Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) Part 8

Well, but what I wrote about yesterday--a pa.s.sage about you yourself. I fancy that he and you were very unsympathetic: nay, you have told me of some of his Egotisms toward you, 'who had scarce learned the rudiments of your Profession' (as also he admits that he scarce had). But, however that may have been, his Diary records, 'Decr. 20 (1838) Went to Covent Garden Theatre: on my way continued the perusal of Mrs. Butler's Play, which is a work of uncommon power. Finished the reading of Mrs. Butler's Play, which is one of the most powerful of the modern Plays I have seen--most painful--almost shocking--but full of Power, Poetry and Pathos. She is one of the most remarkable women of the present Day.'

So you see that if he thought you deficient in the Art which you (like himself) had unwillingly to resort to, you were efficient in the far greater Art of supplying that material on which the Histrionic must depend. (N.B.--Which play of yours? Not surely the 'English Tragedy'

unless shown to him in MS.? {72b} Come: I have sent you my Translations: you should give me your Original Plays. When I get home, I will send you an old Scratch by Thackeray of yourself in Louisa of Savoy--shall I?)

On the whole, I find Macready (so far as I have gone) a just, generous, religious, and affectionate Man; on the whole, humble too! One is well content to a.s.sure oneself of this; but it is not worth spending 28_s._ upon.

Macready would have made a better Scholar--or Divine--than Actor, I think: a Gentleman he would have been in any calling, I believe, in spite of his Temper--which he acknowledges, laments, and apologizes for, on reflection.

Now, here is enough of my small writing for your reading. I have been able to read, and admire, some Corneille lately: as to Racine--'_Ce n'est pas mon homme_,' as Catharine of Russia said of him. Now I am at Madame de Sevigne's delightful Letters; I should like to send you a Bouquet of Extracts: but must have done now, being always yours

E. F.G.

XXIX.

LOWESTOFT: _May_ 16/75

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I have been wis.h.i.+ng to send you Carlyle's Norway Kings, and oh! such a delightful Paper of Spedding's on the Text of Richard III. {74} But I have waited till I should hear from you, knowing that you _will_ reply!

And not feeling sure, till I hear, whether you are not on your way to England Eastward ho!--even as I am now writing!--Or, I fancy--should you not be well? Anyhow, I shall wait till some authentic news of yourself comes to me. I should not mind sending you Carlyle--why, yes! I _will_ send him! But old Spedding--which is only a Proof--I won't send till I know that you are still where you were to receive it--Oh! such a piece of musical criticism! without the least pretence to being Musick: as dry as he can make it, in fact. But he does, with utmost politeness, smash the Cambridge Editors' Theory about the Quarto and Folio Text of R. III.--in a way that perhaps Mr. Furness might like to see.

Spedding says that Irving's Hamlet is simply--_hideous_--a strong expression for Spedding to use. But--(lest I should think his condemnation was only the Old Man's fault of depreciating all that is new), he extols Miss Ellen Terry's Portia as simply _a perfect Performance_: remembering (he says) all the while how fine was f.a.n.n.y Kemble's. Now, all this you shall read for yourself, when I have token of your Whereabout, and Howabout: for I will send you Spedding's Letter, as well as his Paper.

Spedding won't go and see Salvini's Oth.e.l.lo, because he does not know Italian, and also because he hears that Salvini's is a different Conception of Oth.e.l.lo from Shakespeare's. I can't understand either reason; but Spedding is (as Carlyle {75a} wrote me of his Bacon) the 'invincible, and victorious.' At any rate, I can't beat him. Irving I never could believe in as Hamlet, after seeing part of his famous Performance of a Melodrama called 'The Bells' three or four years ago.

But the Pollocks, and a large World beside, think him a Prodigy--whom Spedding thinks--a Monster! To this Complexion is the English Drama come.

I wonder if your American Winter has transformed itself to such a sudden Summer as here in Old England. I returned to my Woodbridge three weeks ago: not a leaf on the Trees: in ten days they were all green, and people--perspiring, I suppose one must say. Now again, while the Sun is quite as Hot, the Wind has swerved round to the East--so as one broils on one side and freezes on t'other--and I--the Great Twalmley {75b}--am keeping indoors from an Intimation of Bronchitis. I think it is time for one to leave the Stage oneself.

I heard from Mowbray Donne some little while ago; as he said nothing (I think) of his Father, I conclude that there is nothing worse of him to be said. He (the Father) has a Review of Macready--laudatory, I suppose--in the Edinburgh, and _Mr._ Helen Faucit (Martin) as injurious a one in the Quarterly: the reason of the latter being (it is supposed) because _Mrs._ H. F. is not noticed except just by name. To this Complexion also!

Ever yours, E. F.G.

Since writing as above, your Letter comes; as you do not speak of moving, I shall send Spedding and Carlyle by Post to you, in spite of the Loss of Income you tell me of which would (I doubt) close up _my_ thoughts some while from such speculations. I do not think _you_ will take trouble so to heart. Keep Spedding for me: Carlyle I don't want again. Tired as you--and I--are of Shakespeare Commentaries, you will like this.

x.x.x.

LOWESTOFT: _July_ 22/75.

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I have abstained from writing since you wrote me how busily your Pen was employed for the Press: I wished more than ever to spare you the trouble of answering me--which I knew you would not forgo. And now you will feel called upon, I suppose, though I would fain spare you.

