Chapter IX: Part 9

. . . I have little to say about Carlyle, but that my heart did follow him to Ecclefechan, from which place I have, or had, several letters dated by him. I think it was fine that he should anticipate all Westminster Abbey honours, and determine to be laid where he was born, among his own kindred, and with all the simple and dignified obsequies of (I suppose) his own old Puritan Church. The Care of his Posthumous Memory will be left in good hands, I believe, if in those of Mr. Froude. His Niece, who had not answered a Note of Enquiry I wrote her some two months ago, answered it a few days after his Death: she had told him, she said, of my letter, and he said, 'You must answer that.'

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[_March_, 1881].

MY DEAR LADY,

It was very, very good and kind of you to write to me about Spedding. Yes: Aldis Wright had apprised me of the matter just after it happened, he happening to be in London at the time; and but two days after the accident heard that Spedding was quite calm, and even cheerful; only anxious that Wright himself should not be kept waiting for some communication that S. had promised him! Whether to live, or to die, he will be Socrates still.

Directly that I heard from Wright, I wrote to Mowbray Donne to send me just a Post Card daily, if he or his Wife could, with but one or two words on it, 'Better,' 'Less well,' or whatever it might be. This morning I hear that all is going on even better than could be expected, according to Miss Spedding. But I suppose the Crisis, which you tell me of, is not yet come; and I have always a terror of that French Adage, 'Monsieur se porte mal--Monsieur se porte mieux--Monsieur est--!' Ah, you know, or you guess, the rest.

My dear old Spedding, though I have not seen him these twenty years and more, and probably should never see again; but he lives, his old Self, in my heart of hearts; and all I hear of him does but embellish the recollection of him, if it could be embellished; for he is but the same that he was from a Boy, all that is best in Heart and Head, a man that would be incredible had one not known him.

I certainly should have gone up to London, even with Eyes that will scarce face the lamps of Woodbridge, not to see him, but to hear the first intelligence I could about him. But I rely on the Post-card for but a Night's delay. Laurence, Mowbray tells me, had been to see him, and found him as calm as had been reported by Wright. But the Doctors had said that he should be kept as quiet as possible.

I think, from what Mowbray also says, that you may have seen our other old friend Donne in somewhat worse plight than usual because of his being much shocked at this accident. He would feel it indeed!--as you do.

I had even thought of writing to tell you all this, but could not but suppose that you were more likely to know of it than myself; though sometimes one is greatly mistaken with these 'of course you knows, etc.' But you have known it all: and have very kindly written of it to me, whom you might also have supposed already informed of it: but you took the trouble to write, not relying on 'of course you know, etc.'

I have thought lately that I ought to make some enquiry about Arthur Malkin, who was always very kind to me. I had meant to send him my Crabbe, who was a great favourite of his Father's, 'an excellent Companion for Old Age' he told--Donne, I think. But I do not know if I ever did send him the Book; and now, judging by what you tell me, it is too late to do so, unless for Compliment.

The Sun, I see, has put my Fire out, for which I only thank him, and will go to look for him himself in my Garden, only with a Green Shade over my Eyes. I must get to London to see you before you move away to Leamington; when I can bear Sun or Lamp without odious blue glasses, etc. I dare to think those Eyes are better, though not Sun-proof.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE. _March_ 13, [1881].

MY DEAR NORTON,

I send you along with this Letter Part II. of OEdipus, with some corrections or suggestions which I have been obliged to make in Pencil, because of the Paper blotting under the lightest Penwork. And, along with it, a preliminary Letter, which I believe I told you of also, addressed to your Initial: for I did not wish to compromise you even with yourself in such a Business. I know you will like it probably more than it deserves, and excuse its inroads on the Original, though you may, and probably will, think I might better have left it alone, or followed it more faithfully. As to those Students you tell me of who are meditating, or by this time may have accomplisht, their Representation, they could only look on me as a Blasphemer. . . .

It seems almost wrong or unreasonable of me to be talking thus of myself and my little Doings, when not only Carlyle has departed from us, but one, not so illustrious in Genius, but certainly not less wise, my dear old Friend of sixty years, James Spedding: {302} whose name you will know as connected with Lord Bacon. To re-edit his Works, which did not want any such re-edition, and to vindicate his Character which could not be cleared, did this Spedding sacrifice forty years which he might well have given to accomplish much greater things; Shakespeare, for one. But Spedding had no sort of Ambition, and liked to be kept at one long work which he knew would not glorify himself. He was the wisest man I have known: not the less so for plenty of the Boy in him; a great sense of Humour, a Socrates in Life and in Death, which he faced with all Serenity so long as Consciousness lasted. I suppose something of him will reach America, I mean, of his Death, run over by a Cab and dying in St. George's Hospital to which he was taken, and from which he could not be removed home alive. I believe that had Carlyle been alive, and but as well as he was three months ago, he would have insisted on being carried to the Hospital to see his Friend, whom he respected as he did few others. I have just got the Carlyle Reminiscences, which will take me some little time to read, impatient as I may be to read them. What I have read is of a stuff we can scarce find in any other Autobiographer: whether his Editor Froude has done quite well in publishing them as they are, and so soon, is another matter. Carlyle's Niece thinks, not quite. She sent me a Pipe her Uncle had used, for Memorial. I had asked her for the Bowl, and an Inch of stem, of one of the Clay Pipes such as I had smoked with him under that little old Pear Tree in his Chelsea garden many an Evening. But she sent me a small Meerschaum which Lady Ashburton had given him, and which he used when from home.

