Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume I Part 17

On Thursday I move towards Norwich; where I see Donne, hear some music, and go to Geldestone. But before this month is over, I hope to be at my Cottage again, where I have my garden to drain, and other important matters.

Do you know I have been greatly tempted to move my quarters from Boulge to this country; so exact a place have I found to suit me. But we will wait.

My n.o.ble Preacher Matthews {197} is dead! He had a long cold, which he promoted in all ways of baptizing, watching late and early, travelling in rain, etc., he got worse; but would send for no Doctor, the Lord would raise him up if it were good for him, etc. Last Monday this cold broke out into Typhus fever; and on Thursday he died! I had been out to Naseby for three days, and as I returned on Friday at dusk I saw a coffin carrying down the street: I knew whose it must be. I would have given a great deal to save his life; which might certainly have been saved with common precaution. He died in perfect peace, approving all the principles of his life to be genuine. I am going this afternoon to attend his Funeral. . . . Cromwell is to be out in October; and Laurence has been sent to Archdeacon Berners's to make a copy of Oliver's miniature.

_To W. B. Donne_.

GELDESTONE, _Septr_. 23/45.

DEAR DONNE,

I left one volume of your Swift with good Mrs. Johnson at Norwich; and the other with your Mother at Wors.h.i.+p's house in Yarmouth. So I trust you are in a fair way to get them again.

I sat through one Concert and one Oratorio; {198} and on Thursday went to Yarmouth, which I took a great fancy to. The sands were very good, I a.s.sure you; and then when one is weary of the sea, there is the good old town to fall back on. There is Mr. Gooch the Bookseller too; he and his books a great acquisition. I called on Dawson Turner, and in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time saw several books of coats of Arms, Churches, Refectories, pyxes, cerements, etc.

Manage to read De Quincey's Article on Wordsworth in the last number of Tail's Magazine. It is very incomplete, like all De Quincey's things, but has grand things in it; grand sounds of sense if nothing else. I am glad to see he sets up Daddy's early Ballads against the Excursion and other Sermons.

I intend to leave this place the end of this week; and go, I suppose, to Boulge; though I have yet a hankering to get a week by the sea, either at Yarmouth or Southwold. . . . Don't you think 3 pounds very cheap for a fine copy of Rushworth's Collections, eight volumes folio? I was tempted to buy it if only for the bargain; for I only want to look through it once.

_To F. Tennyson_.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE.

[After _Sept_. 1845.]

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

I do beg and desire that when you next begin a letter to me you will not tear it up (as you say you have done some) because of its exhibiting a joviality insulting to any dumps of mine. What was I complaining of so?

I forget all about it. It seems to me to be two years since I heard from you. If you had said that my answers to your letters were so barren as to dishearten you from deserving any more I should understand that very well. But if you really did accomplish any letters and not send them, I say, a fico for thy friends.h.i.+p! Do so no more. . . .

The finale of C minor is very n.o.ble. I heard it twice at Jullien's. On the whole I like to hear Mozart better; Beethoven is gloomy. Besides incontestably Mozart is the purest _musician_; Beethoven would have been Poet or Painter as well, for he had a great deep Soul and Imagination. I do not think it is reported that he showed any very early predilection for Music; Mozart, we know, did. They say Holmes has published a very good life of M. Only think of the poor fellow not being able to sell his music latterly, getting out of fas.h.i.+on, so taking to drink . . . and enact Harlequin at Masquerades! When I heard Handel's Alexander's Feast at Norwich this Autumn I wondered; but when directly afterward they played Mozart's G minor Symphony, it seemed as if I had pa.s.sed out of a land of savages into sweet civilized Life.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE.

[? _March_ 1846.]

DEAR FREDERIC,

I have been wondering some time if you were gone abroad again or not. I go to London toward the end of April: can't you manage to wait in England? I suppose you will only be a day or two in London before you put foot in rail, coach, or on steamer for the Continent; and I excuse my own dastardly inactivity in not going up to meet you and shake hands with you before you start, by my old excuse; that had you but let me know of your coming to England, I should have seen you. This is no excuse; but don't put me out of your books as a frog-hearted wretch. I believe that I, as men usually do, grow more callous and indifferent daily: but I am sure I would as soon travel to see your face, and my dear old Alfred's, as any one's. But beside my inactivity, I have a sort of horror of plunging into London; which, except for a s.h.i.+lling concert, and a peep at the pictures, is desperate to me. This is my fault, not London's: I know it is a la.s.situde and weakness of soul that no more loves the ceaseless collision of Beaux Esprits, than my obese ill-jointed carcase loves bundling about in coaches and steamers. And, as you say, the dirt, both of earth and atmosphere, in London, is a real bore. But enough of that.

It is sufficient that it is more pleasant to me to sit in a clean room, with a clear air outside, and hedges just coming into leaf, rather than in the Tavistock or an upper floor of Charlotte Street. And how much better one's books read in country stillness, than amid the noise of wheels, crowds, etc., or after hearing them eternally discussed by no less active tongues! In the mean time, we of Woodbridge are not without our luxuries; I enclose you a play-bill just received; _I_ being one of the distinguished Members who have bespoken the play. We sha'n't all sit together in a Box, but go dispersed about the house with our wives and daughters.

