LXXI.
Woodbridge, March 1, [1880.]
My dear Lady,
I am something like my good old friend Bernard Barton, who would begin—and end—a letter to some one who had just gone away from his house. I should not mind that, only you will persist in answering what calls for no answer. But the enclosed came here To-day, and as I might mislay it if I waited for my average time of writing to you, I enclose it to you now. It shows, at any rate, that I do not neglect your Queries; nor does he to whom I refer what I cannot answer myself. [174]
This Wright edits certain Shakespeare Plays for Macmillan: very well, I fancy, so far as Notes go; simply explaining what needs explanation for young Readers, and eschewing all æsthetic (now, don’t say you don’t know what ‘æsthetic’ means, etc.) æsthetic (detestable word) observation. With this the Swinburnes, Furnivalls, Athenæums, etc., find fault: and a pretty hand they make of it when they try that tack. It is safest surely to give people all the Data you can for forming a Judgment, and then leave them to form it by themselves.
You see that I enclose you the fine lines [175] which I believe I repeated to you, and which I wish you to paste on the last page of my Crabbe, so as to be a pendant to Richard’s last look at the Children and their play. I know not how I came to leave it out when first printing: for certainly the two passages had for many years run together in my Memory.
Adieu, Madame: non pas pour toujours, j’espère; pas même pour long temps. Cependant, ne vous gênez pas, je vous prie, en répondant à une lettre qui ne vaut—qui ne réclame pas même—aucune réponse: tandis que vous me croyez votre très dévoué
Edouard de Petitgrange.
LXXII.
Woodbridge: March 26, [1880.]
My dear Lady:
The Moon has reminded me that it is a month since I last went up to London. I said to the Cabman who took me to Queen Anne’s, ‘I think it must be close on Full Moon,’ and he said, ‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ not troubling himself to look back to the Abbey over which she was riding. Well; I am sure I have little enough to tell you; but I shall be glad to hear from you that you are well and comfortable, if nothing else. And you see that I am putting my steel pen into its very best paces all for you. By far the chief incident in my life for the last month has been the reading of dear old Spedding’s Paper on the Merchant of Venice: [176] there, at any rate, is one Question settled, and in such a beautiful way as only he commands. I could not help writing a few lines to tell him what I thought; but even very sincere praise is not the way to conciliate him. About Christmas I wrote him, relying on it that I should be most likely to secure an answer if I expressed dissent from some other work of his; and my expectation was justified by one of the fullest answers he had written to me for many a day and year.
I read in one of my Papers that Tennyson had
another Play accepted at the Lyceum. I think he is obstinate in such a purpose, but, as he is a Man of Genius, he may surprise us still by a vindication of what seem to me several Latter-day failures. I suppose it is as hard for him to relinquish his Vocation as other men find it to be in other callings to which they have been devoted; but I think he had better not encumber the produce of his best days by publishing so much of inferior quality.
Under the cold Winds and Frosts which have lately visited us—and their visit promises to be a long one—my garden Flowers can scarce get out of the bud, even Daffodils have hitherto failed to ‘take the winds,’ etc. Crocuses early nipt and shattered (in which my Pigeons help the winds) and Hyacinths all ready, if but they might!
My Sister Lusia’s Widower has sent me a Drawing by Sir T. Lawrence of my Mother: bearing a surprising resemblance to—The Duke of Wellington. This was done in her earlier days—I suppose, not long after I was born—for her, and his (Lawrence’s) friend Mrs. Wolff: and though, I think, too Wellingtonian, the only true likeness of her. Engravings were made of it—so good as to be facsimiles, I think—to be given away to Friends. I should think your mother had one. If you do not know it, I will bring the Drawing up with me to London when next I go there: or will send it up for your inspection, if you like. But I do not suppose you will care for me to do that.
Here is a much longer letter than I thought for; I hope not troublesome to your Eyes—from yours always and sincerely
Littlegrange.
I have been reading Comus and Lycidas with wonder, and a sort of awe. Tennyson once said that Lycidas was a touchstone of poetic Taste.