_To S. Laurence_.

_March_ 13/81.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

It was very very good of you to think of writing to me at all on this occasion: {303} much more, writing to me so fully, almost more fully than I dared at first to read: though all so delicately and as you always write. It is over! I shall not write about it. He was all you say.

So I turn to myself! And that is only to say that I am much as usual: here all alone for the last six months, except a two days visit to London in November to see Mrs. Kemble, who is now removed from Westminster to Marshall Thompson's Hotel Cavendish Square: and Mrs. Edwards who is naturally better and happier than a year ago, but who says she never should be happy unless always at work. And that work is taking off impressions of yet another--and I believe last--batch of her late Husband's Etchings. I saw and heard nothing else than these two Ladies: and some old Nurseys at St. John's Wood: and dear Donne, who was infirmer than when I had seen him before, and, I hear, is infirmer still than when I saw him last.

By the by, I began to think my own Eyes, which were blazed away by Paraffin some dozen years ago, were going out of me just before Christmas. So for the two dreary months which followed I could scarce read or write. And as yet I am obliged to use them tenderly: only too glad to find that they are better; and not quite going (as I hope) yet. I think they will light me out of this world with care. On March 31 I shall enter on my seventy-third year: and none of my Family reaches over seventy-five.

When I was in London I was all but tempted to jump into a Cab and just knock at Carlyle's door, and ask after him, and give my card, and--run away. . . .

The cold wind will not leave us, and my Crocuses do not like it. Still I manage to sit on one of those Benches you may remember under the lee side of the hedge, and still my seventy-third year approaches.

_To Miss Anna Biddell_.

_March_ 1881.

I can only say of Carlyle what you say; except that I do not find the style 'tiresome' any more than I did his Talk: which it is, only put on Paper, quite fresh, from an Individual Man of Genius, unlike almost all Autobiographic Memoirs. I doubt not that he wrote it by way of some Employment, as well as (in his Wife's case) some relief to his Feelings. . . .

I did not know that I should feel Spedding's Loss as I do, after an interval of more than twenty years [since] meeting him. But I knew that I could always get the Word I wanted of him by Letter, and also that from time to time I should meet with some of his wise and delightful Papers in some Quarter or other. He talked of Shakespeare, I am told, when his Mind wandered. I wake almost every morning feeling as if I had lost something, as one does in a Dream: and truly enough, I have lost _him_. 'Matthew is in his Grave, etc.'

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[20 _March_, 1881.]

MY DEAR LADY,

I have let the Full Moon pass because I thought you had written to me so lately, and so kindly, about our lost Spedding, that I would not call on you so soon again. Of him I will say nothing except that his Death has made me recall very many passages in his Life in which I was partly concerned. In particular, staying at his Cumberland Home along with Tennyson in the May of 1835. 'Voila bien longtemps de ca!' His Father and Mother were both alive: he, a wise man, who mounted his Cob after Breakfast and was at his Farm till Dinner at two; then away again till Tea: after which he sat reading by a shaded lamp: saying very little, but always courteous and quite content with any company his Son might bring to the house, so long as they let him go his way: which indeed he would have gone whether they let him or no. But he had seen enough of Poets not to like them or their Trade: Shelley, for a time living among the Lakes: Coleridge at Southey's (whom perhaps he had a respect for--Southey I mean); and Wordsworth whom I do not think he valued. He was rather jealous of 'Jem,' who might have done available service in the world, he thought, giving himself up to such Dreamers; and sitting up with Tennyson conning over the Morte d'Arthur, Lord of Burleigh, and other things which helped to make up the two volumes of 1842. So I always associate that Arthur Idyll with Basanthwaite Lake, under Skiddaw. Mrs. Spedding was a sensible, motherly Lady, with whom I used to play Chess of a Night. And there was an old Friend of hers, Miss Bristowe, who always reminded me of Miss La Creevy if you know of such a Person in Nickleby.

At the end of May we went to lodge for a week at Windermere, where Wordsworth's new volume of Yarrow Revisited reached us. W. was then at his home: but Tennyson would not go to visit him: and of course I did not: nor even saw him.

You have, I suppose, the Carlyle Reminiscences: of which I will say nothing except that much as we outsiders gain by them, I think that, on the whole, they had better have been kept unpublished, for some while at least.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

[1881.]

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

Thank you for your kind Letter; which I forwarded, with its enclosure, to Thompson, as you desired.

