[1875.]
My dear Cowell,
. . . I told Elizabeth, I think, all I had to write about Arthur C. I had a letter from him a few days ago, hoping to see me in London, where I thought I might be going about this time, and where I would not go without giving him notice to meet me, poor lad. As yet however I cannot screw my Courage to go up: I have no Curiosity about what is to be seen or heard there; my Day is done. I have not been very well all this Summer, and fancy that I begin to ‘smell the Ground,’ as Sailors say of the Ship that slackens speed as the Water shallows under her. I can’t say I have much care for long Life: but still less for long Death: I mean a lingering one.
Did you ever read Madame de Sévigné? I never did till this summer, rather repelled by her perpetual harping on her Daughter. But it is all genuine, and the same intense Feeling expressed in a hundred natural yet graceful ways: and beside all this such good Sense, good Feeling, Humour, Love of Books and Country Life, as makes her certainly the Queen of all Letter writers.
Little Grange, Woodbridge, Suffolk.
(Post Mark Dec. 8.) Dec. 9/75.
My dear Sir,
Mr. Carlyle’s Niece has sent me a Card from you, asking for a Copy of an Agamemnon: taken—I must not say, translated—from Æschylus. It was not meant for Greek Scholars, like yourself, but for those who do not know the original, which it very much misrepresents. I think it is my friend Mrs. Kemble who has made it a little known on your wide Continent. As you have taken the trouble to enquire for it all across the Atlantic, beside giving me reason before to confide in your friendly reception of it, I post you one along with this letter. I can fancy you might find some to be interested in it who do not know the original: more interested than in more faithful Translations of more ability. But there I will leave it: only begging that you will not make any trouble of acknowledging so small a Gift.
Some eighty of Carlyle’s Friends and Admirers have been presenting him with a Gold Medal of himself, and an Address of Congratulation on his 80th Birthday. I should not have supposed that either Medal or Address would be much to his Taste: but, as more important People than myself joined in the Thing, I did not think it became me to demur. But I shall not the less write him