Though I date from this place still, I have been away from it at my own Woodbridge house for two months and more; only returning here indeed to help make a better Holiday for a poor Lad who is shut up in a London Office while his Heart is all for Out-of-Door, Country, Sea, etc. We have been having wretched Holyday weather, to be sure: rain, mist, and wind; St. Swithin at his worst: but all better than the hateful London Office--to which he must return the day after To-morrow, poor Fellow!

I suppose you will see--if you have not yet seen--Tennyson's Q. Mary. I don't know what to say about it; but the Times says it is the finest Play since Shakespeare; and the Spectator that it is superior to Henry VIII.

Pray do you say something of it, when you write:--for I think you must have read it before that time comes.

Then Spedding has written a delicious Paper in Fraser about the late Representation of The Merchant of Venice, and his E. Terry's perfect personation of his perfect Portia. I cannot agree with him in all he says--for one thing, I must think that Portia made 'a hole in her manners' when she left Antonio trembling for his Life while she all the while [knew] how to defeat the Jew by that knowledge of the Venetian Law which (oddly enough) the Doge knew nothing about. Then Spedding thinks that Shylock has been so pushed forward ever since Macklin's time as to preponderate over all the rest in a way that Shakespeare never intended.

{77} But, if Shakespeare did not intend this, he certainly erred in devoting so much of his most careful and most powerful writing to a Character which he meant to be subsidiary, and not princ.i.p.al. But Spedding is more likely to be right than I: right or wrong he pleads his cause as no one else can. His Paper is in this July number of Fraser: I would send it you if you had more time for reading than your last Letter speaks of; I _will_ send if you wish.

I have not heard of Donne lately: he had been staying at Lincoln with Blakesley, the Dean: and is now, I suppose, at Chislehurst, where he took a house for a month.

And I am yours ever and sincerely E. F.G.

x.x.xI.

WOODBRIDGE, _Aug._ 24, [1875.]

Now, my dear Mrs. Kemble, you will have to call me 'a Good Creature,' as I have found out a Copy of your capital Paper, {78} and herewith post it to you. Had I not found this Copy (which Smith & Elder politely found for me) I should have sent you one of my own, cut out from a Volume of Essays by other friends, Spedding, etc., on condition that you should send me a Copy of such Reprint as you may make of it in America. It is extremely interesting; and I always think that your Theory of the Intuitive _versus_ the a.n.a.lytical and Philosophical applies to the other Arts as well as that of the Drama. Mozart couldn't tell how he made a Tune; even a whole Symphony, he said, unrolled itself out of a leading idea by no logical process. Keats said that no Poetry was worth [anything] unless it came spontaneously as Leaves to a Tree, etc. {79} I have no faith in your Works of Art done on Theory and Principle, like Wordsworth, Wagner, Holman Hunt, etc.

But, one thing you can do on Theory, and carry it well into Practice: which is--to write your Letter on Paper which does not let the Ink through, so that (according to your mode of paging) your last Letter was crossed: I really thought it so at first, and really had very hard work to make it out--some parts indeed still defying my Eyes. What I read of your remarks on Portia, etc., is so good that I wish to keep it: but still I think I shall enclose you a sc.r.a.p to justify my complaint. It was almost by Intuition, not on Theory, that I deciphered what I did.

Pray you amend this. My MS. is bad enough, and on that very account I would avoid diaphanous Paper. Are you not ashamed?

I shall send you Spedding's beautiful Paper on the Merchant of Venice {80} if I can lay hands on it: but at present my own room is given up to a fourth Niece (Angel that I am!) You would see that S[pedding] agrees with you about Portia, and in a way that I am sure must please you. But (so far as I can decipher that fatal Letter) you say nothing at all to me of the other Spedding Paper I sent to you (about the Cambridge Editors, etc.), which I must have back again indeed, unless you wish to keep it, and leave me to beg another Copy. Which to be sure I can do, and will, if your heart is set upon it--which I suppose it is not at all.

I have not heard of Donne for so long a time, that I am uneasy, and have written to Mowbray to hear. M[owbray] perhaps is out on his Holyday, else I think he would have replied at once. And 'no news may be the Good News.'

I have no news to tell of myself; I am much as I have been for the last four months: which is, a little ricketty. But I get out in my Boat on the River three or four hours a Day when possible, and am now as ever yours sincerely

E. F.G.

x.x.xII.

[_Oct._ 4, 1875]

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I duly received your last legible Letter, and Spedding's Paper: for both of which all Thanks. But you must do something more for me. I see by Notes and Queries that you are contributing Recollections to some American Magazine; I want you to tell me where I can get this, with all the back Numbers in which you have written.

I return the expected favour (Hibernice) with the enclosed Prints, one of which is rather a Curiosity: that of Mrs. Siddons by Lawrence when he was _aetat._ 13. The other, done from a Cast of herself by herself, is only remarkable as being almost a Copy of this early Lawrence--at least, in Att.i.tude, if not in Expression. I dare say you have seen the Cast itself. And now for a Story better than either Print: a story to which Mrs. Siddons' glorious name leads me, burlesque as it is.

You may know there is a French Opera of Macbeth--by Chelard. This was being played at the Dublin Theatre--Viardot, I think, the Heroine.