If Spedding's Letters, or parts of them, would not suit the Public, they would surely be a very welcome treasure to his Friends. Two or three pages of Biography would be enough to introduce them to those who knew him less long and less intimately than ourselves: and all who read would be the better, and the happier, for reading them.

I am rather surprised to find how much I dwell upon the thought of him, considering that I had not refreshed my Memory with the sight or sound of him for more than twenty years. But all the past (before that) comes upon me: I cannot help thinking of him while I wake; and when I do wake from Sleep, I have a feeling of something lost, as in a Dream, and it is J. S. I suppose that Carlyle amused himself, after just losing his Wife, with the Records he has left: what he says of her seems a sort of penitential glorification: what of others, just enough in general: but in neither case to be made public, and so immediately after his Decease. . . . I keep wondering what J. S. would have said on the matter: but I cannot ask him now, as I might have done a month ago. . . .

Dear old Jem! His Loss makes one's Life more dreary, and 'en revanche' the end of it less regretful.

_To Mrs. Alfred Tennyson_. {308a}

WOODBRIDGE: _March_ 22, [1881].

MY DEAR MRS. TENNYSON,

It is very, very [good] of you to write to me, even to remember me. I have told you before why I did not write to any other of your Party, as I might occasionally wish to do for the sake of asking about you all: the task of answering my Letter was always left to you: and I did not choose to put you to that trouble. Laurence had written me some account of his Visit to St. George's: all Patience: only somewhat wishful to be at home: somewhat weary with lying without Book, or even Watch, for company. What a Man! as in Life so in Death, which, as Montaigne says, proves what is at the bottom of the Vessel. {308b} I had not seen him for more than twenty years, and should never have seen him again, unless in the Street, where Cabs were crossing! He did not want to see me; he wanted nothing, I think: but I was always thinking of him, and should have done till my own Life's end, I know. I only wrote to him about twice a year: he only cared to answer when one put some definite Question to him: and I had usually as little to ask as to tell. I was thinking that, but for that Cab, I might even now be asking him what I was to think of his Cousin Froude's Carlyle Reminiscences. I see but one Quotation in the Book, which is 'of the Days that are no more,' which clung to him when his Sorrow came, as it will to many and many who will come after him.

I certainly hope that some pious and judicious hand will gather, and choose from our dear Spedding's Letters: no fear of indelicate personality with him, you know: and many things which all the world would be the wiser and better for. Archdeacon Allen sent me the other day a Letter about Darwin's Philosophy, so wise, so true, so far as I could judge, and, though written off, all fit to go as it was into Print, and do all the World good. {309} . . .

It was fine too of Carlyle ordering to be laid among his own homely Kindred in the Village of his Birth: without Question of Westminster Abbey. So think I, at least. And dear J. S. at Mirehouse where your Husband and I stayed, very near upon fifty years ago, in 1835 it was, in the month of May, when the Daffodil was out in a field before the house, as I see them, though not in such force, owing to cold winds, before my window now. Does A. T. remember them?

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[_April_, 1881.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Somewhat before my usual time, you see; but Easter comes, and I shall be glad to hear if you keep it in London, or elsewhere. Elsewhere there has been no inducement to go until To-day: when the Wind though yet East has turned to the Southern side of it; one can walk without any wrapper; and I dare to fancy we have turned the corner of Winter at last. People talk of changed Seasons: only yesterday I was reading in my dear old Sevigne, how she was with the Duke and Duchess of Chaulnes at their Chateau of Chaulnes in Picardy all but two hundred years ago: that is in 1689: and the green has not as yet ventured to shew its 'nez' nor a Nightingale to sing. You see that I have returned to her as for some Spring Music, at any rate. As for the Birds, I have nothing but a Robin who seems rather pleased when I sit down on a Bench under an old Ivied Pollard, where I suppose he has a Nest, poor little Fellow. But we have terrible Superstitions about him here; no less than that he always kills his Parents if he can: my young Reader is quite determined on this head: and there lately has been a Paper in some Magazine to the same effect.

My dear old Spedding sent me back to old Wordsworth too, who sings (his best songs I think) about the Mountains and Lakes they were both associated with: and with a quiet feeling he sings that somehow comes home to me more now than ever it did before.

As to Carlyle, I thought on my first reading that he must have been _egare_ at the time of writing: a condition which I well remember saying to Spedding long ago that one of his temperament might likely fall into. And now I see that Mrs. Oliphant hints at something of the sort. Hers I think an admirable Paper: {311} better than has yet been written, or (I believe) is likely to be written by any one else. . . . I must think Carlyle's judgments mostly, or mainly, true; but that he must have 'lost his head' if not when he recorded them, yet when he left them in any one's hands to decide on their publication. Especially when not about Public Men, but about their Families. It is slaying the Innocent with the Guilty. But of all this you have doubtless heard in London more than enough. 'Pauvre et triste Humanite!' One's heart opens again to him at the last: sitting alone in the middle of her Room. 'I want to die.' 'I want--a Mother.' 'Ah mamma Letizia!' Napoleon is said to have murmured as he lay. By way of pendant to this recurs to me the Story that when Ducis was wretched his Mother would lay his head on her Bosom--'Ah, mon homme! mon pauvre homme!' . . .

