than Addison, I think. Also some of Sainte Beuve’s better than either. A sentence in O’Dowd reminded me of your Distrust of Civil Service Examinations: ‘You could not find a worse Pointer than the Poodle which would pick you out all the letters of the Alphabet.’ And is not this pretty good of the World we live in? ‘You ask me if I am going to “The Masquerade.” I am at it: Circumspice!’
So I pick out and point to other Men’s Game, this Sunday Morning, when the Sun makes the Sea shine, and a strong head wind drives the Ships with shortened Sail across it. Last night I was with some Sailors at the Inn: some one came in who said there was a Schooner with five feet water in her in the Roads: and off they went to see if anything beside water could be got out of her. But, as you say, one mustn’t be epigrammatic and clever. Just before Grog and Pipe, the Band had played some German Waltzes, a bit of Verdi, Rossini’s ‘Cujus animam,’ and a capital Sailors’ Tramp-chorus from Wagner, all delightful to me, on the Pier: how much better than all the dreary oratorios going on all the week at Norwich; Elijah, St. Peter, St. Paul, Eli, etc. There will be an Oratorio for every Saint and Prophet; which reminds me of my last Story. Voltaire had an especial grudge against Habakkuk. Some one proved to him that he had misrepresented facts in Habakkuk’s history. ‘C’est égal,’
says V., ‘Habakkuk était capable de tout.’ Cornewall Lewis, who (like most other Whigs) had no Humour, yet tells this: I wonder if it will reach Dresden.
To Mrs. W. H. Thompson.
Little Grange, Woodbridge.
Sept. 23, [1875].
Dear Mrs. Thompson,
It is very good of you to write to me, so many others as, I know, you must have to write to. I can tell you but little in return for the Story of your Summer Travel: but what little I have to say shall be said at once. As to Travel, I have got no further than Norfolk, and am rather sorry I did not go further North, to the Scottish Border, at any rate. But now it is too late. I have contented myself with my Boat on the River here: with my Garden, Pigeons, Ducks, etc.; a great Philosopher indeed! But (to make an end of oneself) I have not been well all the summer; unsteady in head and feet; the Beginning of the End, I suppose; and if the End won’t be too long spinning out, one cannot complain of its coming too soon. . . .
I had a kindly Letter from Carlyle some days ago: he was summering at some place near Bromley in Kent, lent him by a Lady Derby; once, he says, Lady Salisbury, which I don’t understand.
He had also the use of a Phaeton and Pony; which latter he calls ‘Shenstone’ from a partiality to stopping at every Inn door. Carlyle had been a little touched in revisiting Eltham, and remembering Frank Edgeworth who resided there forty years ago ‘with a little Spanish Wife, but no pupils.’ Carlyle would name him with a sort of sneer in the Life of Sterling; [184] could not see that any such notice was more than needless, just after Edgeworth’s Death. This is all a little Scotch indelicacy to other people’s feelings. But now Time and his own Mortality soften him. I have been looking over his Letters to me about Cromwell: the amazing perseverance and accuracy of the Man, who writes so passionately! In a letter of about 1845 or 6 he says he has burned at least six attempts at Cromwell’s Life: and finally falls back on sorting and elucidating the Letters, as a sure Groundwork. . . .
I have this Summer made the Acquaintance of a great Lady, with whom I have become perfectly intimate, through her Letters, Madame de Sévigné. I had hitherto kept aloof from her, because of that eternal Daughter of hers; but ‘it’s all Truth and Daylight,’ as Kitty Clive said of Mrs. Siddons. Her Letters from Brittany are best of all, not those from Paris, for she loved the Country, dear Creature; and now I want to go and visit her ‘Rochers,’ but never shall.