XCVI.
[Nov. 1881.]
My dear Lady:
I was not quite sure, from your letter, whether you had received mine directed to you in the Cavendish Square Hotel:—where your Nephew told me you were to be found. It is no matter otherwise than that I wish you to know that I had not only enquired if you were returned from abroad, but had written whither I was told you were to be found. Of which enough.
I am sorry you are gone again to Westminster, to which I cannot reconcile myself as to our old London. Even Bloomsbury recalls to me the pink May which used to be seen in those old Squares—sixty years ago. But ‘enfin, voilà qui est fait.’ You know where that comes from. I have not lately been in company with my old dear: Annie Thackeray’s
Book [227a] is a pretty thing for Ladies in a Rail carriage; but my old Girl is scarce half herself in it. And there are many inaccuracies, I think. Mais enfin, voilà, etc.
Athenæum and Academy advertise your Sequel to Records. [227b] I need not tell you that I look forward to it. I wish you would insert that capital Paper on Dramatic and Theatrical from the Cornhill. [227c] It might indeed very properly, as I thought, have found a place in the Records.
Mowbray Donne wrote me a month ago that his Father was very feeble: one cannot expect but that he will continue to become more and more so. I should run up to London to see him, if I thought my doing so would be any real comfort to him: but that only his Family can be to him: and I think he may as little wish to exhibit his Decay to an old Friend, who so long knew him in a far other condition, as his friend might wish to see him so altered. This is what I judge from my own feelings.
I have only just got my Garden laid up for the winter, and planted some trees in lieu of those which that last gale blew down. I hear that Kensington Gardens suffered greatly: how was it with your Green Park, on which you now look down from such a height, and, I suppose, through a London Fog?
Ever yours
Little G.
XCVII.
[Dec. 1881.]
My dear Mrs. Kemble:
I will write to you before 1881 is gone, carrying Christmas along with him. A dismal Festivity it always seems to me—I dare say not much merrier to you. I think you will tell me where, and with whom, you pass it. My own company are to be, Aldis Wright, with whom Shakespeare, etc., a London Clerk, may be—that is, if he can get sufficient Holyday—and one or two Guests for the Day.
I forget if I wrote to you since I had a letter from Hallam Tennyson, telling me of a Visit that he and his Father had been making to Warwickshire and Sherwood. The best news was that A. T. was ‘walking and working as usual.’
Why, what is become of your Sequel? I see no more advertisement of it in Athenæum and Academy—unless it appears in the last, which I have not conned over. Somehow I think it not impossible—or even unlikely—that you—may—have—withdrawn—for some reason of your own. You see that I speak with hesitation—meaning no offence—and only hoping for my own, and other sakes that I am all astray.
We are reading Nigel, which I had not expected to care for: but so far as I got—four first Chapters—makes me long for Night to hear more. That return
of Richie to his Master, and dear George Heriot’s visit just after! Oh, Sir Walter is not done for yet by Austens and Eliots. If one of his Merits were not his clear Daylight, one thinks, there ought to be Societies to keep his Lamp trimmed as well as—Mr. Browning. He is The Newest Shakespeare Society of Mr. Furnivall.
The Air is so mild, though windy, that I can even sit abroad in the Sunshine. I scarce dare ask about Donne; neither you, nor Mowbray—I dare say I shall hear from the latter before Christmas. What you wrote convinced me there was no use in going up only to see him—or little else—so painful to oneself and so little cheering to him! I do think that he is best among his own.
But I do not forget him—‘No!’—as the Spaniards say. Nor you, dear Mrs. Kemble, being your ancient Friend (with a new name) Littlegrange!
What would you say of the Œdipus, not of Sophocles, but of Dryden and Nat Lee, in which your uncle acted!
P.S. You did not mention anything about your Family, so I conclude that all is well with them, both in England and America.
I wish you would just remember me to Mr. H. Aïdé, who was very courteous to me when I met him in your room.
This extra Paper is, you see, to serve instead of crossing my Letter.
XCVIII. [230]
[Feb. 1882.]
My dear Mrs. Kemble:
This week I was to have been in London—for the purpose of seeing—or offering to see—our dear Donne. For, when they told him of my offer, he said he should indeed like it much—‘if he were well enough.’ Anyhow, I can but try, only making him previously understand that he is not to make any effort in the case. He is, they tell me, pleased with any such mark of remembrance and regard from his old Friends. And I should have offered to go before now, had I not judged from your last account of him that he was better left with his Family, for his own sake, as well [as] for that of his Friends. However, as I said, I should have gone up on Trial even now, but that I have myself been, and am yet, suffering with some sort of Cold (I think, from some indications, Bronchial) which would ill enable me to be of any use if I got to London. I can’t get warm, in spite of Fires, and closed doors, so must wait, at any rate, to see what another week will do for me.
I shall, of course, make my way to Queen Anne’s, where I should expect to find you still busy with your Proof-sheets, which I am very glad to hear of as going on. What could have put it into my head even to think otherwise? Well, more unlikely things might
have happened—even with Medes and Persians. I do not think you will be offended at my vain surmises.
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 [231]—extremely interesting to me, though I do not understand—and generally skip—the more purely Æsthetic Part: 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.
Such a long Letter as I have written (and, I doubt, ill written) really calls for Apology from me, busy as you may be with those Proofs. But still believe me sincerely yours
Though Laird of Littlegrange.