And now I have written more than enough for yourself and me: whose Eyes may be the worse for it to-morrow. I still go about in Blue Glasses, and flinch from Lamp and Candle. Pray let me know about your own Eyes, and your own Self; and believe me always sincerely yours

LITTLEGRANGE. _May_ 8, [1881].

If still at Leamington, you look upon a sight which I used to like well; that is, the blue Avon (as in this weather it will be) roaming through buttercup meadows all the way to Warwick; unless those meadows are all built over since I was there some forty years ago. . . .

I am got back to my Sevigne! who somehow returns to me in Spring; fresh as the Flowers. These latter have done but badly this Spring: cut off or withered by the Cold: and now parched up by this blazing Sun and dry Wind.

_From another Letter in the same year_.

It has been what we call down here 'smurring' rather than raining, all day long, and I think that Flower and Herb already show their gratitude. My Blackbird (I think it is the same I have tried to keep alive during the Winter) seems also to have 'wetted his Whistle,' and what they call the 'Cuckoo's mate' with a rather harsh scissor note announces that his Partner may be on the wing to these Latitudes. You will hear of him at Mr W. Shakespeare's, it may be. {313} There must be Violets, white and blue, somewhere about where he lies, I think. They are generally found in a Churchyard, where also (the Hunters used to say) a Hare: for the same reason of comparative security I suppose.

_To Miss S. F. Spedding_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE. _July /81_.

. . . As I am so very little known to yourself, or your Mother, I did not choose to trouble you with any of my own feelings about your Uncle's Death. But I am not sorry to take this opportunity of saying, and, I know, truly, there was no one I loved and honoured more; that, though I had not seen him for more than twenty years, I was always thinking of him all the while: always feeling that I could apply to him for a wise word I needed for myself; always knowing that I might light upon some wiser word than any one else's in some Review, etc., and _now_ always thinking I have lost all that. I say that I have not known, no, nor heard of, any mortal so prepared to step unchanged into the better world we are promised--Intellect, and Heart, and such an outer Man to them as I remember.

WOODBRIDGE: _July_ 31, [1881].

. . . I rejoice to hear of a Collection, or Reprint, of his stray works. . . . I used to say he wrote 'Virgilian Prose.' One only of his I did not care for; but that, I doubt not, was because of the subject, not of the treatment: his own printed Report of a Speech he made in what was called the 'Quinquaginta Club' Debating Society (not the Union) at Cambridge about the year 1831. This Speech his Father got him to recall and recompose in Print; wishing always that his Son should turn his faculties to such public Topics rather than to the Poets, of whom he had seen enough in Cumberland not to have much regard for: Shelley, for one, at one time stalking about the mountains, with Pistols, and other such Vagaries. I do not think he was much an Admirer of Wordsworth (I don't know about Southey), and I well remember that when I was at M_e_rehouse (as Miss Bristowe would have us call it) with A. Tennyson in 1835, Mr. Spedding grudged his Son's giving up much time and thought to consultations about Morte d'Arthur's, Lords of Burleigh, etc., which were then in MS. He more than once questioned me, who was sometimes present at the meetings: 'Well, Mr. F., and what is it? Mr. Tennyson reads, and Jem criticizes:--is that it?' etc. This, while I might be playing Chess with dear Mrs. Spedding, in May, while the Daffodils were dancing outside the Hall door.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE. _August_ 5/81.

MY DEAR NORTON,

I am sorry that you felt bound to write me so fully about the Play when, as you tell me, you had so much other work on your hands. Any how, do not trouble yourself to write more. If you think my Version does as well, or better, without any introduction, why, tear that out; all, except (if you like the Verse well enough to adopt it) the first sentence of Dedication to yourself: adding your full name and Collegiate Honours whenever you care so to do.

Your account of your Harvard original in the Atlantic Monthly was quite well fitted for its purpose: a general account of it for the general reader, without going into particulars which only the Scholar would appreciate.

I believe I told you that thirty years ago at least I advised our Trinity's Master, then only Greek Professor, to do the like with one of the Greek Tragedies, in what they call their Senate-house, well fitted for such a purpose. But our Cambridge is too well fed, and slow to stir; and I not important enough to set it a-going.

By the way, I have been there for two days; not having seen the place for those same thirty years, except in passing through some ten years ago to Naseby Field, for the purpose of doing Carlyle's will in setting up a memorial Stone with his Inscription upon it. But the present owners of the Place would not consent: and so that simple thing came to nothing.

