you why;--I believe that they are the only two or three words of your handwriting in my possession. For your letters I returned; and except the two words, or rather the one word, 'Household', written twice in an old account book, I have no other. I burnt your last note, for two reasons:--firstly, it was written in a style not very agreeable; and, secondly, I wished to take your word without doc.u.ments, which are the worldly resources of suspicious people.

I suppose that this note will reach you somewhere about Ada's birthday--the 10th of December, I believe. She will then be six, so that in about twelve more I shall have some chance of meeting her;--perhaps sooner, if I am obliged to go to England by business or otherwise. Recollect, however, one thing, either in distance or nearness;--every day which keeps us asunder should, after so long a period, rather soften our mutual feelings, which must always have one rallying-point as long as our child exists, which I presume we both hope will be long after either of her parents.

The time which has elapsed since the separation has been considerably more than the whole brief period of our union, and the not much longer one of our prior acquaintance. We both made a bitter mistake; but now it is over, and irrevocably so. For, at thirty-three on my part, and a few years less on yours, though it is no very extended period of life, still it is one when the habits and thought are generally so formed as to admit of no modification; and as we could not agree when younger, we should with difficulty do so now.

I say all this, because I own to you, that, notwithstanding everything, I considered our reunion as not impossible for more than a year after the separation;--but then I gave up the hope entirely and for ever. But this very impossibility of reunion seems to me at least a reason why, on all the few points of discussion which can arise between us, we should preserve the courtesies of life, and as much of its kindness as people who are never to meet may preserve perhaps more easily than nearer connexions. For my own part, I am violent, but not malignant; for only fresh provocations can awaken my resentments. To you, who are colder and more concentrated, I would just hint, that you may sometimes mistake the depth of a cold anger for dignity, and a worse feeling for duty. I a.s.sure you that I bear you _now_ (whatever I may have done) no resentment whatever. Remember, that _if you have injured me_ in aught, this forgiveness is something; and that, if I have _injured you_, it is something more still, if it be true, as the moralists say, that the most offending are the least forgiving.

Whether the offence has been solely on my side, or reciprocal, or on yours chiefly, I have ceased to reflect upon any but two things,--viz.

that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet again. I think if you also consider the two corresponding points with reference to myself, it will be better for all three.

To MR. BARFF

_Sympathy with the Greeks_

10 _March_, 1824.

Enclosed is an answer to Mr. Parruca's letter, and I hope that you will a.s.sure him from me, that I have done and am doing all I can to reunite the Greeks with the Greeks.

I am extremely obliged by your offer of your country-house (as for all other kindness) in case that my health should require my removal; but I cannot quit Greece while there is a chance of my being of any (even supposed) utility:--there is a stake worth millions such as I am, and while I can stand at all, I must stand by the cause. When I say this, I am at the same time aware of the difficulties and dissensions and defects of the Greeks themselves; but allowance must be made for them by all reasonable people.

My chief, indeed _nine-tenths_ of my expenses here are solely in advances to or on behalf of the Greeks, and objects connected with their independence.

[_Enclosure, translated_]

To S.R. PARRUCA