CX.
Woodbridge: March 6, [1883.]
My dear Mrs. Kemble,
I have asked more than one person for tidings of you, for the last two months: and only yesterday heard from M. Donne that he had seen you at the Address to which I shall direct this letter. I wrote to you about mid-November, desiring Coutts to forward my letter: in which I said that if you were in no mood to write during the time of Mrs. Wister’s departure for America (which you had told me was to be November end) you were not to trouble yourself at all. Since which time I have really not known whether you had not gone off to America too. Anyhow, I thought better to wait till I had some token of your ‘whereabout,’ if nothing more. And now Mowbray tells me that much, and I will venture another Letter to you after so long an interval. You must always follow your own inclination as to answering me—not by any means make a ‘Duty’ of it.
As usual I have nothing to say of myself but what you have heard from me for years. Only that my (now one year old) friend Bronchitis has thus far done but little more than to keep me aware that he has not quitted me, nor even thinks of so doing. Nay, this very day, when the Snow which held off all winter is now coming down under stress of N.E. wind, I feel my friend stirring somewhat within.
Enough of that and of myself. Mowbray gives me a very good report of you—Absit Nemesis for my daring to write it!—And you have got back to something of our old London Quarters, which I always look to as better than the new. And do you go to even a Play, in the old Quarters also? Wright, who was with me at Christmas, was taken by Macmillan to see ‘Much Ado,’ and found, all except Scenery, etc. (which was too good) so bad that he vowed he would never go to see Sh. ‘at any of your Courts’ again. Irving without any Humour, Miss Terry with simply Animal Spirits, etc. However, Wright did intend once more to try—Comedy of Errors, at some theatre; but how he liked it—I may hear if he comes to me at Easter.
Now this is enough—is it not?—for a letter: but I am as always
Sincerely yours,
E. F.G.
CXI.
Woodbridge: April 12, [1883.]
My dear Mrs. Kemble:
I do not think you will be sorry that more than a Moon has waxed and waned since last I wrote to you. For you have seen long enough how little I had to tell, and that nevertheless you were bound to answer. But all such Apologies are stale: you will believe, I hope, that I remain as I was in regard to you, as I shall believe that you are the same toward me.
Mowbray Donne has told me two months ago that he could not get over the Remembrance of last May; and that, acting on Body as well as Mind, aged him, I suppose, as you saw. Mowbray is one of the most loyal men toward Kinsman and Friend.
Now for my own little Budget of News. I got through those Sunless East winds well enough: better than I am feeling now they both work together. I think the Wind will rule till Midsummer: ‘Enfin tant qu’il plaira à Dieu.’ Aldis Wright was with me for Easter, and we went on our usual way, together or apart. Professor Norton had sent me his Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, which we conned over together, and liked well on either side. Carlyle should not have said (and still less Norton printed) that Tennyson was a ‘gloomy’ Soul, nor Thackeray
‘of inordinate Appetite,’ neither of which sayings is true: nor written of Lord Houghton as a ‘Robin Redbreast’ of a man. I shall wait very patiently till Mudie sends me Jane Carlyle—where I am told there is a word of not unkindly toleration of me; which, if one be named at all, one may be thankful for. [257]
Here are two Questions to be submitted to Mrs. Kemble by Messrs. Aldis Wright and Littlegrange—viz., What she understands by—
(1.) ‘The Raven himself is hoarse,’ etc.
(2.) ‘But this eternal Blazon must not be,’ etc.
Mrs. Kemble (who will answer my letter) can tell me how she fares in health and well-being; yes, and if she has seen, or heard, anything of Alfred Tennyson, who is generally to be heard of in London at this time of year. And pray let Mrs. Kemble believe in the Writer of these poor lines as her ancient, and loyal, Subject
E. F.G.
‘The raven himself is hoarse,’ etc.
“Lady Macbeth compares the Messenger, hoarse for lack of Breath, to a raven whose croaking was held to be prophetic of Disaster. This we think the natural interpretation of the words, though it is rejected by some Commentators.”—Clark and Wright’s Clarendon Press Shakespeare.
“‘Eternal Blazon’ = revelation of Eternity. It may be, however, that Sh. uses ‘eternal’ for ‘infernal’ here, as in Julius Cæsar I. 2, 160: ‘The eternal Devil’; and Othello IV. 2, 130: ‘Some eternal villain.’ ‘Blazon’ is an heraldic term, meaning Description of armorial bearings, * hence used for description generally; as in Much Ado II. 1, 307. The verb ‘blazon’ occurs in Cymbeline IV. 2, 170.”—Ibid.
Thus have I written out in my very best hand: as I will take care to do in future; for I think it very bad manners to puzzle anyone—and especially a Lady—with that which is a trouble to read; and I really had no idea that I have been so guilty of doing so to Mrs. Kemble.
Also I beg leave to say that nothing in Mowbray’s letter set me off writing again to Mrs. Kemble, except her Address, which I knew not till he gave it to me, and I remain her very humble obedient Servant,
The Laird of Littlegrange—
of which I enclose a side view done by a Woodbridge Artisan for his own amusement. So that Mrs. Kemble may be made acquainted with the ‘habitat’ of the Flower—which is about to make an Omelette for its Sunday Dinner.
N.B.—The ‘Raven’ is not he that reports the news to Miladi M., but ‘one of my fellows Who almost dead for breath, etc.’
* Not, as E. F.G. had thought, the Bearings themselves.
CXII.
[May, 1883.]
My dear Lady,
I conclude (from what you wrote me in your last letter) that you are at Leamington by this time; and I will venture to ask a word of you before you go off to Switzerland, and I shall have to rely on Coutts & Co. for further Correspondence between us. I am not sure of your present Address, even should you be at Leamington—not sure—but yet I think my letter will find you—and, if it do not—why, then you will be saved the necessity of answering it.
I had written to Mowbray Donne to ask about himself and his Wife: and herewith I enclose his Answer—very sad, and very manly. You shall return it if you please; for I set some store by it.
Now I am reading—have almost finished—Jane Carlyle’s Letters. I dare say you have already heard them more than enough discussed in London; and therefore I will only say that it is at any rate fine of old Carlyle to have laid himself so easily open to public Rebuke, though whether such Revelations are fit for Publicity is another question. At any rate, it seems to me that half her letters, and all his ejaculations of Remorse summed up in a Preface, would have done better. There is an Article by brave Mrs. Oliphant in this month’s Contemporary Review [259] (or
Magazine) well worth reading on the subject; with such a Challenge to Froude as might almost be actionable in Law. We must ‘hear both sides,’ and wait for the Volume which [is] to crown all his Labours in this Cause.
I think your Leamington Country is more in Leaf than ours ‘down-East:’ which only just begins to ‘stand in a mist of green.’ [260] By the by, I lately heard from Hallam Tennyson that all his Party were well enough; not having been to London this Spring because Alfred’s Doctor had warned him against London Fogs, which suppress Perspiration, and bring up Gout. Which is the best piece of news in my Letter; and I am
Yours always and a Day
E. F.G.
P.S. I do not enclose Mowbray’s letter, as I had intended to do, for fear of my own not finding you.