To C. E. Norton.
Woodbridge, April 17/73.
Dear Sir,
Two days ago Mr. Carlyle sent me your Note, enclosing one from Mr. Ruskin ‘to the Translator of Omar Khayyám.’ You will be a little surprized to hear that Mr. Ruskin’s Note is dated September 1863: all but ten years ago! I dare say he has forgotten all about it long before this: however, I write him a Note of Thanks for the good, too good, messages he sent me; better late than never; supposing that he will not be startled and bored by my Acknowledgments of a forgotten Favor rather than gratified. It is really a funny little Episode in the Ten years’ Dream. I had asked Carlyle to thank you also for such trouble as you have taken in the matter. But, as your Note to him carries your Address, I think I may as well thank you for myself. I am very glad to gather from your Note that Carlyle is well, and able to walk, as well as talk, with a congenial Companion. Indeed, he speaks of such agreeable conversation with you in the Message he appends to your Letter. For which thanking you once more, allow me to write myself yours sincerely,
Edward FitzGerald.
[5 May, 1873.]
Dear Pollock,
. . . I see that you were one of those who were at Macready’s Funeral. I, too, feel as if I had lost a Friend, though I scarce knew him but on the Stage. But there I knew him as Virginius very well, when I was a Boy (about 1821), and when Miss Foote was his Daughter. Jackson’s Drawing of him in that Character is among the best of such Portraits, surely. I think I shall have a word about M. from Mrs. Kemble, with whom I have been corresponding a little since her return to England. She has lately been staying with her Son-in-Law, Mr. Leigh, at Stoneleigh Vicarage, near Kenilworth. In the Autumn she says she will go to America, never to return to England. But I tell her she will return. . . .
My Eyes have been leaving me in the lurch again: partly perhaps from taxing them with a little more Reading: partly from going on the Water, and straining after our River Beacons, in hot Sun and East Wind; partly also, and main partly I doubt, from growing so much older and the worse for wear. I am afraid this very Letter will be troublesome to you to read: but I must write at a Gallop if at all. . . .