Well, I went again, as I say, to Cambridge a month ago; not in my way to Naseby, but to my friend George Crabbe's (Grandson of my Poet) in Norfolk. I went because it was Vacation time, and no one I knew up except Cowell and Aldis Wright. Cowell, married, lives in pleasant lodging with trees before and behind, on the skirts of the town; Wright, in 'Neville's Court,' one side of which is the Library, all of Wren's design, and (I think) very good. I felt at home in the rooms there, walled with Books, large, and cool: and I was lionized over some things new to me, and some that I was glad to see again. Now I am back again, without any design to move; not even to my old haunts on our neighbouring Sea-coast. The inland Verdure suits my Eyes better than glowing sand and pebble: and I suppose that every year I grow less and less desirous of moving.

I will scarce touch upon the Carlyle Chapter: except to say that I am sorry Froude printed the Reminiscences; at any rate, printed them before the Life which he has begun so excellently in the 'Nineteenth Century' for July. I think one can surely see there that Carlyle might become somewhat crazed, whether by intense meditation or Dyspepsy or both: especially as one sees that his dear good Mother was so afflicted. But how beautiful is the Story of that home, and the Company of Lads travelling on foot to Edinburgh; and the monies which he sends home for the paternal farm: and the butter and cheese which the Farm returns to him. Ah! it is from such training that strength comes, not from luxurious fare, easy chairs, cigars, Pall Mall Clubs, etc. It has all made me think of a very little Dialogue {317} I once wrote on the matter, thirty years ago and more, which I really think of putting into shape again: and, if I do, will send it to you, by way of picture of what our Cambridge was in what I think were better days than now. I see the little tract is overdone and in some respects in bad taste as it is. Now, do not ask for this, nor mention it as if it were of any importance whatsoever: it is not, but if pruned, etc., just a pretty thing, which your Cambridge shall see if I can return to it.

By the by, I had meant to send you an emendation of a passage in my Tyrannus which you found fault with. I mean where OEdipus, after putting out his eyes, talks of seeing those in Hades he does not wish to see. I knew it was not Greek: but I thought that a note would be necessary to explain what the Greek was: and I confess I do not care enough for their Mythology for that. But, if you please, the passage (as I remember it) might run:

Eyes, etc.,
Which, having seen such things, henceforth, he said,
Should never by the light of day behold
Those whom he loved, nor in the after-dark
Of Hades, those he loathed, to look upon.

All this has run me into a third _screed_, you see: a word we used at School, only calling it '_screet_'--'I say, do lend me a screet of paper,' meaning, a quarter of a foolscap sheet.

WOODBRIDGE. _Jan._ 18/82.

MY DEAR NORTON,

At last I took heart, and Eyes, to return to the OEdipus of this time last year; and have left none of your objections unattended to, if not all complied with. Not but that you may be quite as right in objecting as I in leaving things as they were: but as I believe I said (right or wrong) a little obscurity seems to me not amiss in certain places, provided enough is left clear, I mean in matter of Grammar, etc. But I see that you have good reason to object in other cases: and, on looking at the Play again, I also discover more, too many perhaps to have heart or Eyes to devote to their rectification. The Paper on which the second Part is printed will not endure Ink, which also daunts me: nevertheless, I send you a Copy pencilled, rather than references and alterations written by way of Letter: I hope the least trouble to you of either Alternative. . . .

I scarcely know what I have written, but I know it must be bad MS.; all which I ought in good manners to rectify, or re-write. I think you in America think more of Calligraphy than we here do: a really polite accomplishment, I always maintain: and yet 'deteriora sequor.' But you know that my eyes are not very active: and now my hand is less than usually so, possessed as I am with a Devil of a Chill (in spite, or in consequence, of warm wet weather) attended with something of Bronchitis, I think. . . .

I forget if I told you in my last of my surprising communication with the Spanish Ambassador who sent me the Calderon medal, I doubt not at Mr. Lowell's instance. But I think I must have told you. Cowell came over to me here on Monday: he, to whom a Medal is far more due than to me; always reading, and teaching, Calderon at Cambridge now (as he did to me thirty years ago), in spite of all his Sanskrit Duties. I wish I could send him to you across the Atlantic, as easily as Arbuthnot once bid Pope 'toss Johnny Gay' to him over the Thames. Cowell is greatly delighted with Ford's '_Gatherings in Spain_,' a Supplement to his Spanish Handbook, and in which he finds, as I did, a supplement to Don Quixote also. If you have not read, and cannot find, the Book, I will toss it over the Atlantic to you, a clean new Copy, if that be yet procurable, or my own second-hand one in default of a new. . . .

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[_Jan._ 1882.]

I see my poor little Aconites--'New Year's Gifts'--still surviving in the Garden-plot before my window: 'still surviving,' I say, because of their having been out for near a month agone. I believe that Messrs. Daffodil, Crocus and Snowdrop are putting in appearance above ground, but (old Coward) I have not put my own old Nose out of doors to look for them. I read (Eyes permitting) the Correspondence between Goethe and Schiller (translated) from 1798 to 1806, extremely interesting to me, though I do not understand, and generally skip, the more purely AEsthetic Parts: which is the Part of Hamlet, I suppose. But in other respects, two such men so freely discussing together their own, and each other's, works interest me greatly. At night, we have the Fortunes of Nigel; a little of it, and not every night: for the reason that I do not wish to eat my Cake too soon. The last night but one I sent my Reader to see Macbeth played by a little Shakespearian company at a Lecture Hall here. He brought me one new Reading; suggested, I doubt not by himself, from a remembrance of Macbeth's tyrannical ways: 'Hang out our _Gallows_ on the outward walls.' Nevertheless, the Boy took great Interest in the Play, and I like to encourage him in Shakespeare rather than in the Negro Melodists.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE. _Jan._ 25/82.

