Chapter VI: Miss Mitford (8)

"All our anxiety here at present is the Indian mutiny. We ourselves
have great cause for trouble. Our son (the only son I have, indeed)
escaped from Delhi lately. He is now at Meerut. He and four or five
other officers, four women, and a child escaped. The men were
obliged to drop the women a fearful height from the walls of the
fort, amidst showers of bullets. A round shot passed within a yard
of my son, and one of the ladies had a bullet through her shoulder.
They were seven days and seven nights in the jungle, without money
or meat, scarcely any clothes, no shoes. They forded rivers, lay on
the wet ground at night, lapped water from the puddles, and finally
reached Meerut. The lady (the mother of the three other ladies) had
not her wound dressed, or seen, indeed, for upward of a week. Their
feet were full of thorns. My son had nothing but a shirt, a pair of
trousers, and a flannel waistcoat. How they contrived to _live_ I
don't know; I suppose from small gifts of rice, etc., from the
natives.

"When I find any little thing now that disturbs my serenity, and
which I might in former times have magnified into an evil, I think
of what Europeans suffer from the vengeance of the Indians, and pass
it by in quiet.

"I received Mr. Hillard's epitaph on my dear kind friend Kenyon.
Thank him in my name for it. There are some copies to be reserved of
a lithograph now in progress (a portrait of Kenyon) for his American
friends. Should it be completed in time, Mr. Sumner will be asked
to take them over. I have put down your name for one of those who
would wish to have this little memento of a good kind man....

"I shall never visit America, be assured, or the continent of
Europe, or any distant region. I have reached nearly to the length
of my tether. I have grown old and apathetic and stupid. All I care
for, in the way of personal enjoyment, is quiet, ease,--to have
nothing to do, nothing to think of. My only glance is backward.
There is so little before me that I would rather not look that way."

In a later letter he again speaks of his son and the war in India:--

"My son is _not_ in the list of killed and wounded, thank God! He
was before Delhi, having _volunteered_ thither after his escape. We
trust that he is at present safe, but every mail is pregnant with
bloody tidings, and we do not find ourselves yet in a position to
rejoice securely. What a terrible war this Indian war is! Are all
people of black blood cruel, cowardly, and treacherous? If it were a
case of great oppression on our part, I could understand and
(almost) excuse it; but it is from the _spoiled_ portion of the
Hindostanees that the revengeful mutiny has arisen. One thing is
quite clear, that whatever luxury and refinement have done for our
race (for I include Americans with English), they have not
diminished the courage and endurance and heroism for which I think
we have formerly been famous. We are the same Saxons still. There
has never been fiercer fighting than in some of the battles that
have lately taken place in India. When I look back on the old
history books, and see that _all_ history consists of little else
than the bloody feuds of nation with nation, I almost wonder that
God has not extinguished the cruel, selfish animals that we dignify
with the name of men. No--I cry forgiveness: let the women live, if
they can, without the men. I used the word 'men' only."

Here is a pleasant paragraph about "Aurora Leigh":--

"The most successful book of the season has been Mrs. Browning's
'Aurora Leigh.' I could wish some things altered, I confess; but as
it is, it is by far (a hundred times over) the finest poem ever
written by a woman. We know little or nothing of Sappho,--nothing to
induce comparison,--and all other wearers of petticoats must
courtesy to the ground."

In several of his last letters to me there are frequent allusions to our civil war. Here is an extract from an epistle written in 1861:--

"We read with painful attention the accounts of your great quarrel
in America. We know nothing beyond what we are told by the New York
papers, and these are the stories of _one_ of the combatants. I am
afraid that, however you may mend the schism, you will never be so
strong again. I hope, however, that something may arise to terminate
the bloodshed; for, after all, fighting is an unsatisfactory way of
coming at the truth. If you were to stand up at once (and finally)
against the slave-trade, your band of soldiers would have a more
decided _principle_ to fight for. But--

"--But I really know little or nothing. I hope that at Boston you
are comparatively peaceful, and I know that you are more
abolitionist than in the more southern countries.

