XLII.

Woodbridge: Sept^r. 21/76.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

Have your American Woods begun to hang out their Purple and Gold yet? on this Day of Equinox. Some of ours begin to look rusty, after the Summer Drought; but have not turned Yellow yet. I was talking of this to a Heroine of mine who lives near here, but visits the Highlands of Scotland, which she loves better than Suffolk—and she said of those

Highland Trees—‘O, they give themselves no dying Airs, but turn Orange in a Day, and are swept off in a Whirlwind, and Winter is come.’

Now too one’s Garden begins to be haunted by that Spirit which Tennyson says is heard talking to himself among the flower-borders. Do you remember him? [113a]

And now—Who should send in his card to me last week—but the old Poet himself—he and his elder Son Hallam passing through Woodbridge from a Tour in Norfolk. [113b] ‘Dear old Fitz,’ ran the Card in pencil, ‘We are passing thro’.’ [113c] I had not seen him for twenty years—he looked much the same, except for his fallen Locks; and what really surprised me was, that we fell at once into the old Humour, as if we had only been parted twenty Days instead of so many Years. I suppose this is a Sign of Age—not altogether desirable. But so it was. He stayed two Days, and we went over the same old grounds of Debate, told some of the old Stories, and all was well. I suppose I may never see him again: and so I suppose we both thought as the Rail carried him off: and each returned to his ways as if scarcely

diverted from them. Age again!—I liked Hallam much; unaffected, unpretending—no Slang—none of Young England’s nonchalance—speaking of his Father as ‘Papa’ and tending him with great Care, Love, and Discretion. Mrs. A. T. is much out of health, and scarce leaves Home, I think. [114a]

I have lately finished Don Quixote again, and I think have inflamed A. T. to read him too—I mean in his native Language. For this must be, good as Jarvis’ Translation is, and the matter of the Book so good that one would think it would lose less than any Book by Translation. But somehow that is not so. I was astonished lately to see how Shakespeare’s Henry IV. came out in young V. Hugo’s Prose Translation [114b]: Hotspur, Falstaff and all. It really seemed to show me more than I had yet seen in the original.

Ever yours,
E. F.G.

XLIII.

Lowestoft: October 24/76.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

Little—Nothing—as I have to write, I am nevertheless beginning to write to you, from this old Lodging of mine, from which I think our Correspondence chiefly began—ten years ago. I am in the same Room: the same dull Sea moaning before me: the same Wind screaming through the Windows: so I take up the same old Story. My Lugger was then about building: [115] she has passed into other hands now: I see her from time to time bouncing into Harbour, with her ‘244’ on her Bows. Her Captain and I have parted: I thought he did very wrongly—Drink, among other things: but he did not think he did wrong: a different Morality from ours—that, indeed, of Carlyle’s ancient Sea Kings. I saw him a few days ago in his house, with Wife and Children; looking, as always, too big for his house: but always grand, polite, and unlike anybody else. I was noticing the many Flies in the room—‘Poor things,’ he said, ‘it is the warmth of our Stove makes them alive.’ When Tennyson was with me, whose Portrait hangs

in my house in company with those of Thackeray and this Man (the three greatest men I have known), I thought that both Tennyson and Thackeray were inferior to him in respect of Thinking of Themselves. When Tennyson was telling me of how The Quarterly abused him (humorously too), and desirous of knowing why one did not care for his later works, etc., I thought that if he had lived an active Life, as Scott and Shakespeare; or even ridden, shot, drunk, and played the Devil, as Byron, he would have done much more, and talked about it much less. ‘You know,’ said Scott to Lockhart, ‘that I don’t care a Curse about what I write,’ [116] and one sees he did not. I don’t believe it was far otherwise with Shakespeare. Even old Wordsworth, wrapt up in his Mountain mists, and proud as he was, was above all this vain Disquietude: proud, not vain, was he: and that a Great Man (as Dante) has some right to be—but not to care what the Coteries say. What a Rigmarole!

Donne scarce ever writes to me (Twalmley the Great), and if he do not write to you, depend upon it he thinks he has nothing worth sending over the Atlantic. I heard from Mowbray quite lately that his Father was very well.

Yes: you told me in a previous Letter that you were coming to England after Christmas. I shall not be up to going to London to see you, with all your Company about you; perhaps (don’t think me

very impudent!) you may come down, if we live till Summer, to my Woodbridge Château, and there talk over some old things.

I make a kind of Summer in my Room here with Boccaccio. What a Mercy that one can return with a Relish to these Books! As Don Quixote can only be read in his Spanish, so I do fancy Boccaccio only in his Italian: and yet one is used to fancy that Poetry is the mainly untranslateable thing. How prettily innocent are the Ladies, who, after telling very loose Stories, finish with ‘E così Iddio faccia [noi] godere del nostro Amore, etc.,’ sometimes, Domeneddio, more affectionately. [117a]

Anyhow, these Ladies are better than the accursed Eastern Question; [117b] of which I have determined to read, and, if possible, hear, no more till the one question be settled of Peace or War. If war, I am told I may lose some £5000 in Russian Bankruptcy: but I can truly say I would give that, and more, to ensure Peace and Good Will among Men at this time. Oh, the Apes we are! I must retire to my Montaigne—whom, by the way, I remember reading here, when the Lugger was building! Oh, the Apes, etc. But

there was A Man in all that Business still, who is so now, somewhat tarnished.—And I am yours as then sincerely

E. F.G.