Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume I Part 14

This is a sad farrago. Farewell.

_To Mrs. Charlesworth_.

[27 _April_, 1844?]

DEAR MRS. CHARLESWORTH,

Thank you over and over again for your letter. The last packet with sketches, etc., came all safe yesterday: and Carlyle is much pleased. We may say that Winsby Field is exhausted now. I should like however to have some sketch of the _relics_: the shape of the stone jugs: their size specified. The _helmet_ could be identified with the military fas.h.i.+on of some reign, as represented in prints, pictures, etc. But on the whole, the Allenbys have done capitally: and so have you: and so have I: and so I hope will Carlyle one day. He begs seriously to thank you and the Allenbys.

He was much distressed at Dr. Cookson's death: {161} and said how he should feel it when he came to think of it alone. Such is the man: he will call all the wits in London dilettanti, etc., but let a poor fellow die, and the Scotch heart flows forth in tears.

If any one can be found to do half as much for Gainsborough (which was an important battle) as has been done for Winsby, why, the Lincolns.h.i.+re campaign will be handsomely reported. At Grantham there is no such great interest, it appears.

I hope to get out of London to my poor old Boulge next week. I have seen all my friends so as to satisfy them that I am a duller country fellow than I was, and so we shall part without heart-breaking on either side.

It is partly one's fault not to be up to the London mark: but as there is a million of persons in the land fully up to it, one has the less call to repent in that respect. I confess that Mr. Reynolds is a better sight to me than old rouged Lady Morgan and all such.

I hope it will not be long before I visit you at Bramford. In the mean while believe me with best regards to all your family, yours ever very truly,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

19 CHARLOTTE ST., ETC.

_Sat.u.r.day_.

DEAR MRS. CHARLESWORTH,

I received your last packet just as I was setting off for Suffolk. I sent part of it to Carlyle. I enclose you what answer he makes me this morning. If Miss Charlesworth will take the pains to read his dispatch of Gainsboro' Fight, and can possibly rake out some information on the doubtful points, we shall help to lay that unquiet spirit of history which now disturbs Chelsea and its vicinity. Please to keep the paper safe: for it must have been a nuisance to write it.

I lament your renewed misfortune: but I cannot wonder at it. These things are not got rid of in a year. Isabella is in England with her husband, at Hastings.

Believe me yours ever thankfully,

E. FITZGERALD.

BOULGE, _May_ 7/44.

_To F. Tennyson_.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, _May_ 24/44.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

I think you mean never to write to me again. But you should, for I enjoy your letters much for years after I have got them. They tell me all I shall know of Italy, beside many other good things. I received one letter from you from Florence, and as you gave me no particular direction, I wrote to you at the Poste Restante there. I am now inditing this letter on the same venture. As my location is much more permanent, I command you to respond to me the very day you get this, warmed into such faint inspiration as my turnip radiance can kindle. You have seen a turnip lantern perhaps. Well, here I continue to exist: having broken my rural vegetation by one month in London, where I saw all the old faces--some only in pa.s.sing, however--saw as few sights as possible, leaving London two days before the Exhibition opened. This is not out of moroseness or love of singularity: but I really supposed there could be nothing new: and therefore the best way would [be] to come new to it oneself after three or four years absence. I see in Punch a humorous catalogue of supposed pictures; Prince Albert's favourite spaniel and bootjack, the Queen's Macaw with a m.u.f.fin, etc., by Landseer, etc., in which I recognize Thackeray's fancy. He is in full vigour play and pay in London, writing in a dozen reviews, and a score of newspapers: and while health lasts he sails before the wind. I have not heard of Alfred since March. . . . Spedding devotes his days to Lord Bacon in the British Museum: his nights to the usual profligacy. . . . My dear Frederic, you must select some of your poems and publish them: we want some bits of strong genuine imagination to help put to flight these--etc.

Publish a book of fragments, if nothing else but single lines, or else the whole poems. When will you come to England and do it? I dare say I should have stayed longer in London had you been there: but the wits were too much for me. Not Spedding, mind: who is a dear fellow. But one finds few in London _serious_ men: I mean _serious_ even in fun: with a true purpose and character whatsoever it may be. London melts away all individuality into a common lump of cleverness. I am amazed at the humour and worth and n.o.ble feeling in the country, however much railroads have mixed us up with metropolitan civilization. I can still find the heart of England beating healthily down here, though no one will believe it.

