You persist in not giving me your clear direction at Florence. It is only by chance that you give the name ‘Villa Gondi’ of the house you describe so temptingly to me. I should much like to visit you there; but I doubt shall never get up the steam for such an expedition. And now know that, since the last sentence was written, I have been to Cheltenham, and called at your Mother’s; and seen her, and Matilda, and Horatio: all well: Alfred is with the Lushingtons and is reported to be all the better for the water-cure. Cheltenham seemed to me a woeful place: I had never seen it before. I now write from Leamington; where I am come to visit my Mother for a few days. . . .
All the world has been, as I suppose you have read, crazy about Jenny Lind: and they are now giving her £400 to sing at a Concert. What a frightful waste of money! I did not go to hear her: partly out of contradiction perhaps; and partly because I could not make out that she was a great singer, like my old Pasta. Now I will go and listen to any pretty singer whom I can get to hear easily and unexpensively: but I will not pay and squeeze much for any canary in the world. Perhaps Lind is a nightingale: but I want something more than that. Spedding’s cool blood was moved to hire stalls several times at an advanced rate: the Lushingtons (your sister told me) were enraptured: and certainly people rushed up madly from Suffolk to hear her but once and then die. I rather doubted the value of this
general appreciation. But one cause of my not hearing her was that I was not in London for more than a fortnight all the Spring: and she came out but at the close of my fortnight. . . .
. . . You are wrong, as usual, about Moore and Eastlake: all the world say that Moore had much the best of the controversy, and Eastlake only remains cock of the walk because he is held up by authority. I do not pretend to judge which of the two is right in art: but I am sure that Moore argues most logically, and sets out upon finer principles; and if two shoemakers quarrelled about the making of a shoe, I should be disposed to side with him who argued best on the matter, though my eyes and other senses could not help me to a verdict. Moore takes his stand on high ground, and appeals to Titian, Michel Angelo, and Reynolds. Eastlake is always shifting about, and appealing to Sir Robert Peel, Etty, and the Picture-dealers. [225] Now farewell. Write when you can to Boulge.
To S. Laurence.
[1847.]
Dear Laurence,
. . . I assure you I am deeply obliged to you for the great trouble you have taken, and the kindness you have shewn about the portrait. In spite of all our objections (yours amongst the number) it is very like,
and perhaps only misses of being quite like by that much more than hairbreadth difference, which one would be foolish to expect to see adequated. Perhaps those painters are right who set out with rather idealising the likeness of those we love; for we do so ourselves probably when we look at them. And as art must miss the last delicacy of nature, it may be well to lean toward a better than our eyes can affirm.
This is all wrong. Truth is the ticket; but those who like strongly, in this as in other cases, love to be a little blind, or to see too much. One fancies that no face can be too delicate and handsome to be the depository of a noble spirit: and if we are not as good physiognomists as we are metaphysicians (that is, intimate with any one particular mind) our outward eyes will very likely be at variance with our inward, or rather be influenced by them. Very instructive all this!