White {201} I remember very well. His Tragedy I have seen advertised. He used to write good humorous things in Blackwood: among them, Hints to Authors, which are worth looking at when you get hold of an odd volume of Blackwood. I have got Thackeray's last book, {202} but have not yet been able to read it. Has any one heard of old Morton, and of his arrival at Stamboul, as he called it? . . .

Now it is a fact that as I lay in bed this morning, before I got your letter, I thought to myself I would write to Alfred. For he sent me a very kind letter two months ago; and I should have written to him before, but that I have looked in vain for a paper I wanted to send him. But, find it or not (and it is of no consequence) I will write to him very shortly. You do not mention if he be with you at Cheltenham. He spoke to me of being ill. . . . I think you should publish some of your poems.

They must be admired and liked; and you would gain a place to which you are ent.i.tled, and which it offends no man to hold. I should like much to see them again. The whole _subjective_ scheme (d.a.m.n the word!) of the poems I did not like; but that is quite a genuine mould of your soul; and there are heaps of single lines, couplets, and stanzas, which would consume all the ---, ---, and ---, like stubble. N.B. An acute man would ask how I should like _you_, if I do not like your own genuine reflex of _you_? But a less acute, and an acuter, man, will feel or see the difference.

So here is a good sheet full; and at all events, if I am too lazy to travel to you, I am not too lazy to write such a letter as few of one's contemporaries will now take the pains to write to one. I beg you to remember me to all your n.o.ble family, and believe me yours ever,

EDW. FITZGERALD.

_To W. B. Donne_.

BOULGE, Sunday, _March_ 8/46.

MY DEAR DONNE,

I was very sorry you did not come to us at Geldestone. I have been home now near a fortnight; else I would gladly have gone to Mattishall with you yesterday. This very Sunday, on which I now hear the Grundisburgh bells as I write, I might have been filled with the bread of Life from Padden's hands.

Our friend Barton is certainly one of the most remarkable men of the Age.

After writing to Peel two separate Sonnets, begging him to retire to Tamworth and not alter the Corn Laws, he finally sends him another letter to ask if he will be present at Lord Northampton's soiree next Sat.u.r.day; Barton himself being about to go to that soiree, and wis.h.i.+ng to see the Premier. On which Peel writes him a most good humoured note asking him to dine at Whitehall Gardens on that same Sat.u.r.day! And the good Barton is going up for that purpose. {203} All this is great simplicity in Barton: and really announces an internal Faith that is creditable to this Age, and almost unexpected in it. I had advised him not to send Peel many more Sonnets till the Corn Law was pa.s.sed; the Indian war arranged; and Oregon settled: but Barton sees no dragon in the way.

We have actors now at Woodbridge. A Mr. Gill who was low comedian in the Norwich now manages a troop of his own here. His wife was a Miss Vining; she is a pretty woman, and a lively pleasant actress, not vulgar. I have been to see some of the old comedies with great pleasure; and last night I sat in a pigeon-hole with David Fisher and 'revolved many memories' of old days and old plays. I don't think he drinks so much now: but he looks all ready to blossom out into carbuncles.

We all liked your Athenaeum address much; {204a} which I believe I told you before. I have heard nothing of books or friends. I shall hope to see you some time this spring.

_To E. B. Cowell_. {204b}

[1846]

DEAR COWELL,

I am glad you have bought Spinoza. I am in no sort of hurry for him: you may keep him a year if you like. I shall perhaps never read him now I have him. Thank you for the trouble you took. . . .

Your Hafiz is fine: and his tavern world is a sad and just idea. I did not send that vine leaf {205a} to A. T. but I have not forgotten it. It sticks in my mind.

"In Time's fleeting river The image of that little vine-leaf lay, Immovably unquiet--and for ever It trembles--but it cannot pa.s.s away." {205b}

I have read nothing you would care for since I saw you. It would be a good work to give us some of the good things of Hafiz and the Persians; of bulbuls and ghuls we have had enough.

Come and bring over Spinoza; or I must go and bring him.

_From T. Carlyle_.

CHELSEA, 8 _April_, 1846.

DEAR FITZGERALD,

I have now put the little sketch of Naseby Fight, {205c} rough and ready, into its place in the Appendix: it really does pretty well, when it is fairly written out; had I had time for that, it might almost have gone into the Text,--and perhaps shall, if ever I live to see another edition.

Naseby Field will then have its due honour;--only you should actually raise a stone over that Grave that you opened (I will give you the _s.h.i.+nbone_ back and keep the _teeth_): you really should, with a simple Inscription saying merely in business English: 'Here, as proved by strict and not too impious examination, lie the slain of the Battle of Naseby.

Dig no farther. E. FitzGerald,--1843.' By the bye, was it 1843 or 2; when we did those Naseby feats? tell me, for I want to mark that in the Book. And so here is your Paper again, since at any rate you wish to keep that. I am serious about the stone!

_To W. B. Donne_.

BOULGE HALL, WOODBRIDGE.

[1846.]

MY DEAR DONNE,

I don't know which of us is most to blame for this long gulph of silence.

Probably I; who have least to do. I have been for two months to London; where (had I thought it of any use) I should have written to try and get you up for a few days; as I had a convenient lodging, and many beside myself would have been glad to see you.