You know my way of life so well that I need not describe it to you, as it has undergone no change since I saw you. I read of mornings; the same old books over and over again, having no command of new ones: walk with my great black dog of an afternoon, and at evening sit with open windows, up to which China roses climb, with my pipe, while the blackbirds and thrushes begin to rustle bedwards in the garden, and the nightingale to have the neighbourhood to herself. We have had such a spring (bating the last ten days) as would have satisfied even you with warmth. And such verdure! white clouds moving over the new fledged tops of oak trees, and acres of gra.s.s striving with b.u.t.tercups. How old to tell of, how new to see! I believe that Leslie's Life of Constable (a very charming book) has given me a fresh love of Spring. Constable loved it above all seasons: he hated Autumn. When Sir G. Beaumont who was of the old cla.s.sical taste asked him if he did not find it difficult to place _his brown tree_ in his pictures, 'Not at all,' said C., 'I never put one in at all.' And when Sir George was crying up the tone of the old masters'

landscapes, and quoting an old violin as the proper tone of colour for a picture, Constable got up, took an old Cremona, and laid it down on the suns.h.i.+ny gra.s.s. You would like the book. In defiance of all this, I have hung my room with pictures, like very old fiddles indeed: but I agree with Sir George and Constable both. I like pictures that are not like nature. I can have nature better than any picture by looking out of my window. Yet I respect the man who tries to paint up to the freshness of earth and sky. Constable did not wholly achieve what he tried at: and perhaps the old masters chose a soberer scale of things as more within the compa.s.s of lead paint. To paint dew with lead!

I also plunge away at my old Handel of nights, and delight in the Allegro and Penseroso, full of pomp and fancy. What a pity Handel could not have written music to some great Masque, such as Ben Jonson or Milton would have written, if they had known of such a musician to write for.

_To S. Laurence_.

_May_, 1844.

DEAR LAURENCE,

I hope your business is settled by this time. I have seen praise of your picture in the Athenaeum, which quoted also the Chronicle's good opinion.

I am very glad of all this and I hope you will now set to work, and paint away with ease and confidence, forgetting that there is such a hue as bottle-green {166} in the universe (it was tastefully omitted from the rainbow, you see); and, in spite of what Moore says, paint English people in English atmospheres. Your Coningham was rather orange, wasn't he? But he was very good, I thought. Dress your ladies in cheerful dresses, not quite so vulgar as Chalon's. . . . I heard from my sister that you had finished Wilkinson to the perfect content of all: I had charged her particularly not to allow Mrs. W. to intercede for any smirk or alteration whatever.

My Venetian pictures look very grand on my walls, which previously had been papered with a still green (not bottled) on purpose to receive them.

On my table is a long necked bottle with three flowers just now in it . . .

a tuft of rhododendron, a tuft of scarlet geranium, and a tuft of white gilli-flower. Do you see these in your mind's eye? I wish you could come down here and refresh your sodden eyes with pure daylight, budding oak trees, and all the changes of sky and cloud. To live to make sonnets about these things, and doat upon them, is worse c.o.c.kneyism than rejoicing in the sound of Bow Bells for ever so long: but here one has them whether one will or no: and they are better than Lady Morgan and --- at a rout in Harley Street. Maclise is a handsome and fine fellow, I think: and Landseer is very good natured. I long for my old Alfred portrait here sometimes: but you had better keep it for the present. W.

Browne and Spedding are with me, good representatives one of the Vita Contemplativa, the other of the Vita Attiva. Spedding, if you tell him this, will not allow that he has not the elements of Action in him: nor has he not: nor has not the other those of contemplation: but each inclines a different way notwithstanding. I wish you and Spedding could come down here: though there is little to see, and to eat. When you write you must put _Woodbridge_ after Boulge. This letter of yours went to Bury St. Edmunds, for want of that. I hear Alfred Tennyson is in very good looks: mind and paint him _quickly_ when he comes to town; looking full at you.

_To Bernard Barton_.

19 CHARLOTTE ST., RATHBONE PLACE.

[1844.]