"There is nothing new doing here in the way of books. The last book
I have seen is called 'Tannhauser,' published by Chapman and
Hall,--a poem under feigned names, but _really_ written by Robert
Lytton and Julian Fane. It is not good enough for the first, but (as
I conjecture) too good for the last. The songs which decide the
contest of the bards are the worst portions of the book.

"I read some time ago a novel which has not made much noise, but
which is prodigiously clever,--'City and Suburb.' The story hangs in
parts, but it is full of weighty sentences. We have no poet _since_
Tennyson except Robert Lytton, who, you know, calls himself Owen
Meredith. Poetry in England is assuming a new character, and not a
better character. It has a sort of pre-Raphaelite tendency which
does not suit my aged feelings. I am for Love, or the World well
lost. But I forget that, if I live beyond the 21st of next November,
I shall be _seventy-four_ years of age. I have been obliged to
resign my Commissionership of Lunacy, not being able to bear the
pain of travelling. By this I lose about £900 a year. I am,
therefore, sufficiently poor, even for a poet. Browning, as you
know, has lost his wife. He is coming with his little boy to live in
England. I rejoice at this, for I think that the English should live
in England, especially in their youth, when people learn things that
they never forget afterward."

Near the close of 1864 he writes:--

"Since I last heard from you, nothing except what is melancholy
seems to have taken place. You seem all busy killing each other in
America. Some friends of yours and several friends of mine have
died. Among the last I cannot help placing Nathaniel Hawthorne, for
whom I had a sincere regard.... He was about your best prose writer,
I think, and intermingled with his humor was a great deal of
tenderness. To die so soon!

"You are so easily affronted in America, if we (English) say
anything about putting an end to your war, that I will not venture
to hint at the subject. Nevertheless, I wish that you were all at
peace again, for your own sakes and for the sake of human nature. I
detest fighting now, although I was a great admirer of fighting in
my youth. My youth? I wonder where it has gone. It has left me with
gray hairs and rheumatism, and plenty of (too many other)
infirmities. I stagger and stumble along, with almost seventy-six
years on my head, upon failing limbs, which no longer enable me to
walk half a mile. I see a great deal, all behind me (the Past), but
the prospect before me is not cheerful. Sometimes I wish that I had
tried harder for what is called Fame, but generally (as now) I care
very little about it. After all,--unless one could be Shakespeare,
which (clearly) is not an easy matter,--of what value is a little
puff of smoke from a review? If we could settle permanently who is
to be the Homer or Shakespeare of our time, it might be worth
something; but we cannot. Is it Jones, or Smith, or ----? Alas! I
get short-sighted on this point, and cannot penetrate the
impenetrable dark. Make my remembrances acceptable to Longfellow, to
Lowell, to Emerson, and to any one else who remembers me.

"Yours, ever sincerely,

"B.W. PROCTER."

And here are a few paragraphs from the last letter I ever received in Procter's loving hand:--

"Although I date this from Weymouth Street, yet I am writing 140 or
150 miles away from London. Perhaps this temporary retreat from our
great, noisy, turbulent city reminds me that I have been very
unmindful of your letter, received long ago. But I have been busy,
and my writing now is not a simple matter, as it was fifty years
ago. I have great difficulty in forming the letters, and you would
be surprised to learn with what labor _this_ task is performed. Then
I have been incessantly occupied in writing (I refer to the
_mechanical_ part only) the 'Memoir of Charles Lamb.' It is not my
book,--i.e. not my property,--but one which I was hired to write,
and it forms my last earnings. You will have heard of the book
(perhaps seen it) some time since. It has been very well received. I
would not have engaged myself on anything else, but I had great
regard for Charles Lamb, and so (somehow or other) I have contrived
to reach the end.

"I _have_ already (long ago) written something about Hazlitt, but I
have received more than one application for it, in case I can manage
to complete my essay. As in the case of Lamb, I am really the only
person living who knew much about his daily life. I have not,
however, quite the same incentive to carry me on. Indeed, I am not
certain that I should be able to travel to the real Finis.

