I suppose you never read Béranger’s Letters: there are four thick Volumes of these, of which I have as yet only seen the Second and Third: and they are well worth reading. They make one love Béranger: partly because (odd enough) he is so little of a Frenchman in Character, French as his Works are. He hated Paris, Plays, Novels, Journals, Critics, etc., hated being monstered himself as a Great Man, as he proved by flying from it; seems to me to take a just measure of himself and others, and to be moderate in his Political as well as Literary Opinions.
I am hoping for Forster’s second volume of Dickens in Mudie’s forthcoming Box. Meanwhile, my Boy (whom I momently expect) reads me Trollope’s ‘He knew he was right,’ the opening of which I think very fine: but which seems to be trailing off into ‘longueur’ as I fancy Trollope is apt to do. But he ‘has a world of his own,’ as Tennyson said of Crabbe.
March 30/73.
My dear Pollock,
. . . You have never told me how you thought him [Spedding] looking, etc., though you told me
that your Boy Maurice went to sit with him. It really reminds me of some happy Athenian lad who was privileged to be with Socrates. Some Plato should put down the Conversation.
I have just finished the second volume of Forster’s Dickens: and still have no reason not to rejoice in the Man Dickens. And surely Forster does his part well; but I can fancy that some other Correspondent but himself should be drawn in as Dickens’ Life goes on, and thickens with Acquaintances.
We in the Country are having the best of it just now, I think, in these fine Days, though we have nothing to show so gay as Covent Garden Market. I am thinking of my Boat on the River. . . .
You say I did not date my last letter: I can date this: for it is my Birthday. [153] This it was that made me resolve to send you the Photos. Hey for my 65th year! I think I shall plunge into a Yellow Scratch Wig to keep my head warm for the Remainder of my Days.
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