DEAR BARTON,

I got here but yesterday, from Bedford, where I left W. Browne in train to be married to a rich woman. When I heard that they could not have less than five hundred a year, I gave up all further interest in the matter: for I could not wish a reasonable couple more. W. B. may be spoilt if he grows rich: that is the only thing could spoil him. This time ten years I first went to ride and fish with him about the river Ouse--he was then 18--quick to love and quick to fight--full of confidence, generosity, and the glorious spirit of Youth. . . . I shall go to Church and hope he mayn't be defiled with the filthy pitch. Oh! if we could be brought to open our eyes. I repent in ashes for reviling the Daddy who wrote that Sonnet against d.a.m.ned Riches.

I heard a man preach at Bedford in a way that shook my soul. He described the crucifixion in a way that put the scene before his people--no fine words, and metaphors: but first one nail struck into one hand, and then into another, and one through both feet--the cross lifted up with G.o.d in man's image distended upon it. And the sneers of the priests below--'Look at that fellow there--look at him--he talked of saving others, etc.' And then the sun veiled his face in Blood, etc. I certainly have heard oratory now--of the Lord Chatham kind, only Matthews has more faith in Christ than Pitt in his majority. I was almost as much taken aback as the poor folks all about me who sobbed: and I hate this beastly London more and more. It stinks all through of churchyards and fish shops. As to pictures--well, never mind them. Farewell!

In the chapel opposite this house preaches Robert Montgomery!

19 CHARLOTTE ST., RATHBONE PLACE.

[13 _June_ 1844.]

Oh, Barton man! but I am grilled here. Oh for to sit upon the banks of the dear old Deben, with the worthy collier sloop going forth into the wide world as the sun sinks! I went all over Westminster Abbey yesterday with a party of country folks, to see the tombs. I did this to vindicate my way of life. Then we had a smoke with Carlyle and he very gloomy about the look of affairs, as usual. I am as tired this morning as if I'd walked fifty miles. Morton, fresh from Italy, agrees that London is not fit to live in. I can't write, nor can you read perhaps. So farewell. Early next week (unless I go round by Bedford) I expect to see good Woodbridge.

_To S. Laurence_.

BOULGE, _July_ 4/44.

DEAR LAURENCE,

I have but lately returned from Holbrook, where I saw your last portrait of Wilkinson. It is very capital, and gives my sister and all her neighbours great satisfaction. Jane indeed can talk of nothing else. I will say this however, with my usual ignorance and presumption, that I think the last day's sitting made it a little heavier than when I left it unfinished. Was it that the final glazing was somewhat too thick? I only mention this as a very slight defect, which I should not have observed had I not seen its penultimate state, and were I not a crotchetty stickler for lightness and ease. But I hope and trust you will now do all your future sketches in oil in the same way in which this is done: the long brush, the wholesome distance between canvas, painter, and sitter, and the few sittings. For myself, I have always been sure of this: but I can a.s.sert it to you with more confidence now, seeing that every one else seems to agree with me, if I may judge by the general approval of this specimen of the long brush. Besides, such a method must shorten your labour, preserve the freshness of your eye and spirit, and also ensure the similitude of the sitter to himself by the very speediness of the operation.

Mills was very much delighted at W.'s portrait. What will you say of me when I tell you that I did not encourage him to have his wife painted by you, as he seemed to purpose! You will pray heaven to deliver you from your friends. But notwithstanding this, I am sure this last portrait will bring you sitters from this part of the country. Perhaps you will not find it easy to forgive me this. I must tell you that Mrs. Mills, who sets up to be no judge of pictures, but who never is wrong about anything, instantly pitched on your portrait of Coningham as the best in the Exhibition, without seeing who it was by: and when she referred to the Catalogue, called out to her husband 'Why this is by E. F. G.'s friend Mr. Laurence.'

July 18. You see that all up to this was written a fortnight ago. I did not finish, for I did not know where to direct. And now I shall finish this portrait of my mind, you see, in a different aspect perhaps to that with which I set out. On looking over what I wrote however, I stick to all I said about the painting: as to Mrs. Mills, whose case seems to require some extenuation on my part, I fancied she was one of those persons' faces you would not take to: and so not succeed in. It is rather a pretty face, without meaning, it seems to me: and yet she has meaning in her. Mills has already had one portrait of her, which discontents all, and therefore it was I would not advise any painter who did not understand the art of _Millinery_ well: for if the face does not wholly content, there is the dress to fall back on. I fancy Chalon would do the business.

I hear you have been doing some brother or brother in law of Mrs.

Lumsden. Mind what I have told you. I may not be a good judge of painting, but I can judge of what people in general like. . . .

_To John Allen_.

(About July 16, 1844 J. A.)