MY DEAR NORTON,

I forgot in my last letter to beg you not to write for the mere purpose of acknowledging the revised OEdipus who was to travel along with it. You know that I am glad to hear from you at any time when you are at leisure, not otherwise; and I shall take for granted that you think my alterations are improvements, so far as they go. And that is enough.

I herewith enclose you a sort of Choral Epilogue for the second Part, which you can stick in or not as you will. I cannot say much for it: but it came together in my head after last writing to you, while I was pacing up and down a Landing-place in my house, to which I have been confined for the last ten days by a Bronchial Cold. But for which I should have been last week in London for the purpose of seeing a very dear old, coaevally old, Friend, {322} who has been gradually declining in Body and Mind for the last three years.

Yours always sincerely LITTLEGRANGE.

_To W. A. Wright_.

_Friday_ [24 _February_ 1882].

MY DEAR WRIGHT,

I went to London this day week: saw my poor Donne (rather better than I had expected to find him--but all declining) three times: and came home--glad to come home!--on Monday. Mrs. Kemble, Edwards (Keene at the latter Lady's) and my old Nursey friends, all I saw beside, in the human way, save Streetfarers, Cabmen, etc. The Shops seemed all stale to me: the only Exhibition I went to (Old Masters) ditto. So I suppose that I have lost my Appetite for all but dull Woodbridge Life. I have not lost my Cold--nor all its bronchial symptoms; but may do so--as I get a little older.

Tennyson was in London, I heard: but in some grand Locality of Eaton Square; so I did not venture down to him. But a day scarcely passes without my thinking of him, in one way or other.

Browning told Mrs. Kemble he knew there was 'a grotesque side' to his Society, etc., but he could not refuse the kind solicitations of his Friends, Furnivall and Co. Mrs. K. had been asked to join: but declined, because of her somewhat admiring him; nay, much admiring what he might have done.

I enclose a note from Keene which appeals to you: I suppose that his 'fastous' means 'festuous,' or what is now called in Music 'Pompous.' Charles' 'plump bass' is good. {323}

You had a bad cold when last you wrote: so you can tell me, if you please, that you have shaken it off, as your Seniors cannot so easily do. Let me know, of course, how the Master is, and give him my Love. Does he know of Musurus Pasha's Translation of Dante's Inferno into Modern Greek? I was so much interested in it from the Academy that I bought; and, so far as I have seen through uncut leaves, do not repent of having done so.

The Academy also announced that an MS. account of Carlyle's Visit to Ireland in 1849 was in Froude's hands for the Press. As T. C. stayed some, if not the greater part of his time there at the country house of my Uncle's Widow, I can only hope that he did not jot down much to offend her surviving Children. Perhaps not: for they were, and are, all of them (Mother dead) quite unpretending people, and T. C. himself not then so savage as after his Wife's death. From Froude no mercy of reticence can be expected.

You left here Rabisha {324a} and Groome's Book of Tracts {324b}: unless you will be coming this way before long, I will send them to you.

You did not say whether you would undertake to look over Borrow's Books and MSS., and I write his Step-daughter to that effect. But I hope you will find it not inconvenient or unpleasant so to do: and am yours always

LITTLEGRANGE.

My Boy went to Macbeth at our Lecture Hall. What do you say to his reading 'Hang out our Gallows on the outward Walls'?

_To H. Schutz Wilson_.

[1 _March_, 1882.]

MY DEAR SIR,

I must thank you sincerely for your thoughts about Salaman, in which I recognize a good will toward the Translator, as well as liking for his work.

Of course your praise could not but help that on: but I scarce think that it is of a kind to profit so far by any review as to make it worth the expense of Time and Talent you might bestow upon it. In Omar's case it was different: he sang, in an acceptable way it seems, of what all men feel in their hearts, but had not had exprest in verse before: Jami tells of what everybody knows, under cover of a not very skilful Allegory. I have undoubtedly improved the whole by boiling it down to about a Quarter of its original size; and there are many pretty things in it, though the blank Verse is too Miltonic for Oriental style.

All this considered, why did I ever meddle with it? Why, it was the first Persian Poem I read, with my friend Edward Cowell, near on forty years ago: and I was so well pleased with it then (and now think it almost the best of the Persian Poems I have read or heard about), that I published my Version of it in 1856 (I think) with Parker of the Strand. When Parker disappeared, my unsold Copies, many more than of the sold, were returned to me; some of which, if not all, I gave to little Quaritch, who, I believe, trumpeted them off to some little profit: and I thought no more of them.

