I have had to stay with me the two sons of my poor Friend killed last year: he whom I first made Acquaintance with at your very Tenby. As I haven’t found Courage to go to their Country, their Mother would have them come here, and I took them to our Seaside; not a beautiful Coast like yours—no Rocks, no Sands, and few Trees—but yet liked because remembered by me as long as I can remember. Anyhow, there are Ships, Boats, and Sailors: and the Boys were well pleased with all that. The place we went to is called Aldborough: spelt Aldeburgh: and is the Birth place of the Poet Crabbe, who also has Daguerrotyped much of the Character of the Place in his Poems. You send me some Lines about the Sea: what if I return you four of his?
Still as I gaze upon the Sea I find
Its waves an Image of my restless mind:
Here Thought on Thought: there Wave on Wave succeeds,
Their Produce—idle Thought and idle Weeds!
Adieu: please to remember me to your Husband: and believe me yours ever very sincerely,
Edward FitzGerald.
To George Crabbe.
Market Hill, Woodbridge,
Decr. 28/60.
My dear George,
. . . I forgot to tell you I really ran to London three weeks ago: by the morning Express, and was too glad to rush back by the Evening Ditto. I went up for a Business I of course did not accomplish: did not call on, or see, a Friend: couldn’t get into the National Gallery: and didn’t care a straw for Holman Hunt’s Picture. No doubt, there is Thought and Care in it: but what an outcome of several Years and sold for several Thousands! What Man with the Elements of a Great Painter could come out with such a costive Thing after so long waiting! Think of the Acres of Canvas Titian or Reynolds would have covered with grand Outlines and deep Colours in the Time it has taken to niggle this Miniature! The Christ seemed to me only a wayward Boy: the Jews, Jews no doubt: the Temple I dare say very correct in its Detail: but think of
even Rembrandt’s Woman in Adultery at the National Gallery; a much smaller Picture, but how much vaster in Space and Feeling! Hunt’s Picture stifled me with its Littleness. I think Ruskin must see what his System has led to.
I have just got Lady Waterford’s ‘Babes in the Wood,’ which are well enough, pretty in Colour: only, why has she made so bad a Portrait of one of her chief Performers, whose Likeness is so easily got at, the Robin Redbreast? This Lady Waterford was at Gillingham this Summer: and my Sister Eleanor said (as Thackeray had done) she was something almost to worship for unaffected Dignity.