Friends! I dare not meddle with Mr. and Mrs. Charlesworth. [313] Thackeray coming in overset me, with one thing and another. Farewell. Write to me; direct—whither? For till I see better how we get on I dare fix on no place to live or die in. Direct to me at Crabbe’s, Bredfield, till you hear further.
24 Portland Terrace, Regent’s Park.
Saturday January 23 [? 24] 1857.
My dear E. B. C.,
I must write you a second Letter (which will reach you, I suppose, by the same Post as that which I posted on Thursday Jan. 22) to tell you that not half an hour after I had posted that first Letter, arrived yours! And now, to make the Coincidence stranger, your Brother Charles, who is now with us for two days, tells me that very Thursday Jan. 24 (? 22) is your Birthday! I am extremely obliged to you for your long, kind, and interesting Letter: yes, yes: I should have liked to be on the Voyage with you, and to be among the Dark People with you even now. Your Brother Charles, who came up yesterday, brought us up your Home Letter, and read it to us last night after Tea to our great Satisfaction. I believe that in my already posted Letter I have told you much that you enquire about in yours received half an hour after: of my poor Studies at all events. This
morning I have been taking the Physiognomy of the 19th Birds. . . . There are, as I wrote you, very pleasant stories. One, of a Shah returning to his Capital, and his People dressing out a Welcome for him, and bringing out Presents of Gold, Jewels, etc., all which he rides past without any Notice, till, coming to the Prison, the Prisoners, by way of their Welcome, toss before him the Bloody Heads and Limbs of old and recent Execution. At which the Shah for the first time stops his Horse—smiles—casts Largess among the Prisoners, etc. And when asked why he neglected all the Jewels, etc., and stopped with satisfaction at such a grim welcome as the Prisoners threw him, he says, ‘The Jewels, etc., were but empty Ostentation—but those bloody Limbs prove that my Law has been executed, without which none of those Heads and Carcases would have parted Company, etc.’ De Tassy notices a very agreeable Story of Mahmúd and the Lad fishing: and I find another as pleasant about Mahmúd consorting ‘incog:’ with a Bath-Stove-Keeper, who is so good a Fellow that, at last, Mahmúd, making himself known, tells the Poor Man to ask what he will—a Crown, if he likes. But the poor Fellow says, ‘All I ask is that the Shah will come now and then to me as I am, and here where I am; here, in this poor Place, which he has made illustrious with his Presence, and a better Throne to me with Him, than the Throne of Both Worlds without Him, etc.’ You observed perhaps in De Tassy’s Summary that he
notices an Eastern Form of William Tell’s Apple? A Sultan doats on a beautiful Slave, who yet is seen daily to pine away under all the Shah’s Favour, and being askt why, replies, ‘Because every day the Shah, who is a famous Marksman with the Bow, shoots at an Apple laid on my Head, and always hits it; and when all the Court cries “Lo! the Fortune of the King!” He also asks me why I turn pale under the Trial, he being such a Marksman, and his Mark an Apple set on the Head he most doats upon?’ I am going to transcribe on the next Page a rough draft of a Version of another Story, because all this will amuse you, I think. I couldn’t help running some of these Apologues into Verse as I read them: but they are in a very rough state as yet, and so perhaps may continue, for to correct is the Bore.
When Yúsuf from his Father’s House was torn,
His Father’s Heart was utterly forlorn;
And, like a Pipe with but one note, his Tongue
Still nothing but the name of Yúsuf rung.
Then down from Heaven’s Branches came the Bird
Of Heaven, and said ‘God wearies of that Word.
Hast thou not else to do, and else to say?’
So Yacúb’s Lips were sealed from that Day.
But one Night in a Vision, far away
His Darling in some alien Home he saw,
And stretch’d his Arms forth; and between the Awe
Of God’s Displeasure, and the bitter Pass
Of Love and Anguish, sigh’d forth an Alas!
And stopp’d—But when he woke The Angel came,
And said, ‘Oh, faint of purpose! Though the Name
Of that Belovèd were not uttered by
Thy Lips, it hung sequester’d in that Sigh.’
You see this is very imperfect, and I am not always quite certain of always getting the right Sow by the Ear; but it is pretty anyhow. In this, as in several other Stories, one sees the fierce vindictive Character of the Eastern Divinity and Religion: a ‘jealous God’ indeed! So there is another Story of a poor Hermit, who retires into the Wilderness to be alone with God, and lives in a Tree; and there in the Branches a little Bird has a Nest, and sings so sweetly that the poor old Man’s Heart is drawn to it in spite of Himself; till a Voice from Heaven calls to Him—‘What are you about? You have bought Me with your Prayers, etc., and I You by some Largess of my Grace: and is this Bargain to be cancelled by the Piping of a little Bird?’ [316] So I construe at least right or wrong. . . .
Monday Jan. 25 [? 26]. Like your Journal, you see, I spread my Letter over more than a Day. On Saturday Night your Brother and I went to hear Thackeray lecture on George III.—very agreeable to me, though I did not think highly of the Lecture. . . . I should like to see Nizámí’s Shírín, though I have not yet seen enough to care for in Nizámí. Get me a MS. if you can get a fair one; as also one of Attár’s Birds; of which however Garcin de Tassy gives hint of publishing a Text. There might be a good Book made of about half the Text of the Original; for the Repetitions are many, and the stories so many of them not wanted. What a nice Book too would be the Text of some of the best Apologues in Jámí, Jeláleddín, Attár, etc., with literal Translations! . . .
I was with Borrow [317] a week ago at Donne’s, and also at Yarmouth three months ago: he is well, but not yet agreed with Murray. He read me a long Translation he had made from the Turkish: which I could not admire, and his Taste becomes stranger than ever.