But some six or seven years ago that Sheikh of mine, Edward Cowell, who liked the Version better than any one else, wished it to be reprinted. So I took it in hand, boiled it down to three-fourths of what it originally was, and (as you see) clapt it on the back of Omar, where I still believed it would hang somewhat of a dead weight; but that was Quaritch's look-out, not mine. I have never heard of any notice taken of it, but just now from you: and I believe that, say what you would, people would rather have the old Sinner alone. Therefore it is that I write all this to you. I doubt not that any of your Editors would accept an Article from you on the Subject, but I believe also they would much prefer one on many another Subject: and so probably with the Public whom you write for.

Thus 'liberavi animam meam' for your behoof, as I am rightly bound to do in return for your Goodwill to me.

As to the publication of my name, I believe I could well dispense with it, were it other and better than it is. But I have some unpleasant associations with it: not the least of them being that it was borne, Christian and Surname, by a man who left College just when I went there. {326} . . . What has become of him I know not: but he, among other causes, has made me dislike my name, and made me sign myself (half in fun, of course), to my friends, as now I do to you, sincerely yours

(THE LAIRD OF) LITTLEGRANGE,

where I date from.

_To C. E. Norton_.

_March_ 7, [1882].

MY DEAR NORTON,

You will receive by Post a volume of Translation of Dante's Inferno by Musurus Pasha into Modern Greek. I was so much interested in a quotation from it in our 'Academy' that I bought it for myself, and subsequently thought that a copy might be acceptable to you, loving both Greek and Dante as you do. Had not I bidden the London Publishers to send it direct to you, I should have written your name and my own on the fly-leaf. But you can do this for us both.

I have not as yet read much of it: for my Eyes are impatient of the Greek letter; but the Language comes out before me as the worthiest representative of the Italian: provided it be pronounced as we have learned to pronounce it, not as the modern Greek man is said to do. I always maintain that a Language is apt to sound better from a Foreigner, who idealises the pronunciation. As to the structure of the language, I doubt that I may prefer the modern to the ancient because of being cleared of many [Greek text], etc., particles. I think I shall send a Copy to Professor Goodwin. This is nearly all that I have to send across the Atlantic to-day, which reminds me that I have just been quoting (in a little thing {327} I may send you),

The fleecy Star that bears
Andromeda far off Atlantic Seas.

What a Line!

. . . It is, I think, worth your while to look at Dean Stanley's Volume of Bishop Thirlwall's Letters; nay, even Dean Perowne's earlier volume, if but to show how the pedantic Boy grew into the large-hearted Man, and even Bishop: but, from the first, always sincere, just, and not pretentious. I remember him at Cambridge: he, Fellow and Tutor, and I undergraduate: and he took a little fancy to me, I think.

_To Hallam Tennyson_. {328}

WOODBRIDGE. _May_ 28 [1882].

MY DEAR HALLAM,

I believe I ought to be ashamed of reviving the little thing which accompanies this Letter. My excuse must be that I have often been askt for a copy when I had no more to give; and a visit to Cambridge last summer, to the old familiar places, if not faces, made me take it up once more and turn it into what you now see. I should certainly not send a copy to you, or yours, but for what relates to your Father in it. He did not object, so far as I know, to what I said of him, though not by name, in a former Edition; but there is more of him in this, though still not by name, nor, as you see, intended for Publication. All of this you can read to him, if you please, at pp. 25 and 56. I do not ask him to say that he approves of what is said, or meant to be said, in his honour; and I only ask you to tell me if he disapproves of its going any further. I owed you a letter in return for the kind one you sent me; and, if I do not hear from you to the contrary, I shall take silence, if not for consent, at least not for prohibition. I really did, and do, wish my first, which is also my last, little work to record, for a few years at least, my love and admiration of that dear old Fellow, my old Friend.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE. _June_ 9/82.

MY DEAR NORTON,

I told you, I think, but I scarce know when, that I would send you a very little Tract of mine written forty years ago; and reformed into its present shape in consequence of copies being askt for when I had none to give. So a few days at Cambridge last Summer, among the old places, though not faces, set me off. 'Et voila qui est fait,' and posted to you along with this Letter, together with a Copy for Professor Goodwin. The first and last of my little works: and I do think a pretty specimen of 'chisell'd Cherry-stone.' Having which opinion myself, I more than ever deprecate any word of praise from any to whom I send it. Nay, I even assume beforehand that you will like it too: and Professor Goodwin also (so do not let him write): as my little tribute to my own old Cambridge sent to you in your new. I think I shall send it to Mr. Lowell too. So you see that I need no compliment, no, nor even acknowledgment of it. . . .

And now here is enough written. And yet I will enclose some pretty Verses, {330a} some twenty years old, which I sent to 'Temple Bar,' which repaid me (as I deserved) with a dozen copies. And I am always truly yours

LITTLEGRANGE THE LAIRD.