"My wife is very grateful for the copies of my dear Adelaide's poems
which you sent her. She appears surprised to hear that I have not
transmitted her thanks to you before.

"We get the 'Atlantic Monthly' regularly. I need not tell you how
much better the poetry is than at its commencement. Very good is
'Released,' in the July number, and several of the stories; but they
are in London, and I cannot particularize them.

"We were very much pleased with Colonel Holmes, the son of your
friend and contributor. He seems a very intelligent, modest young
man; as little military as need be, and, like Coriolanus, not baring
his wounds (if he has any) for public gaze. When you see Dr. Holmes,
pray tell him how much I and my wife liked his son.

"We are at the present moment rusticating at Malvern Wells. We are
on the side of a great hill (which you would call small in America),
and our intercourse is only with the flowers and bees and swallows
of the season. Sometimes we encounter a wasp, which I suppose comes
from over seas!

"The Storys are living two or three miles off, and called upon us a
few days ago. You have not seen _his_ Sibyl, which I think very
fine, and as containing a _very great_ future. But the young poets
generally disappoint us, and are too content with startling us into
admiration of their first works, and then go to sleep.

"I wish that I had, when younger, made more notes about my
contemporaries; for, being of no faction in politics, it happens
that I have known far more literary men than any other person of my
time. In counting up the names of persons known to me who were, in
some way or other, _connected_ with literature, I reckoned up more
than one hundred. But then I have had more than sixty years to do
this in. My first acquaintance of this sort was Bowles, the poet.
This was about 1805.

"Although I can scarcely write, I am able to say, in conclusion,
that I am

"Very sincerely yours,

"B.W. PROCTER."

Procter was an ardent student of the works of our older English dramatists, and he had a special fondness for such writers as Decker, Marlowe, Heywood, Webster, and Fletcher. Many of his own dramatic scenes are modelled on that passionate and romantic school. He had great relish for a good modern novel, too; and I recall the titles of several which he recommended warmly for my perusal and republication in America. When I first came to know him, the duties of his office as a Commissioner obliged him to travel about the kingdom, sometimes on long journeys, and he told me his pocket companion was a cheap reprint of Emerson's "Essays," which he found such agreeable reading that he never left home without it. Longfellow's "Hyperion" was another of his favorite books during the years he was on duty.

Among the last agreeable visits I made to the old poet was one with reference to a proposition of his own to omit several songs and other short poems from a new issue of his works then in press. I stoutly opposed the ignoring of certain old favorites of mine, and the poet's wife joined with me in deciding against the author in his proposal to cast aside so many beautiful songs,--songs as well worth saving as any in the volume. Procter argued that, being past seventy, he had now reached to years of discretion, and that his judgment ought to be followed without a murmur. I held out firm to the end of our discussion, and we settled the matter with this compromise: he was to expunge whatever he chose from the English edition, but I was to have my own way with the American one. So to this day the American reprint is the only complete collection of Barry Cornwall's earliest pieces, for I held on to all the old lyrics, without discarding a single line.

The poet's figure was short and full, and his voice had a low, veiled tone habitually in it, which made it sometimes difficult to hear distinctly what he was saying. When in conversation, he liked to be very near his listener, and thus stand, as it were, on confidential ground with him. His turn of thought was cheerful among his friends, and he proceeded readily into a vein of wit and nimble expression. Verbal felicity seemed natural to him, and his epithets, evidently unprepared, were always perfect. He disliked cant and hard ways of judging character. He praised easily. He had no wish to stand in anybody's shoes but his own, and he said, "There is no literary vice of a darker shade than envy." Talleyrand's recipe for perfect happiness was the opposite to his. He impressed every one who came near him as a born gentleman, chivalrous and generous in a marked degree, and it was the habit of those who knew him to have an affection for him. Altering a line of Pope, this counsel might have been safely tendered to all the authors of his day,--

"Disdain whatever _Procter's mind_ disdains."

End of Project Gutenberg's Yesterdays with Authors, by James T. Fields