Longfellow and Emerson! {330b}

WOODBRIDGE. _July_ 13/82.

MY DEAR NORTON,

Here is a speedy reply to your kind Letter. For I wish to say at once that when Froude has done what he wants with my Carlyle Papers, you shall have them to do the like. He thought (as I anticipated) that he could use but two or three of the Letters, as you will also guess from the scheme and compass of his Biography, as given in the Letter which I enclose along with this; but, as I bade him use what he saw good, and keep the Papers as long as convenient to him, I cannot as yet ask him, how much, nor how long. When I think I may properly do so, I will: and shall be very glad that you should have them under like conditions. You know that they chiefly concern Naseby, which might do for an Episode, or separate Item, in your Book, though not for Froude's; I should also think the Letters about that Squire business would be well to clear somewhat up: but that can scarcely be done unless by vindicating Squire's honesty at the expense of his sanity: and, as I have no reason to suppose but he is yet alive, I know not how this can be decently done. Froude says he cannot see his way into the truth further than Carlyle's printed Article on the subject goes: but I think Carlyle must have told him his conviction (whatever it was) some time during their long acquaintance. Perhaps, however, he was too sick of what he thought an unimportant controversy to endure any more talk about it. I am convinced, as from the first, that Squire's story was true; and the fragments of Cromwell's despatches genuine, though (as Critics pointed out) partially misquoted by a scatter-brained fellow, ignorant of the subject, and of the Writer.

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[_August_ 1882].

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I have let the Full Moon go by, and very well she looked too, over the Sea by which I am now staying. Not at Lowestoft; but at the old extinguished Borough of Aldeburgh, to which as to other 'premiers Amours' I revert: where more than sixty years ago I first saw, and first felt, the Sea; where I have lodged in half the houses since; and where I have a sort of traditional acquaintance with half the population: Clare Cottage is where I write from; two little rooms, enough for me; a poor civil woman pleased to have me in them. . . .

The Carlyle 'Reminiscences' had long indisposed me from taking up the Biography. But when I began, and as I went on with that, I found it one of the most interesting of Books: and the result is that I not only admire and respect Carlyle more than ever I did: but even love him, which I never thought of before. For he loved his Family, as well as for so long helped to maintain them out of very slender earnings of his own; and, so far as these two volumes show me, he loved his wife also, while he put her to the work which he had been used to see his own Mother and Sisters fulfil, and which was suitable to the way of Life which he had been used to. His indifference to her sufferings seems to me rather because of Blindness than Neglect; and I think his Biographer has been a little too hard upon him on the Score of selfish disregard of her.

ALDEBURGH. _Sept._ 1. [1882].

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Still by the Sea, from which I saw The Harvest Moon rise for her three nights' Fullness. And to-day is so wet that I shall try and pay you my plenilunal due, not much to your satisfaction; for the Wet really gets into one's Brain and Spirits, and I have as little to write of as ever any Full Moon ever brought me. And yet, if I accomplish my letter, and 'take it to the Barber's' where I sadly want to go, and after being wrought on by him, post my letter, why, you will, by your Laws, be obliged to answer it. Perhaps you may have a little to tell me of yourself in requital for the very little you have to hear of me.

I have made a new Acquaintance here. Professor Fawcett (Postmaster General, I am told) married a daughter of one Newson Garrett of this Place, who is also Father of your Doctor Anderson. Well, the Professor (who was utterly blinded by the Discharge of his Father's Gun some twenty or five and twenty years ago) came to this Lodging to call on Aldis Wright; and, when Wright was gone, called on me, and also came and smoked a Pipe one night here. A thoroughly unaffected, unpretending, man: so modest indeed that I was ashamed afterwards to think how I had harangued him all the Evening, instead of getting him to instruct me. But I would not ask him about his Parliamentary Shop: and I should not have understood his Political Economy: and I believe he was very glad to be talked to instead, about some of those he knew, and some whom I had known. And, as we were both in Crabbe's Borough, we talked of him: the Professor, who had never read a word, I believe, about him, or of him, was pleased to hear a little; and I advised him to buy the Life written by Crabbe's Son; and I would give him my abstract of the Tales of the Hall, by way of giving him a taste of the Poet's self.

Yes; you must read Froude's Carlyle above all things, and tell me if you do not feel as I do about it. . . . I regret that I did not know what the Book tells us while Carlyle was alive; that I might have loved him as well as admired him. But Carlyle never spoke of himself in that way. I never heard him advert to his Works and his Fame, except one day he happened to mention 'About the time when Men began to talk of me.'

WOODBRIDGE. _Oct._ 17, [1882].

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I suppose that you are returned from the Loire by this time; but as I am not sure that you have returned to the 'Hotel des Deux Mondes' whence you dated your last, I make bold once more to trouble Coutts with adding your Address to my Letter. I think I shall have it from yourself not long after. I shall like to hear a word about my old France, dear to me from childish associations, and in particular of the Loire, endeared to me by Sevigne; for I never saw the glimmer of its waters myself. . . .